19th century
A01=Douglas C. Baynton
alexander graham bell
american culture
Author_Douglas C. Baynton
Category=CFZ
Category=JBCC
Category=JBS
Category=NHK
civilization
civilized
communication
community
deaf
deafness
debate
disability
disabled population
eq_bestseller
eq_dictionaries-language-reference
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
gender
historical
history
identity
mutism
nationalism
nature
normality
paternalism
power
race
sign language
social control
speech
united states of america
usa
Product details
- ISBN 9780226039640
- Weight: 397g
- Dimensions: 15 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 22 Jun 1998
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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This text explores American culture from the mid-19th century to 1920 through the lens of one episode: the campaign led by Alexander Graham Bell and other prominent Americans to suppress the use of sign language amongst deaf people. The debate about sign language invoked such fundamental questions as what distinguished Americans from non-Americans, civilized people from "savages", humans from animals, men from women, the natural from the unnatural, and the normal from the abnormal. An advocate of the return to sign language, the author found that, although the grounds of the debate have shifted, educators still base decisions on many of the same metaphors and images that led to the misguided efforts to eradicate sign language.
