Introduction. 1 In many ways, this critique of American society still holds true.

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Wilfrid Barton
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1 This book reexamines U.S. social history from 1900 to the Second World War through the experiences of an often overlooked minority the Deaf community. The relationship between Deaf citizens and mainstream society highlights important conflicts over the concepts of normality, citizenship, culture, and disability. This study emphasizes Deaf people s self-advocacy in the face of intense Americanization campaigns that sought to assimilate and acculturate them to the majority hearing society. In 1919, one Deaf man advised other Deaf people, By and by maybe society will recognize the fact that deafness is neither a crime nor a mental defect which separates those so handicapped from the rest of mankind. But society is a good deal self-contained and probably we will have to put up with the snub until by gradual education society becomes enlightened. 1 In many ways, this critique of American society still holds true. As with the experiences of many minorities in America, the story of Deaf people in the first half of the twentieth century has been largely neglected. Relatively few in number and invisibly disabled, Deaf Americans have long seemed and been isolated from mainstream hearing society. Until the 1980s, there was virtually no scholarly study of them; information on them came almost exclusively from outsiders : hearing educators, doctors, and policymakers. Inspired by the academic and social-political trends of the Civil Rights era, historians at last began to look at the lives of Deaf people in the way Deaf people have typically viewed themselves: as a legitimate cultural community. This book advocates a cultural perspective of Deafness, as it does on disability in general. In doing so, it seeks to move beyond the limitations and the deficiencies of medical models of deafness and disability. By viewing deafness largely in terms of pathology, medical paradigms distort 1

2 analysis of Deaf history. It is particularly important to make these interpretive premises explicit at the outset because the period under study witnessed a passionate conflict over this way of viewing Deaf people. Terminology plays a central role in historical studies of Deaf Americans. This book examines the evolution of a Deaf culture, not deafness. The latter is an audiological condition; the former refers to a particular group of people who share American Sign Language (ASL) as a primary means of communication. Many attend state residential schools for the deaf, associate primarily with other Deaf people, join social and political clubs that promote Deaf cultural awareness, read Deaf-produced publications, have a common folklore, and see themselves as separate from mainstream society. 2 Even before the Second World War, the community used the term Deaf, although to varying degrees. For the sake of consistency, I use that word to describe the culture, as well as the society. In this work, the term deaf is used only when the audiological condition is the primary characteristic under consideration. A Deaf community has existed in America for more than 150 years. Nurtured by the evangelical spirit of the Second Great Awakening and furthered by the interest in education as a marker of democracy, a distinctly American Deaf community flourished during the early to mid-nineteenth century. The existence of permanent residential schools for the deaf began in 1817 with the opening of the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. Reverend Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet directed the school, while French Deaf educator and ASD cofounder Laurent Clerc established the linguistic and pedagogical practice of sign language-based education for the deaf. This system dominated American schools for the next five decades. Residential schools not only provided Deaf people with an autonomous and supportive environment a place of their own but also fostered a common sign language across the nation. 3 Like members of new immigrant groups and utopian societies and westward pioneers, Deaf people sought out other places in which to develop their cultural community. In the 1850s, Deaf churches and publications appeared. There was 2

3 even a heated discussion about establishing a Deaf-only state in the western territories. In 1864, Deaf people gained the opportunity for advanced education with the establishment of Gallaudet College, until recently the only liberal arts university in the world exclusively for deaf students. 4 By the turn of the century, Deaf leaders had also responded to agrarian and industrial changes, establishing national organizations to address discrimination at work and school. At the same time, local and state associations drew increasing numbers of members, promising a social outlet for Deaf adults. By the late nineteenth century, focused attacks on deafness and Deaf culture intensified, nurtured by broader trends in America, including industrialization, scientific developments, eugenics, and the Progressive movement. A potent network of oralist advocates coalesced at this time. Led by Alexander Graham Bell, oralists sought to integrate Deaf people into hearing society by teaching them speech and lipreading. Strict oralists demanded the elimination of sign language, believing that it undermined English language acquisition and promoted Deaf separatism. Opponents of oralism, often called manual or combined method advocates, supported sign language communication in the schools. The intense campaign to Americanize many marginal groups, including immigrants, Native Americans, and Deaf people, in some ways defined America in the early twentieth century. This effort sought not only the acculturation of foreigners to mainstream American values but also their assimilation as workers and citizens. Although most Deaf people were born and raised in America, the identification of many Deaf Americans with a separate culture of Deafness marked them as outsiders. Deaf culture had blossomed in the margins of society during the nineteenth century; America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was hostile toward such separateness. Those who directly impinged on the Deaf community educators, policymakers, doctors, and hearing parents expected Deaf people to conform to their idea of the perfect citizen. This meant that Deaf people must behave like hearing people: speak and read lips, moderate their laughter and breathing sounds, and socialize primarily with hearing people. In short, 3

4 this array of experts and kin wanted Deaf people to give up their cultural community and to act normal. Deaf people interpreted normality in a different way. They argued for the Deaf community as a legitimate cultural group, distinguished by deafness in reasonable and not abnormal ways. Most Deaf people both actively and passively resisted the attempts to deny them this cultural identity, preferring to attend residential deaf schools, join Deaf clubs and churches or synagogues, marry other Deaf people, and communicate primarily in sign language. Above all, Deaf people wanted to enjoy all the benefits normal people did. They wanted to be seen as normal, too. Many Deaf leaders equated citizenship with normality and equality with full citizenship. Consequently, these advocates crafted a careful public image of a Deaf community that emphasized their fulfillment of societal norms : white, middle class, educated, moral, hardworking, and highly patriotic citizens. Deaf people resembled others who did not fit the model of the American citizen, such as new immigrants and African Americans. Members of the Deaf community, too, fought collectively for progress; they, too, achieved some successes. Still, Deaf citizens, like these other outsiders, were barred from achieving true equality and acceptance before the Second World War. Inventions such as the telephone, radio, and talking motion picture that promised greater benefits for most citizens often marginalized Deaf people. Public perception and public policy had more dire ramifications. Frequently labeled disabled and unemployable, Deaf persons were denied the chance for full economic self-sufficiency. They often found themselves excluded to a greater extent than other minorities. Being categorized as disabled held meaning that far transcended the practical limitations posed by hearing impairments. Commonly viewed in conjunction with others who experienced significant physical or mental disability, including mentally retarded, blind, and paraplegic persons, Deaf people faced additional obstacles to achieving their goal of full citizenship status. For example, employers frequently refused to hire Deaf workers, insurance 4

5 companies would not cover them, and numerous states banned deaf automobile drivers. The Deaf community s strategy of working to appear normal was at once subversive and conservative. Challenging the mainstream view of deafness as limiting, leaders fashioned an image of the capable, able-bodied Deaf citizen. At the same time, the fear of being too different led many to discriminate against their own: Deaf African Americans, Deaf women, and Deaf people with multiple disabilities. This exclusionary approach by Deaf leaders had additional limitations. By rejecting the stigma of otherness only as it had been applied to them, Deaf people forsook the opportunity to join with many who struggled against the often oppressive force of Americanization, including African Americans, women, immigrants, and people with disabilities. Still, while Deaf people in the early twentieth century attempted to distance themselves from other minority groups, their history paralleled the experiences of those groups. No social history occurs in a vacuum. The lives and experiences of Deaf Americans were inextricably tied to broader currents in American history. This book seeks to show how this community responded to changes in the American social, political, and economic landscape. It also highlights the ways Deaf people s experiences both resembled and differed from those of other significant minority groups. Deaf people played an active role in their own history. While cultural historians have reconceived our understanding of the issues in Deaf people s past, few have placed Deaf people s own voices and experiences at the center of that history. This work seeks to redress this oversight. Community sources such as Deaf newspapers, memoirs, films, and oral history interviews (in sign language) provide the foundation for this study. While these data offer unique insights into the Deaf community, certain constraints remain. There is comparatively little information from or about minority Deaf members, including rank-and-file workers, women, racial minorities, or multiply disabled Deaf people. This book consequently 5

6 depends heavily on the experiences and opinions of Deaf leaders and other outspoken advocates. An explication of how American ideas and developments played out in the lives of Deaf people during the first half of the twentieth century will help us to reinterpret our understanding of what it means to be normal and what it means to be citizens. It will aid all of us, Deaf and hearing alike, to understand better our own identities as Americans. 6

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