Table Of ContentOur
In
Essays in
Own
Deaf History
1780–1970
Hands
Brian H. Greenwald
and
Joseph J. Murray,
Editors
IN OUR OWN HANDS
IN OUR OWN HANDS
Essays in Deaf History,
1780–1970
Brian H. Greenwald and Joseph J. Murray
EDITORS
GALLAUDET UNIVERSITY PRESS
Washington, DC
Gallaudet University Press
Washington, DC 20002
http://gupress.gallaudet.edu
© 2016 by Gallaudet University
All rights reserved. Published 2016
Printed in the United States of America
Editors’ Note: The cover art, “Fluttering Butterfly Girl,” is a linocut print by
David Call, a deaf artist based in California. The work portrays a young girl
signing butterfly in American Sign Language. The image of a butterfly is
a contemporary symbol used by some deaf communities to symbolize deaf
people and sign language. The exuberance of the young girl at the center of
this artwork speaks to the theme of agency that runs through the historical
essays in the book. A common thread in the essays is that deaf people
repeatedly sought to “manage their own affairs” and fought back when
they were denied the opportunity to do so. The title In Our Own Hands
reflects both the assertion of agency and the use of sign language, the latter
being an issue of particular prominence in several of the essays in this volume.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Greenwald, Brian H., editor. | Murray, Joseph J., editor.
Title: In our own hands : essays in deaf history, 1780-1970 / Brian H.
Greenwald, Joseph J. Murray, editors.
Other titles: In our own hands (Gallaudet University Press)
Description: Washington, DC : Gallaudet University Press, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016005244 | ISBN 9781563686603 (paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Deaf--United States--History. | BISAC: HISTORY / Social
History.
Classification: LCC HV2530 .I52 2016 | DDC 305.9/0820973--dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016005244
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992
(Permanence of Paper).
This book is dedicated to Michael J. Olson, archivist at Gallaudet
University for his constant support of teachers, researchers, and
students working in deaf history. The value of the Gallaudet
University Archives is without parallel elsewhere in the world.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
INTRODUCTION xi
1 Why Give Him a Sign Which Hearing People Do Not Understand . . . ?
Public Discourses about Deafness, 1780–1914
Anja Werner 1
2 “Enlightened Selfishness”: Gallaudet College and Deaf
Citizenship in the United States, 1864–1904
Joseph J. Murray 18
3 Citizenship and Education: The Case of the Black Deaf Community
Carolyn McCaskill, Ceil Lucas, Robert Bayley, and Joseph Hill 40
4 From Deaf Autonomy to Parent Autonomy in the Chicago
Public Day Schools, 1874–1920
Motoko Kimura 61
5 “Are We Not as Much Citizens as Any Body?” Alice Taylor Terry
and Deaf Citizenship in the Early Twentieth Century
Kati Morton Mitchell 90
6 Unchurched, Unchampioned, and Undone: The St. Ann’s
Church Controversy, 1894–1897
Jannelle Legg 105
7 In Pursuit of Citizenship: Campaigns Against Peddling in
Deaf America, 1880s–1950s
Octavian Robinson 127
8 Revisiting the Memoir: Contesting Deaf Autonomy and the
Real Tragedy of Alexander Graham Bell
Brian H. Greenwald 149
viii Contents
9 Compromising for Agency: The Role of the NAD during the
American Eugenics Movement, 1880–1940
Melissa Malzkuhn 171
10 Normalization and Abnormal Genes: Hereditary Deafness
Research at the Clarke School for the Deaf, 1930–1950
Marion Andrea Schmidt 193
11 The “Breakaways”: Deaf Citizens’ Groups in Australia
in the 1920s and 1930s
Breda Carty 211
12 Divine and Secular: Reverend Robert Capers Fletcher and the
Southern Deaf Community, 1931–1972
Jean Lindquist Bergey 239
CONTRIBUTORS 258
INDEX 261
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This collection came together through a fortuitous combination
of personal research, presentations, work with former students, and
dialogue with others on current research trends in the field of deaf
history. The editors noticed that agency, or attempts to claim deaf au-
tonomy, was a commonality among these articles. This framework is
consistent throughout the book and we believe these contributions also
add to a greater understanding of the pressures that different groups
of deaf people faced in their work to claim agency at different places
and times.
We are grateful to the contributors for their enthusiasm and per-
sistence. At different points, we have met with these contributors and
engaged in delightful conversations about their research. Their work
shown here adds new layers to our understanding of the complexities
of agency in deaf women, African Americans, religion, organizations,
schools, and transnationalism. Deaf people claimed autonomy in some
arenas more successfully than in others.
Michael J. Olson, interim director of the Gallaudet University
Archives, and staff including Seung Hahn, provided indispensable ad-
vice, unearthed photographs, offered suggestions, and support. We are
very fortunate to be on the same campus as the world’s largest archival
collection related to deaf history. Many of the articles in this collection
used primary source material available at the Gallaudet University
Archives, showing, once again, its value to deaf history and ongoing
interpretations of deaf lives.
We also express our sincere gratitude to Ivey Pittle Wallace, director
of Gallaudet University Press. She has been one of the staunchest sup-
porters in the publication and dissemination of deaf history scholar-
ship over the past two and half decades, and her unwavering support is
also true here. Deirdre Mullervy and Valencia Simmons have been very
collegial and we thank Gallaudet University Press for their patience,
guidance, and support. We are also grateful to our contributors, three
of whom are our former graduate students and remain involved in re-
search on deaf lives today.
