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11-1976

The Deaf in America: Two Hundred Years ofProgressRobert PanaraRochester Institute of Technology

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Recommended CitationPanara, Robert, "The Deaf in America: Two Hundred Years of Progress" (1976). NTID Focus, pg. 4-7. Accessed fromhttps://scholarworks.rit.edu/article/318

John Carlin, an outstanding deaf painterand poet of the early 1800's.

Laura C. Redden, a famed deaf writer ofthe late 1800's.

.' The Deaf in America:Two Hundred Years of Progressby Robert F. Panara

In 1943, Dr. Harry Best publishedDeafness and the Deaf in the UnitedStates, a definitive study of thehandicap of deafness and theachievements of the deaf in America.In this comprehensive work, the notedsociologist concluded with a genuinetribute "to the most misunderstoodamong the sons of men and the gamestof them aiL"

There was an historical basis forsuch an evaluation inasmuch as, morethan 2,500years earlier, Aristotle wrotethat "the ear is the organ of education"and that the deaf lacked the ability toreason, much less to learn to read andwrite. It proved to be a damagingassessment which was echoed by manylater writers, among them Lucretius ofRome whose classic couplet summedup the judgement of antiquity:

"To instruct the deaf no art couldever reach,No care improve them and nowisdom teach."These attitudes even influenced

the popular belief throughout thesucceeding ages of Christianity andthe Renaissance, despite occasionalevidences of "a success story"-of adeaf-mute, usually from the wealthyaristocracy, who was educated byintensive private tutoring andeventually "restored to society."

However, people generally greetedachievements by deaf individuals withskepticism or else regarded thephenomena as the work of charlatans.

Education

The first record in America of anattempt to teach the deaf was inRowley, Mass., in 1699when a mannamed Philip Nelson tried to teach theart of speech to a "deaf and dumbboy," Isaac Kilbourn. Quite naturally,Nelson's work "seemed such anextraordinary thing that the ministersof the community. . . made aninvestigation, fearing that witchesmight be involved in the affair."

Undoubtedly, human judgement wasstill influenced by Aristotle, andAmerica's deaf might have continuedto dwell in the dungeons of despairhad there not occurred in 1776 arevolution of wholesome dissent whichstrove to bring about a newunderstanding of the dignity of man.

A young clergyman possessed suchfaith in the human spirit. ThomasHopkins Gallaudet of Hartford, Conn.,founded the first free school for thedeaf in America in 1817 in Hartford.In this, his life's work, he wasassisted by a deaf teacher namedLaurent Clerc.

Gallaudet had gone to Paris tolearn the most advanced method ofinstructing the deaf at the RoyalInstitute for Deaf-Mutes, founded in1769 by the Abbe de l'Epee. Whilethere, Gallaudet met the brilliant deafteacher, Laurent Clerc, who taughthim sign language and methods ofteaching the deaf. Gallaudet realizedthat Clerc had the expertise and "thedeaf experience" to help him fulfill hismission of teaching the deaf inAmerica, and he offered Clerc theopportunity to become his assistant.

The story of how Laurent Clercjourneyed to the land of promiseswhere he became the first deaf teacherof the deaf still serves as a model forcountless others who have followed theAmerican dream of fulfillment throughopportunity. Their struggle to overcomethe realities of deafness and contributeto the development of America is anaffirmation of the faith of ourforefathersin the American promise of "life,liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

In many diverse areas of life, thedeaf American has left an imprint inthe arts and sciences, in education andindustry, in law and government, insports and entertainment. Quite often,too, these success stories follow thesame pattern as that of their normalhearing counterparts.

A brief sampling of some notableachievements may illustrate thediversity of achievements by deafAmericans.

Painting and Sculpture

Deaf from birth in 1813,John Carlingraduated from the Mt. Airy School forthe Deaf (Philadelphia) at the age of 12.Beginning as a sign and house painter.he studied every night at home,r.nasteringart history, English and fiveforeign languages. After saving enoughmoney, he went to Europe to study art.Eventually he became an outstandingpainter of portraits of such celebritiesas William Seward, Horace Greeley,Hamilton Fish, and Jefferson Davis.The first known deaf person to

compose excellent poetry, his workwas praised by Wmiam Cullen Bryant.Mr. Carlin was also a prolific writerwhose articles on architecture, geology

and ecology were published in leadingnewspapers: He was the first deafperson in America to be awarded withan honorary degree from GallaudetCollege (1865),and, quite appropriately,he painted the first portrait of LaurentClerc, one of his teachers.

Douglas Tilden was born in 1860and became deaf at the age of five.Upon graduating from the CaliforniaSchool for the Deaf (Berkeley), hetaught art and sculpture at the school.Awarded a grant by the Board ofDirectors, he studied sculpture in Parisand soon attracted the attention of hispeers. HisfamedBearHunt,nowonthe campusof.theBerkeleySchool,was exhibited at the Chicago World'sFair (1893),after which he set up hisown studio in San Francisco. Hissculptures attracted the attentionofSenator James D. Phelan, who becameMr. Tilden's patron. Among his famouspieces are three sculptures standingin San Francisco's Golden Gate Park

today, the famed Football Players onthe campus of the University ofCalifornia and the celebrated groupfigures, The Mechanics, in MarketStreet Plaza, San Francisco. Tilden alsoserved as professor of sculpture at theUniversity of California and atSt. Mary's College, Oakland.

Cadwallader Washburn was born in1866andbecame totally deaf at agefive, later attending the MinnesotaSchool for the Deaf. He graduated fromGallaudet College and then studiedarchitecture at M.I.T., after which hebegan a career of art under Will iam H.Chase, NewYork City, and studied withSorolla in Madrid and Besnard in Paris.An outstanding oil painter, heeventually became known as one of theworld's best dry-point etchers. Hisetchings have been compared to theworksof Rembrandt and Whistler.Critics claim his portraits illumine theeyes as "windows of the soul," such ascharacterized by his Buddhist Priest,Mexican and Indian portraits, andthe Mallorca subjects such asIntrospection, The Smuggler, and TheMatriarch.Who'sWho (1955) listedmuseums all over the world where Mr.Washburn's etchings are permanentlyexhibited, and when he died at the ageof 99, the obituaries recognized himas "the dean of American etchers."

Hillis Arnold, born in 1910,becametotally deaf at age 6, attendedMirmeapolis public schools andgraduated from Minneapolis CentralHigh School. He graduated from theUniversity of Minnesota, "cum laude,"attended the Minneapolis School ofArt and the Cranbrook Academy of Art,where he studied under the famedSwedish sculptor, Carl Milles, whom heassisted with the renowned fountaindisplay, The Wedding of the Rivers,located opposite Union Station, theSt. Louis (Mo.) railroad terminal.Mr. Arnold has painted the 250-footmurals in the great hall of engineering,University of Minnesota; his WorldWar II memorial is an impressivelimestone shaft, 32 feet high, risingfrom the Aloe Plaza in downtownSt. Louis; his Manifest Destiny is agiant wooden eagle, with a five-footwing spread, in the museum ofWestward Expansion under the St.Louis Gateway Arch. Arnold has alsopioneeredthe use of plastic aluminumtechniques in some of his sculptures.The United States Information Agencyselected one of his angels made from

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polyester resin for the exhibit "Plastics,USA" in Leningrad..Recognized asone ofAmerica's finest sculptors today,Arnold recently retired after teachingsculpture at Monticello College (III.)for more than 30 years.

Literature and Journalism

LauraC. Redden, born in 1840,became totally deaf at the age ofeleven, after which she attended andgraduated from the Missouri School forthe Deaf.A self-made journalist, thisfirst deaf "Iibber" received heropportunity to break into print fromthe St. Louis Republican. She servedas a correspondent for that newspaperduring the Civil War.

Writing under the penname of"HowardGlyndon," she wrote in aneasy, informal style about people,places, politics, and books. Her article,"Notable Men of the House ofRepresentatives," was widelydiscussed, and some of her patronsfor her first book of poems, Idylls ofBattle (1865), included PresidentLincoln, Gen. Grant, and Gen. Garfield.After the Civil War, Ms. Redden touredEurope while still serving as acorrespondent for the Republican andN.Y. Times-doing most of her reportingvia pad and pencil communication.

Many of her articles appeared inleading magazines such as Harper'sand Galaxy. In 1873, her second bookof poems Sounds From SecretChambers appeared, followed by anautobiographical novel, Echoes ofOther Days (1878).

WilliamW.Beadell, who attendedthe New Jersey School for the Deafand graduated from Gallaudet College(1885),was also a successful journalistand publisher. He became editor andowner of The Arlington (N.J.) Observerwhich for many years was "a kingmakerof the state politics." Mr. Beadell wasthe first to develop the "Want Ad Page,"which made many editors andpublishers beat a pathway to his doorto learn his techniques.

Architecture and Engineering

Thomas S. Marr, a graduate of theTennessee School for the Deaf andGallaudet College (1889), studiedarchitecture at various schools but wasmostly self-educated. He designed thelargest hotel of his day in Nashville,aswell as several other public buildingsand numerous other edifices in theSouth. His "considerable works ofexcellence are now published inarchitectural handbooks that arerequired study in Southern colleges."

Robert Carr Wallgraduated in 1885from the Western Pennsylvania Schoolfor the Deaf where he was considered"a mechanical genius." He developed"the first safe bicycle Philadelphiahad ever seen." These bicyclesfeatured two standard sized wheelsinstead of the "high wheelers" then invogue, which were consideredhazardous. In 1904,officials of thePackard Auto Co. asked Mr. Wall tobuild a rattle-proof windshield whichproved so satisfactory that he laterbuilt all the windshields for Packard.

Kenneth L.Cobb graduated fromthe Malone School for the Deaf (N.Y.)and from Gallaudet College (1943).Aself-made draftsman, he was employedas a machinist specialist in the giantIBM plant at Binghamton, N.Y., wherehe became an expert "trouble shooter,"and he later advanced to supervisor.

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A highly regarded consultant, hisassignments carried him to Tokyowhere he headed a task force in"locating suitable business sites andassembling complicated equipment,"later doing the same in Australia andother Asian centers.

Business and Industry

Jean Wolverton graduated fromGallaudet College (1919) and eventuallyentered the business world as amarketing analyst. She became a highlyvalued expert in this field with HearstPublications, and her "rare businessjudgement was instrumental in theexpanding newspaper empire ofWilliam Randolph Hearst."

Samuel A. Block graduated fromP.S.47 and DeWitt Clinton High Schoolin New York City and won a scholarshipto City College of New York where hegraduated in 1932 with a bachelor'sdegree in business administration.Mr. Block had a long and distinguishedcareer in public service as a statisticianand became chief of the retirementand analysis section of the RailroadRetirement Board, Office of Research,Chicago.

1/ .r

Anson R. Spear graduated from theMinnesota School for the Deaf (1878)Ilnd spent a year at Gallaudet College,leaving for financial reasons to becomea post office clerk. He advanced tohead clerk in Minneapolis and then leftto go into business for himself throughhis invention and patenting of the"Spear Safety Envelope." His business,the Spear Safety Envelope Co.,prospered for many years inMinneapolis and employed manydeaf workers.

Bruce Clary attended the Rochester(N.Y.) School for the Deaf in the 1930'swhere he learned the machinist's trade.He took the long route through the"college of hard knocks" to become amaster machinist. He founded thep & C Screw Machine Products inLos Angeles less than five years ago,starting in a garage with two machines.

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P & C in 1974had $3.5million in ordersand 62 employees, the largest businessever founded, managed and operatedby the deaf. Working under amanagement contract with theDepartment of Defense, Mr. Claryrecently "took over a large productionfacility with more than 200 metalworking machines, where he hopes toemploy at least 1,000 people. Ninetenths of them, from janitors to vicepresidents, will be deaf. If we can doit, others can."

Emergence

Deaf Americans have come a longway since they first began to learn "thethree R's," less than 200 years ago.From the dungeon of darkness, theyhave emerged. However, like mostminority groups, they still have theproblem of integrating with themainstream of society. Indeed, theproblem goes even deeper because itinvolves the barrier of communicationwhich isolates the deaf from the restof society. This communication "wall"not only prevents the deaf fromcommunicating freely with others, butit also blocks out those channels ofpopular communicating whichcharacterize the life-blood andlife-style of modern man-thetelephone, the radio, television and"talking pictures" or movies.

The deaf, nevertheless, continue tobe undaunted. They are proud of theirAmerican heritage, and they haveimplicit faith in the American promiseof better tomorrows. Even now, on thebicentennial of our country's progress,there are hopeful signs that they mayyet succeed in "breaking the soundbarrier." This is the outcome of suchrecent technological breakthroughs asthe TTY, the Vistaphone, and captionedTV programs.

Fittingly, it was a deaf physicist,~r. Robert H.Weitbrecht, whomade possible direct telephonecommunication by the deaf throughthe use of discarded Western Unionteletypewriters. Dr. Weitbrecht'sinvention of the Terminal Unit (TU)in 1964,an acoustic coupler whichactivated transmission of printedmessages or communication viatelephone linkage, might be likenedto Bell's pioneering invention. Theproliferation of TTY's soon followedwith the organ ization of Teletypewritersfor the Deaf, Inc. (TDI), spearheadedby two deaf leaders-Dr. H. LathamBreunig, its executive director since1968 and past president of the OralDeaf Adults Section of the AlexanderGraham Bell Association of the Deaf,and Jess M. Smith, past president ofthe National Association of the Deafand editor of its national magazine.The rapidly developing network ofTTY's today includes an InternationalTTY Directory and over 5,000 individualmember users, plus an estimated 3,000additional stations.

The Vistaphone (see NTID Focus,Sept.-Oct., 1973), offers still betterpossibilities for mass utilization of

telephone communication by the deaf,because it features spontaneous visualcommunication via television images.Manufactured by Stromberg-CarlsonCo. of Rochester, N.Y.,these "picture-telephones" have been used by theNational Technical Institute for theDeafona trial basissince 1969.With27 units in continuous operation overthe huge campus shared jointly withRochester Institute of Technology,they have added an entirely newdimension in business and personalcommunications for deaf persons.Better still, they can expressthemselves independently and relatemore positively to the hearing world.

The implications of mass TVutilization by deaf viewers aretremendous. In Rochester, N.Y., PublicBroadcastingStationWXXI(TV-21)initiated "News for the Deaf" in March,1972, featuring live presentations ofthe nationally televised "ABC EveningNews" via skilled interpreters fromNTID. Eventually, this program wassuperseded by the "Captioned EveningNews Program" of Boston's WGBH-TVwhich now captions and rebroadcastsat 11:00 p.m. the regular 6:00 p.m.program with Harry Reasoner andBarbara Walters.

The WGBH-TV "Captioned EveningNews" and other special programs forthe deaf are funded by Media Servicesand Captioned Films, Bureau ofEducation for the Handicapped, thedivisional chief of which is an J

outstanding deaf man, Dr. MalcolmJ. Norwood.

In a continuing effort to providedeaf viewers with the same kind ofinput and pleasure derived by hearingconsumers of popular and educationalTV programs, Captioned Films hasinitiated experiments which make itpossible for captions to be broadcastbut only seen by viewers with TV setsequipped with a special decoder. Thisdevice, called the "NBS TV TimeSystem" (National Bureau of Standardsinvention), may realize a low costmethodof televisingall videotapedprograms. It may also prove "the be-allandthe end-all" of the deaf American'squest of equal opportunity, ofeducational and cultural parity withhearing peers.

And, in this time of technologicalplenty, the promise of better tomorrowslooks very bright indeed.

Robert F. Panara,professor of English anddrama in NTID'sExperimental EducationalTheatre, was the firstdeaf person to join theprofessional staff of NTIDin 1967.

An educator of wideexperience. Mr. Panaraearned his bachelor'sdegree from GallaudetCollege; his master's at

New York University; and has done doctoralstudies at Catholic University in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Panara began his teaching career in 1945at New York School for the Deaf in White Plains.He later served as associate professor of Englishat Gallaudet.

The methods of teaching literature and dramato the deaf have been the topics of his numerouspublished articles.

Materials quoted are from the followingreferences:

Best, Harry. The Deaf, Crowell, N.Y., 1914.

Best, Harry. Deafness & the Deaf in the U.S.,Macmillan, N.Y., 1943.

Burnes, Byron B. "History of the Education of theDeaf to 1815," AHandbook of Readings inEducation of the Deaf (Irving Fusfeld, ed.),Thomas Publ., Springfield, III., 1967.

Panara, Robert F. "The Deaf Writer in America,"American Annals of the Deaf, Sept., 1970.

Runde. Winfield S. "Douglas Tilden, Sculptor,"Silent Worker, Dec., 1952.

Kowalewski, Felix. "The Deaf in Art," SilentWorker, Oct., 1954.

Kowalewski, Felix. "Hillis Arnold: American DeafSculptor," The Deaf American, Nov., 1972.

Higgins, Francis. "The Pioneering Spirit of theDeaf," D.A.D. News (Ontario Assn. of the Deaf),Jan.-Feb., 1969.

Atwood, Albert W. Gal/audet Col/ege: Its FirstOne Hundred Years, Gallaudet Press, Washington,1964.

Braddock, Guilbert C. Notable Deaf Persons(Florence Crammatte, ed.), Gallaudet Press,Washington, 1975.

Schiller, Ronald. "The Lonely World of Silence,"Reader's Digest, Aug., 1974.

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