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Alienation and the Mid-Nineteenth Century American Deaf Community: A Response Barry A. Crouch The March 1986 issue of the Annals carried an essay by Dr. Margaret Winzer concerning the alienation of deaf Americans in the mid-nineteenth century. I would like to respond to the premise and theme of the article, for some of the material is taken out of historical context and ignores the background or status of the individuals who openly espoused the idea of how badly the American deaf were treated. To those disaffected, the only solution was to segregate themselves and establish a deaf commonwealth. This concept was not new. Some nineteenth- and even twentiethcentury blacks believed that the only way they could ever live in total peace was to return to Africa or establish a black commonwealth. Moreover, perceiving a minority such as the deaf community only through a paradigm of alienation and discrimination tends to distort the historical perspective since the individuals are always viewed as being acted upon rather than doing the acting themselves. What accounted for these feelings of isolation within the deaf society and are there any indications that the deaf community in general felt this way? Much of Professor Winder's essay revolves around the ideas, opinions, and beliefs of John J. Flournoy of Georgia. Recently, Flournoy has been the subject of writings about the deaf in the United States. For example, Douglas Bullard's novel Islay uses the Georgian's concept of a separate deaf state as the underlying premise for his book.1 But some background about Flournoy is necessary: the literature strongly suggests that this fascinating, eccentric, and bizzare individual may not have had a firm grip on reality. Born in 1808 to one of the wealthiest Georgia slaveholders, he apparently went deaf at about the age of seven. (He also had a deaf brother.) Flournoy was not "an alumnus of the American Asylum," although he did enroll at the school in 1826 but not, "properly speaking, [asj a pupil." He was taught by Laurent Clerc and William W. Turner. He also briefly attended the University of Georgia. In both places Flournoy's strange ways led to social ostracism by the other students. After this short educational tour he committed himself to an insane asylum in South Carolina but decided he was not losing his mind and returned to Georgia where he died in oblivion in 1879.2 1DoUgIaS Bullard, lslay (Silver Spring, MD, 1986). Bullard specifically mentions Flournoy when one character states that "back in the 1850's, there was talk of setting up a state of the deaf out in the Midwest, Kansas and thereabouts. Deaf man name of Flournoy tried for years and years to interest enough deaf to move out there but nothing came of it but arguments," 133. Barry Crouch is an Associate Professor in the Department of History , Gallaudet University, Washington, DC. 322 Flournoy sometimes referred to himself as the "Deaf Greybeard." An inveterate letter writer (he wrote 51 letters to the Athens Southern Banner alone, between 1833 and 1842), Flournoy also ran for the state legislature three times, garnering 10, 13, and 21 votes in each of his three attempts. Even if Flournoy "developed a keen, sensitive, fertile, deeply imaginative, discursive, and inventive mind," his imagination was a weird mixture of the practical and the strange. For example, he conceived of the idea of trigamy which would allow a man three wives, and he supported the right of women to vote in his commonwealth scheme, but later changed his mind after his second and third marriages ended in total disaster. Flournoy also believed lawyers controlled the United States, absolutely detested black people (supporting their removal from America), had a deep compassion for Native Americans, predicted slavery would start a civil war, despised state's rights, supported free education, and contended that the only way to solve the problems of the world was to establish an international court or league of nations.3 A religious individual who drank too much, Flournoy believed in phrenology. He even invented a "head band" to further its development. In addition, Flournoy's appearance nicely intertwined with his active, but fanciful mind. He apparently rarely...

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