American Sign Language at schools for the deaf has had a contentious history, from its early inception and throughout the 20th century. Before the creation of Gallaudet University, deaf individuals were largely secluded from each other, with no formalized method of signing, and a limited understanding of what was possible for them. Hearing people saw deafness as “a horrendous misfortune,” and this perception made it continually difficult for deaf individuals. In 1817, Thomas H. Gallaudet found “his mission in life,” and used his French sign language method into the school, while integrating signs in use at the time. This new form of ASL spread across the states from New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, to Indiana and Illinois. The first deaf college was founded and ASL was at the heart of curriculum. But people were unconvinced that ASL was the practical or even appropriate form of communications for deaf children. Alexander G. Bell was against ASL, and set out to re-educate students in the oral method, that is, to speak and read lips. Around the 1860’s, schools began refusing to teach ASL.
Thomas Gallaudet
The new “method” was endorsed in Milan, Italy, and began to become popularized in deaf schools and among “concerned” hearing parents. Teachers not familiar with the oral method were forced to move to vocational schools, and eventually ASL was banned from schools altogether. During most of the twentieth century, the oral method would continue to pervade all-deaf schools, still in the hands of the hearing. Students were subjected to audiograms, rigorous repetitive training, and endured odd and intrusive technologies to adapt them to the hearing earth. The oralist’s cause was even further bolstered by a fear that deaf communities were becoming too prevalent, and would continue to expand. A perception developed in the social atmosphere of the time that saw deaf people as a kind of distinctly foreign ethnicity, that needed to be assimilated, improved upon, and remedied. Regardless, the all-deaf residential schools helped keep the deaf culture together, and students continued to pass on their language of signs outside of their classes. They gave each other name signs representative of each individual, and continued to use. Overall, this fostered communities with their own traditions, religious practices, and businesses.
In the early twentieth century, deaf communities began to formally organize and created the National Association for the Deaf (NAD). When ASL masters and NAD silent films began telling vivid stories through signs, people began to pay a little more attention to the true beauty, form, and function of sign language; however, it was still a long fought effort for equality. Around 1955, the accepted use of ASL began to make a comeback when Bill Stokey suggested that ASL was a language unto its own. He helped popularize the re-emergence of ASL in both schools and in public (where it was generally shunned). With new research and understanding through the 1960’s and 70’s, progress was made with accepting the deaf. But beginning March 6, 1988, students began to accomplish pivotal change in people’s perception and support for deaf culture and the acceptance of ASL. Students united at Gallaudet University for a new precedent; they wanted a Deaf President. They didn’t stop after winning their protests, but rather marched on the capital to ensure their assertions for change were understood. Even though there was never a resurgence of deaf schools teaching ASL, throughout all of this, ASL has continued to play a pivotal role in communicating and building supportive communities.
