Signs and Wonders: Religious Rhetoric and the Preservation of Sign Language

3: Saved by Signs: The Role of the Sanctuary in the Preservation of Sign Language

66 3 Saved by Signs: The Role of the Sanctuary in the Preservation of Sign Language Deaf rhetoric that asserted the divine root of sign language thereby claimed for it divine sanction. —Susan Burch, Signs of Resistance: American Deaf Cultural History, 1900–1942 O master of all languages, we thank Thee for the power and the glory of the sign language . . . . Thou knowest what is best for the deaf, Thou art just. —Arthur G. Leisman, “Prayers of the Deaf” Protestant chapel and church services were important factors in the preservation of sign language. Ministers and many deaf educators of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries argued for the practical use of sign language in the chapel at residential schools for deaf students. They believed that sign language was more effective than spoken language in reaching these students; thus sign language was the preferred method of delivering religious rhetoric. As students graduated and left the residential schools, it became important for them to continue interacting socially with other deaf individuals. The church offered this opportunity to the deaf community. Protestant churches became a sanctuary for sign language and the deaf community. As the previous chapters show, education for deaf students in the United States began with a Protestant Christian influence. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, as a Congregationalist minister, maintained a curriculum at the first permanent school for deaf students in the United States and provided religious training and Saved by Signs 67 chapel services conducted in sign language. Once students completed their education at residential schools, they often found the church playing a significant role in their lives. Some Protestant churches continued the work of the residential school chapels by offering services in sign language for deaf adults, while others were made up of only deaf congregations. The first deaf church was St. Ann’s Church for the Deaf-Mutes, which held its first Sunday services in October 1852. The Reverend Thomas Gallaudet Jr., the eldest son of T. H. Gallaudet, was the head minister at St. Ann’s. Although he was trained like his brother, E. M. Gallaudet , in education, he went on to become an Episcopal minister. Gallaudet Jr. ministered to deaf people in the eastern part of the United States by delivering sermons in sign language and providing social opportunities and classes for deaf adults in the community . His work in ministering to deaf Americans is an example of how the sanctuary became a location where literal and symbolic arguments to protect sign language appeared. These religious services also served the American deaf community as a social forum. As students went on to graduate and leave the residential schools throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they often found themselves in communities with very few other deaf individuals. In order to socialize with other adult deaf Americans, they began attending weekly worship services at hearing churches that provided interpreted services or one of the few churches for deaf people. In this chapter I examine the importance of the church and the role of deaf school chapels in preserving sign language throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I argue that because sign language was maintained in the church sanctuaries, sign language use and religious instruction are intertwined in the history of the American deaf community. I show that sign language flourished in the church and stabilized an emerging deaf community even well into the twentieth century. I demonstrate that ministers ’ religious rhetoric was effective only when delivered in sign 68 Signs and Wonders language. The chapel services and Protestant churches attended by deaf students and deaf community members thus suggest a value system that was grounded in Protestant theology during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Following the Call: Late Nineteenth-Century Sanctuaries for Sign Language From the inception of deaf education in the United States in 1817, religious instruction was an important component. As debates over teaching methods consumed the last half of the nineteenth century, the chapel was for the most part maintained as a signing place. Arguments even among advocates for oralism supported the use of sign language in religious instruction and chapel services (see chapter 2). For most of the ministers who used sign language in residential school chapels, arguments supporting their choice of communication were twofold. The first was practical: Sign language was appropriate because it was easier to see signs made by a minister in a pulpit than to read the...