Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2003
A reinterpretation of early 20th century Deaf history, with sign
language at its center
During the nineteenth century, American schools for deaf education
regarded sign language as the "natural language" of Deaf people, using
it as the principal mode of instruction and communication. These schools
inadvertently became the seedbeds of an emerging Deaf community and
culture. But beginning in the 1880s, an oralist movement developed that
sought to suppress sign language, removing Deaf teachers and requiring
deaf people to learn speech and lip reading. Historians have all assumed
that in the early decades of the twentieth century oralism triumphed
overwhelmingly.
Susan Burch shows us that everyone has it wrong; not only did Deaf
students continue to use sign language in schools, hearing teachers
relied on it as well. In Signs of Resistance, Susan Burch
persuasively reinterprets early twentieth century Deaf history: using
community sources such as Deaf newspapers, memoirs, films, and oral
(sign language) interviews, Burch shows how the Deaf community mobilized
to defend sign language and Deaf teachers, in the process facilitating
the formation of collective Deaf consciousness, identity and political
organization.