Deaf Heritage: A Narrative History of Deaf America

Chapter 2. The 1880s

Chapter 2 A Beginning N EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND EIGHTY, Helen Keller and Douglas MacArthur were born. Wjll Rogers was a one-year-old toddler . Lewis Wallace 'wrote Bell Hurmany of Wallace's novels include deaf characters who use sign language. Before the decade was out, Mark Twain produced The Advelltures of Huckleberry Filln. Rutryerford B. Hayes, a Republican from Ohio, was in the White House. The Industrial Revolution was underway. The transcontinental railroad linked the nation. Passengers could take the Central and Union Pacific Railroad from San Francisco to New York City-the world's longest trip by rail-for $110. First class cost $30 extra. The trip took six days and 20 hours. In 1876 Alexander Graham Bell had patented a device for sending the spoken word uver a wire. He called it a telephone. In 1880 Bell was awarded the Volta Prize and 50,000 francs (about $10,000) by the French Government in recognition of this gift to mankind. The population of the United States was slightly over 50 million in 1880. The census that year, the country's tenth, listed 33,878 "deaf-mutes," a con iderable increase over the previous census which had recorded 16,205. More than half a century had passed since the founding of the first permanent public school for the deaf in Hartford. Some 38 schools dotted the countryside from Hartford to Berkeley, California. Eight of these schools were started by deaf persons. The 1880s The New England Gallaudet Association of the Deaf was 26 years old. There were state associations of the deaf in New York, Wisconsin and Indiana. Iowa and Pennsylvania organizations soon followed, and by 1890 there were state associations in Virginia, Minnesota , Texas, Michlgan, Arkansas and Kentucky. The Gallaudet College Alumni Association was formed in 1889, following the unveiling of the Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet statue on the Gallaudet College campus. In that year, 1880, a young deaf man named George M. McClure accepted a teaching position at the Kentucky School for the Deaf in Danville, beginning an association that would span eighty years. And, Mrs. Clerc, widow of Laurent Clerc, passed away. Birth of the National Association of the Deaf The idea of a national association of the deaf dates back to 1850. A group of deaf peuple had gathered in Hartford, Connecticut to pay tribute to Thomas Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc. They discllssed the need for a national association, but agreed that the idea was impracticaL No newspaper linked the deaf community , and what deaf leaders there were were scattered. Travel was slow and difficult. However, the suggestion of an organjzation persisted and resulted in the formation of the New England Gallaudet Association of the Deaf in 1 53. It was named in hOnor uf Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. The Association has member hip 59 ,'111 t "~ ":l F.v '.[ l ',.:::d , :;; I :,urs ., ;.arson ': hooa8 .' ? ~X I ;; Y J ::dwin h. ;:odeeon ( rl Y ) George B Dougherty ( 1):0 Henry Eo1ll1ft 8 7:hite :,:a88 1 ( ~a88 . Robert M cGregor , Ohio Henry C Rider (I Y) H Samual II Freeman (Ga l iiebater George ( Ill J Englehart ~heodore Froelich ( :l YJ Philip Emery ( Ill) Tlte first COllvelltion of tlte National Association of Ihe Deaf in Cincinnati, Ohio, 1880. lists and minutes dating back to 1910. Earlier records were destroyed by fire. Why a national organization? Deaf Americans were beginning to realize that if anyone was going to resolve their problems it would have to be themselves. They were concerned about the educational conditions in schools for the deaf and about the method of instruction. Pure oralism was threatenjng the learning freedom of deaf children and the employment of deaf teachers. Deaf people needed better training for industrial work. Discrimination hampered the independence and well-being of the deaf. Perhaps worst of all was this lack of public understanding of deaf people, their handicap and their capabilities. At the fir t Convention of the National Association of the Deaf in Cincinnati the delegates resolved " . .. to bring the Deaf of the different sections of the United States in close contact and to deliberate on the needs of the deaf as a class. We have interest peculiar to ourselves which can be taken care of by ourselves." Three leading men were involved in the inception of the National Association of the Deaf. and each was credited at one time or another with its founding . The three were...