In a different voice: Sign language preservation and America's deaf community

Bilingual Research Journal, Fall 2000 by Burch, Susan

Students like Ernest Marshall, who attended the New York Fanwood School in the 1920s, proved more influential than oral educators. Marshall, who was the third generation of a Deaf family, was especially popular at his school, in part because of his masterful signing skills. He, and others who had already learned the language, taught the other classmates how to communicate more facilely (Bangs, 1987). Likewise, John Burton Hotchkiss, in his own days at ASD, served as a sign role model. Classmate L. C. Tuck claimed that Hotchkiss took him under his wing at ASD, and Tuck sought to emulate this graceful signer (Tuck, 1923, p. 245). Some students even joined forces to combat oralist policies directly. For example, when the New Jersey school reduced their manual programs in 1917, students protested, and appealed to the State Board of Education for help. While denied by the board, these and other efforts attest to the commitment of students to protect the language as well.

In reality, oralism was never widely adopted in its most extreme form. The vast majority of residential schools for the Deaf in the early twentieth century used a combined method (which included signed communication in addition to speech and lip-reading education), and not a pure oralist approach. At various Conferences for the American Instructors of the Deaf (LAID), the premier professional organization, administrators and oralist supporters recognized the prevalence of Sign Language over oral communication, viewing it as the foremost threat to oralism's success. In one lecture, the superintendent of the Utah School, Frank Driggs, produced a barrage of letters from other superintendents explaining why their schools could not produce strong oralist pupils. They complained that:

The most serious hindrance in the combined method is the fact that almost all the teachers know more or less about the Sign Language [as do] a good many of the officers, and they use it to the crowding out of speech ... there appear to be two principle hindrances-first, antipathy of the Deaf themselves to all oral work and incidentally to oral teachers; and second, the fact that the little Deaf youngsters when associated with the older Deaf very early master the Sign Language and naturally prefer to use this. (Driggs, 1914, pp. 111-120)

Several administrators considered Deaf employees and students' response to oralism as warlike, and more significantly, triumphant.

A Signing Sanctuary: Religious Services for the Deaf

Chapel services, an established feature in most oral schools and virtually all combined schools, consistently promoted Sign Language and ultimately provided a bridge between Deaf students and the broader Deaf world. Deaf ministers preached in sign to the students on a weekly basis and offered Bible study classes and other programs also conducted in Sign Language. From a desire to maintain religious observance, the schools required attendance, unintentionally endorsing the use of Sign Language. In addition, this form of religious instruction created a bridge between students and the outside Deaf community by introducing adult Deaf leaders to Deaf school children, and ultimately helped young Deaf people establish a broader network of friends after graduation. While chapel services selectively transmitted cultural values and modes of communication, independent Deaf churches provided a constant and growing place of sanctuary not only for religiously-minded Deaf people but for Sign Language preservation and transmission.