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HfstoricaLyimses #,veqj culture in TJenmarK JONNA WIDELL ulture" refers to the ways in which a given group of people solves its problems of existence. When such solutions are organized and practiced for a long time, social habits develop, and these allow us to identify a culture. It is important to see culture from a practical viewpoint; only then can a given culture be understood and accepted. When a culture-and in the case of the deaf community, a subculture or minority culture-is not understood by the majority of society, the majority's attitude will continually fluctuate between tolerance and intolerance. The minority culture will then always have to fight for respect, understanding, and equality. If a culture is constantly forced to fight for matters that are regarded and defined as basic and necessary, the group will then have difficulty finding the strength needed to express its potential cultural richness. From this, it follows that when society prevents minority cultures from expressing themselves, it is depriving itself of considerable enrichment. The Opening Phase of Deaf Culture in Denmark: 1866-1893 In 1866, after a deaf Norwegian traveler had enthusiastically told deaf people in Denmark about an association for the deaf community in Berlin, a group of deaf Danish artisans established the Deaf-Mute Association of 1866. During that period, the city of Copenhagen was experiencing a boom in new associations -primarily of skilled workers, or journeymen-whose purposes were primarily social and service oriented. Because of the low standard of living in the eighteenth century, associations were established to provide support to their members in such emergencies as unemployment, disease, and death. The majority of the deaf community also consisted of skilled workers. United under the leadership of Ole J0rgensen, founder and workshop leader of the Deaf and Dumb Institute, the new Deaf-Mute Association also began to provide services for its members . Within a few years, the deaf community had established an emergency fund, an insurance fund, and a burial club. In addition, the association helped unemployed skilled workers find jobs. This article is excerpted from the book Den Danske D@veku/tur (The Danish Deaf Culture) published in November 1988 and available from Danske D,wes Landsforbund, Bryggervangen 19, 2100 Copenhagen 0, Denmark. This article has also appeared in Looking Back: A Reader on the History of Deaf Communities and Their Sign Languages, edited by Harlan Lane and Renate Fischer, 1993, Hamburg: SIGNUM-Press. Historical Phases of Deaf Culture in Denmark Members of the Deaf-Mute Association of 1866 were among the first deaf people in Denmark to receive an education through sign language and the manual alphabet. Only half a century earlier, deaf people had been at the bottom of the social ladder, without status and often without language. Now they were educated and often could read and write the Danish language. Sign language and the manual alphabet were used both in deaf clubs and families . Most deaf men married deaf women whom they had met at school. Most of their children could hear, and these children helped by interpreting for their parents and providing a link to the hearing society. The members of the deaf community lived their lives as best they could, and in the association they were fortunate enough to have friends to console and encourage them through the ups and downs of life. Outside the deaf community, workers from the countryside had migrated by the thousands to Copenhagen, where they constituted a poorly educated and highly exploited segment of the labor force for growing industry. These families most often lived in poverty under miserable conditions. Compared to them, the skilled workers of the deaf community lived a considerably better, albeit modest, life. Furthermore, the attitude of middle-class society to the deaf community and "the deserving poor" was positive and open. According to the standards of the time, teachers at the Deaf and Dumb Institute were well educated, and some of them had connections to the leaders of society, who encouraged deaf adults to become teachers at the school. In those early years of the developing deaf community, the school also stayed in touch with former students by holding association meetings on its premises. Several of the teachers participated in these meetings, and they often served as lecturers in the association. Moreover, the school contributed extensively to the integration of the deaf community into the labor market. On the basis of these activities, a positive relationship was formed between the deaf community and...

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