War has been the cause of major innovations in technologies that serve injured and disabled soldiers and civilians.
Wars create new generations of people with disabilities, along with a need to provide for them. On the home front, wars have brought job openings for people with disabilities who fill the gap left open by troops off fighting, and new professions have been created to care for disabled vets.
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The federal government funded several laboratories tasked with improving prosthetics for disabled soldiers. Here a technician fits a man with a left leg.
Wartime injury is associated with valor and brings respect to soldiers. An empty sleeve, referenced in poems, stories, and this Civil War song, symbolized sacrifice and bravery.
This man in muttonchops and his campaign hat lost both arms in the Civil War, his jacket sleeves are pinned up. The photo is creased and worn.
A disabled veteran wears medals on his civilian overcoat and uses crutches because of a left-leg amputation.
Anna Coleman Ladd fashioned much-admired face masks for WWI soldiers in the European theater. Facial prosthetics and reconstructive surgery advanced significantly because of the war.
A group of disabled soldiers and their technicians display some prosthetics.
These three soldiers on the grounds of an army hospital have injuries that resulted in the need for crutches and a wheelchair.
After World War I, organized occupational therapy for disabled soldiers. These men are learning handcrafts.
An injured World War I soldier made this watch fob from green, orange, and black glass beads as part of his rehabilitation.
Groups once excluded from the workplace found jobs because of the labor shortage during WWII. This Filipino soldier is making prostheses.
During WWII, people of color, women, and people with disabilities, served their country. Many learned trades and found careers. These Filipino men are making limb prostheses in an army shop.
A World War II veteran demonstrates his left-arm prosthesis to several women. Around them are demonstration models of legs.
Artificial lenses were an innovation from World War II.
The first commercial application for the transistor, developed during World War II, was for hearing aids. This is the first model, by Zenith. The open back shows the circuitry.
A Marine in Iraq lost an eye when an improvised bomb exploded near him. He wore this eye with the Marine Corps insignia.
Artificial eyes made of acrylic replaced glass eyes during World War II when shortages of German glass forced the army to search for substitute materials. This one has a Cubs insignia and was worn by a soldier injured in Iraq.
This soldier, in ski gear, sports one of his artificial eyes with a decal in place of the iris.