An Evening of Equality?: Nationalism and the Centennial Celebration of the Berlin Royal Deaf-Mute Asylum, December 2-4, 1888

In December 1888 the most renowned deaf school in Germany, the Royal Deaf-Mute Asylum in Berlin, celebrated its centennial with a three-day gala. The celebrations included a visit to the grave of the school's founder, Ernst Adolph Eschke, a ceremony at the school, a display of products made by deaf people, a banquet for all of the guests, a special meal just for the schoolchildren and staff, and, finally, tea for a select few at the home of the director, Eduard Walther.

The festivities show how nationalism both inhibited and inspired the German deaf movement by forcing it to honor oral educators and schools but at the same time offering deaf people a model for cultural and linguistic community. Furthermore, the alternating modes of communication between the deaf and the hearing worlds demonstrate not only that speech and hearing were connected to power and status but also that spaces for visual communication and the deaf community were nevertheless possible even in the nerve center of oral education.