inventor of the telephone and advocate of mainstreaming deaf education once said…

Before he tried to wipe out sign language, deaf marriage and deafness altogether!

[facepalm]

Hello lovely people!

Whilst Hearing people often assume that Deaf people would naturally want to ‘fix’ their

hearing, the truth is quite different. And when it comes to the complex relationship

between Alexander Graham Bell and the Deaf Community the truth is VERY different!

Society tends to view Alexander Graham Bell as a famous, wealthy and influential American

hero

[cough] he was Scottish [cough]

And inventor of the telephone, metal detector and a variety of other inventions. He was

also a teacher of deaf children, had a deaf mother and a deaf wife. He was very familiar

with the Deaf community.

Because he wanted to wipe it out!

Bell feared "contamination" of the human race by the propagation of deaf people (even though

most deaf people statistically are born to hearing parents.)

I first started the conversation about eugenics and disability in my profile on Helen Keller,

which you can find in the card above, right… now!

Today we’re going to be continuing to talk about how sometimes good intentions are actually…

bad intentions… that then sporn a multimillion pound company that makes money from deafness.

What? I’m just your impartial narrator.

In all truth though, as a deaf person- but someone who went deaf later in life due to

a separate medical condition- I’m vaguely objective. Kind of.

Well let’s find out...

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boots.

On with the show...

Alexander Bell was born on the 3rd March 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland, to Eliza Grace Bell

and Alexander Melville Bell, a famous phonetician-

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies the sounds of human speech, or—in

the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspects of sign.

He had two brothers: Melville James Bell and Edward Charles Bell, both of whom would die

of tuberculosis before the age of 30.

When he was 10 he made a plea to his father to have a middle name like his two brothers.

For his 11th birthday his father allowed him to adopt the middle name "Graham", chosen

out of respect for Alexander Graham, a family friend.

Whilst he was a child, his best friend, Ben Herdman’s, family operated a flour mill

which became the site of his first invention. In the mill wheat had to be dehusked through

a laborious process but at the age of 12, Bell built a homemade device that combined

rotating paddles with sets of nail brushes, creating a simple dehusking machine that was

put into operation and used steadily for a number of years. In return Ben’s father

gave both boys the run of a small workshop in which to "invent".

Alexander showed a talent for art, poetry and music from an early age, including mastering

the piano without formal training. He was clearly very interested in sounds and apparently

revelled in mimicry and ventriloquism.

His mother began to lose her hearing when he was 12 and he was deeply affected by this,

even learning a manual finger tapping language so he could sit at her side and silently tap

out what was going on for her. He developed a technique of speaking in clear, modulated

tones directly into his mother's forehead, which apparently she found easier to understand.

Personally, this particular relationship with his mother is what makes his later position

seem so strange to me. He realised that his mother needed something other than spoken

English to understand what was going on… so why did he then push to extinguish that

later?!

Hang on though, we’re not there yet!

The Bell family was long associated with the teaching of elocution: Alexander’s grandfather,

uncle and father were all elocutionists. His father’s book The Standard Elocutionist

from 1860 is still well known today. In the book Bell senior explains his method of how

to teach deaf people to articulate words and read other people's lips.

His system ‘Visible Speech’ is much like the modern International Phonetic Alphabet

as one shape corresponds to each sound that is found in human speech as well as notations

for tone, pitch and suction. It’s essentially a kind of mimicry that means you learn how

to correctly position your tongue and lips for each syllable so you can then pronounce

words perfectly, even if you’ve never come across them before or never heard them.

It’s similar to what I do in front of the mirror to train my own voice.

Well, to keep it trained.

The young Alexander may have taken it a little far however as he took to experimenting on

the family dog. He first taught the terrier to growl continuously then Bell would reach

into its mouth and manipulate the dog's lips and vocal cords to produce specific sounds.

Okay...

If he did them in the right order, it sounded like the dog was talking!

Bell grew up to teach his father’s Visible Sound method to actual humans. Largely, deaf

ones. He taught at a number of deaf schools including ‘Horace Mann School for the Deaf’

and a number of outposts of the ‘American Asylum for Deaf and Dumb Persons’...

Just going to let that name sink in for a few minutes…

The American… asylum…

Anyway! This is why we rename things!

In October 1872, Alexander Bell opened his "School of Vocal Physiology and Mechanics

of Speech" in Boston, teaching his father’s system. His first class numbered 30 students

and one of his private pupils was Helen Keller, who later said that Bell dedicated his life

to the penetration of that "inhuman silence which separates and estranges"

Oh just wait for the estrangement to come!

You see, at the time, the most influential people in the field-

(who were all Hearing)

- viewed deafness as something that should be eradicated. They believed that with the

proper resources and effort, they could teach deaf people to speak and avoid the use of

sign language, which they saw as being a barrier to communication.

Ie: “a small minority of people have formed their own language so they can easily communicate

with each other and not be isolated. But I can’t understand them so they should be

forced to learn my language and enunciate properly! They would try harder if they felt

isolated again.”

Yeah

At the age of 26 Bell met 15-year-old Mabel Hubbard who became the object of his affection…

she was also one of his pupils. She had lost her hearing after a bout of scarlet fever

when she was five so had already been able to speak and had a head-start in the speech-only

classroom.

During this time he also began experimenting with the physiology of speech and methods

of recording and transmitting sounds… which then lead to him inventing the telephone.

Which is nice.

He was also a massive racist.

Not so nice.

He decried immigration into the United States of what he termed “undesirable ethnical

elements,” as he felt it stopped the “evolution of a higher and nobler type of man in America.”

(he means ‘white people’)

He described sign language as “essentially a foreign language” and argued that “in

an English speaking country like the United States, the English language, and the English

language alone, should be used as the means of communication and instruction.”

wow...

[Sarcastically ]Not at all relatable to the current political climate...

As such he was an important figure in the spreading of audism — the belief that it

is inherently better to be able to speak and hear.

Again, if you’re Hearing or you’ve never come across Deaf Culture that might seem like

an ‘of course’ statement to you but I will explain why it’s not an intrinsically

good position in a moment…

Just know to begin with that Bell’s views on immigration, deaf education, and eugenics

overlap and intertwine.

In 1883 Bell presented his paper Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human

Race to the National Academy of Sciences. In it he applied his study of eugenics to

the ‘deaf race’ stating: "Those who believe as I do, that the production of a defective

race of human beings would be a great calamity to the world, will examine carefully the causes

that will lead to the intermarriage of the deaf with the object of applying a remedy."

To review: deaf people were forming clubs, socializing with one another and, consequently,

marrying other deaf people(!) and the creation of a “deaf race” is a

“great calamity” that may ruin humanity forever!

(again: 90% of deaf children are born to Hearing parents. Because that’s not how genes work)

How did he propose to reduce the number of deaf people? By discouraging deaf-to-deaf

marriages, promoting oral-only education and removing deaf teachers from the classroom.

Oh, you’re a teacher who also happens to be deaf? You’re fired!

Oh, you struggle to lipread? You’re failing this class!

Oh, you ‘sound deaf’? You’re getting caned!

Oh, you’ve fallen in love with another deaf person? You’re banned from seeing them!

In 1880, encouraged by Bell’s talks, 164 delegates met for the Second International

Congress on Education of the Deaf.

Only one of these delegates was deaf. Of 164!

At the conference, a resolution was passed that banned sign language in schools, in an

effort to encourage spoken language skills, and thus “[restore] the deaf-mute to society.”

Other passages in the resolution urge us to “consider the incontestable superiority

of speech over signs,” and argue that teaching deaf people to speak English will “give

them a more perfect knowledge of language.” After its passage, schools in Europe and the

United States ceased all use of sign language.

Funnily enough, due to this and his efforts to suppress the teaching of sign language,

Bell is often viewed negatively by those embracing Deaf culture.

Shocker!

“What is Deaf culture?” you ask? Well…

The word ‘deaf’ with a lowercase ‘d’ refers to the audiological condition of not

hearing. The word ‘Deaf’ with an uppercase ‘D’ refers to a particular group of deaf

people who share their own language- sign language- and culture. They’ll go to Deaf

club nights, follow Deaf artists, participate in Deaf sports teams, generally all know each

other! It’s a distinct community of people.

Much like an ethnic minority or the LGBT community.

- not so much the knowing each other thing! Just because your cousin is a lesbian, doesn’t

mean I know her!

As I previously mentioned: it’s also easy to assume that a deaf person would want their

hearing to be ‘fixed’- but that isn’t always the case, in fact it’s often far

from the truth.

Personally, if someone offered to give me 100% perfect hearing in both ears tomorrow

I would probably be terrified.

Both because (A) magic now apparently exists and (B) that’s actually a really scary prospect.

I’ve spent half my life not being able to hear birds singing. I like the idea but I

think it would be really startling.

And, again, I’m someone who went deaf as a teenager, after years of being able to hear

(not particularly well but still…) AND I went deaf due to a medical condition and disability.

If someone has been profoundly deaf their entire life, that’s… just their life.

People in the Deaf community don’t feel like they have a problem because everything

in their life works perfectly fine for them, it’s just different to ‘the norm’

- pah! Who wants to be normal anyway? Says the deaf, disabled lesbian...

Deaf people don’t like being seen as sick, disabled or in some way deficient. Ever wondered

why I call myself ‘deaf AND disabled’? Because I don’t see deafness as intrinsically

disabling.

My chronic pain? Completely disabling.

My chronic fatigue? Beyond disabling.

My lax joints and ability to paralyse my limbs for any length of time? … disabled!

Disabled!

I can’t say for sure obviously because it’s not the case but were I to just be deaf I

don’t know that I would see myself as disabled. I lipread well, I don’t generally have problems

with people understanding me, I have a sign language interpreter for work events, meetings

and so on…

Obviously, I’m not saying that all deaf people feel the same way.

These are just my feelings, I could hear reasonable well for 15 years

So there's a roll over effect on that

There are many who

feel their deafness is disabling.

But it’s a personal feeling, not something that can be decided for you by another person…

To members of Deaf culture, Sign Language is a cultural cornerstone. It’s part of

who they are. A child who is born deaf should have access to that community and learn about

themselves.

Others feel that ‘fixing’ deafness is the way to go: using things like a cochlear

implant or hearing aids and learning to pronounce things clearly.

The problem there though is that the child in question would still BE deaf. They would

just have an accessory that helps them move through the wider world.

A paraplegic person is still paralysed when they are in their wheelchair… they’re

just able to wheel around.

And when it comes to sign language… if a family have been deaf for six generations

and then suddenly the children are no longer using sign language, they’re not only losing

part of their culture, they’re literally unable to communicate with their parents and