The Deaf History Reader

Preface

PREFACE The essays in this volume enrich our understanding of the history of the American deaf community in a variety of ways. Some articles focus on the traditional subject of deaf education; yet each of these takes us beyond issues of pedagogy to address matters of wide social and historical importance to deaf people and to the societies of which they have been members. Others look at specific deaf lives situated in particular places and times. These illuminate questions about deaf agency, oppression, and constructions of deaf identity in American history. One contribution examines closely the famous—and famously disliked by many deaf Americans—Alexander Graham Bell and places him in a new relation to the deaf community. Finally, two of the essays use intensive examinations of local deaf organizations, informed by documents scholars have not examined previously, to challenge traditional interpretations of American deaf history. They argue forcefully that historians need to broaden their research agendas and pay greater attention to what deaf people were doing at the local level. Together, these articles provide evidence, interpretations , and arguments about deaf history that encourage a reexamination of assumptions about deaf experiences in American History. Acknowledgments All scholars have debts, intellectual, professional, and personal. I have been fortunate in thirty years of teaching, studying, and writing about deaf history to have received many kinds of support from an extraordinarily broad range of people, from faculty and staff colleagues to deaf community historians, from various friends inside of and outside of the American deaf community, and from supportive family members. I cannot begin to acknowledge what I owe each of them, but I want to mention vii two individuals in particular: Paul Kelly, the Vice President for Administration and Finance at Gallaudet University, a lawyer and accountant by training, whose commitment to scholarship and the academic enterprise is unsurpassed; and Deborah Ellen Van Cleve, an accomplished and busy administrator in her own right, and my companion and wife of many years. One remarkable fact about this particular book, however, is that three of the contributors have been my students. My largest debt is to them and to all the students at Gallaudet University whom I have been privileged to teach. Their interest in deaf history has spurred mine and somehow made worthwhile all the time and effort historical scholarship requires. viii Preface ...