DEAF WITHOUT LIMITS

DEAF AND HARD OF HEARINGPIONEERS

CDSS Office of Deaf Access

Sister Teresa was a Spanish author and nun who fell deaf

between 1453–1459, which influenced her two known works

Arboleda de los Enfermos (Grove of the Infirm) and

Admiraçión Operum Dey (Wonder at the Works of God). The

latter work represents what many critics consider as the first

feminist tract written by a Spanish woman.

Cartageña wrote her first work Arboleda de los Enfermos in

reaction to the solitude of her deafness. Approximately one to

two years later, she penned a defense of her first essay

called Admiraçión operum Dey in response to outspoken

male critics of her eloquent and well-conceived style of

writing.

Both Arboleda and Admiraçión are semi-autobiographical

works that provide an authentic written voice of the Medieval

female, a true rarity among works of the Middle Ages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresa_de_Cartagena

SISTER TERESAOF CARTEGEÑA

AUTHOR(C. 1425-?)

Joan Stewart, Princess of Scotland, was a daughter of James I, King of Scots, and Princess Joan Beaufort of England.

Joan was born deaf and reportedly used sign language in public, which was thought to be scandalous behavior during the Fifteenth Century.

Her second marriage was to James Douglas, 4th Baron Dalkeith, who became the Earl of Morton, bestowed upon the Baron by the Scottish crown upon their marriage. It was from this time that Joan was called “the dumb lady (muta domina) of Dalkeith.”

She was buried in 1486 at Dalkeith Church. Joan's effigy on the Morton Monument is said to be the world's oldest image of a known deaf person. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Stewart,_Countess_of_Morton

P R I N C E S S J O A N S T E W A R T , L A D Y D A L K E I T H

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The Morton Monument

1428-1486

When he could no longer

experiment, he had his ideas written

down and other scientists

Continued with his work.

Bonnet wrote a paper about species

extinction, the time when an organism is

no longer reproducing and all members

of the species are deceased, thereby

giving rise to Bonnet’s catastrophism

theory claiming that earthquakes and

floods created massive levels of

extinction .

Bonnet was the first to conceive of the

notion of evolution, that to survive,

species must evolve.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bonnet

CHARLES BONNET, BIOLOGIST AND BOTANIST

(1720-1793)

Charles Bonnet was born March 13, 1720, in Geneva, Switzerland.

He was not only deaf, but suffered from asthma, and gradually became blind.

Bonnet was a lawyer by profession, but studied entomology (insects) on the side, writing many works on butterflies, ants, and caterpillars.

He discovered the process called parthenogenesis, reproduction from a single parent, by studying aphids at age 20, a very important discovery to the world of science.

When Bonnet became blind, he changed his topic of interest to botany, studying the process of photosynthesis with the aid of assistants.

PIERRE DESLOGESEARLY FRENCH DEAF AUTHOR

(1747-CA.1799)

Pierre Desloges was born in France in 1747. He moved to Paris when still a young man to take up the trades of bookbinding and upholstering. Although he had been deafened since the age of seven from smallpox, he did not learn to sign until 1774, when he was taught to sign by a deaf Italian.

Five years later, in 1779, he published his first book, perhaps the first ever to be published by a deaf person. In the book, he advocated for the use of sign language in deaf education, seen as a rebuttal to the written views of the Abbé Claude-François Deschamps de Champloiseau who was a naysayer of sign.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Desloges

The Abbé De l’Epee is credited, by some, as having invented sign language. This is incorrect. Pierre’s book shows that French Sign Language pre-dated the establishment of the school for the Deaf in Paris, showing that the language was the invention of deaf people.

Desloges was also the author of a number of political books well received during the time of the French Revolution. He published up until 1792, though it is only conjectured that he died sometime in 1799.

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John Goodricke was born September 17, 1764, in Groningen, a large town in the Netherlands. When John was a baby, he contracted a high fever which caused him to become deaf.

As a boy, Goodricke attended the school for the deaf under Thomas Braidwood’s tutelage at the Braidwood Academy.

Goodricke excelled in math and science and, as a young man, made great strides in the field of astronomy befriending and working with a neighbor, a Mr. Pigott, who also had an interest in stars.

Goodricke and Pigott studied a star named Algol, which, because of it’s changeable brightness, he named it a ‘variable star.’

JOHN GOODRICKED U T C H D E A F A S T R O N O M E R

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When Mr. Goodricke published his discoveries in astronomy journals and books in his late teens, other astronomers became very impressed with his work.

At 19 years of age, John Goodricke was given the Godfrey Copley Medal from the Royal Society, and, after making more astronomical discoveries, was chosen as a Fellow in the Royal Society, very prestigious for a man only 21 years old.

John died from an illness few weeks later on April 20, 1786, due to spending many hours at night out in the cold watching his beloved stars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Goodricke

John Brewster, Jr. was born in Hampton, Connecticut in 1766, the third child of Dr.

John Brewster and his first wife Mary Durkee, descendant of the Mayflower Pilgrim

leader, William Brewster. His father was a member of the Connecticut General

Assembly and active in local church affairs.

John was deaf from birth and grew up in a time when there was no standardized deaf

sign language yet in use in America.

A kindly minister took John under his wing and taught him to paint in the 18th Century

English “Grand Manner” style of portrait painting, and by the 1790’s, he was traveling

throughout Connecticut, Massachusetts, and eastern New York State offering his

portrait services to wealthy merchant class friends and family.

From 1817 to 1820, Mr. Brewster attended the Connecticut Asylum in Hartford, what

is now known at the American School for the Deaf, where he learned sign language.

His education there seems to have resulted in him painting more sensitive and

realistic portraits. He lived most of the time near his brother, Dr. Royal Brewster, in

Buxton, Maine. John died in 1854.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brewster,_Jr .

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LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

LATE-DEAFENED COMPOSER (1770-1827)

Ludwig van Beethoven, the second-oldest child of the court musician and tenor singer Johann van Beethoven, was born in Bonn in 1770.

Ludwig's father drilled him thoroughly with the ambition of show-casing him as a child prodigy. Ludwig gave his first public performance as a pianist when he was eight years old. At the age of eleven he received the necessary systematic training in piano performance and composition from Christian Gottlob Neefe, organist and court musician in Bonn.

Employed as a court musician in Bonn since 1787, Beethoven was granted a paid leave of absence in the early part of 1787 to study in Vienna under Mozart. He was soon compelled to return to Bonn, however, and after his mother's death, had to look after the family.

In 1792, he chose Vienna as his new

residence and took lessons from Haydn,

Albrechtsberger, Schenck and Salieri. By

1795 he had earned a name for himself as

a pianist of great fantasy and verve,

admired in particular for his brilliant

improvisations.

Around the year 1798, Beethoven noticed

that he was suffering from a hearing

disorder. He withdrew into increasing

seclusion for the public and from his few

friends and was eventually left completely

deaf. By 1820, he was able to communicate

with visitors and trusted friends only in

writing, availing himself of "conversation

notebooks."

The final years in the life of the restless

bachelor were darkened by severe illness

and by the struggle over the guardianship

of his nephew Karl, upon whom he poured

his solicitude, jealousy, expectations and

threats in an effort to shape the boy

according to his wishes. When Beethoven

died, about thirty thousand mourners and

curious onlookers were present at the

funeral procession on March 26, 1827.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_van_Beethoven

ERASTUS “DEAF” SMITHA M E R I C A N F R O N T I E R S M A N A N D H E R O O F T H E

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Erastus “Deaf” (pronounced “Deef”) Smith was born in New York, to Chilaib or Caleb and Mary Smith.

In 1798, his family migrated Southwest to Natchez, Mississippi.

“Deaf” settled in Texas in 1821 when it became part of Mexico for health reasons, but returned to Natchez in 1822. His stay in Texas helped his recovery, but he never regained the ability to hear as clearly as he did before his illness, suffering partial hearing loss, hence Erastus’s nickname.

He was called “El Sordo” by the Mexicans in Texas which also means ‘deaf person’ in Spanish.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaf_Smith

He even married a Tejana woman in 1822 helping to win the trust as a trader and scout, by the Mexican Texans, or Tejanos.

It was because he was able to navigate easily between the disparate Texas cultures that his ability as scout, guide, and spy was well utilized.

He became involved in Stephen Austin’s Texas revolutionary cause and gathered intelligence before the Battle of Conception in 1835. He was wounded in the Grass Fight later that year, later serving as a courier to William Barrett Travis at the Alamo, carrying Travis’s letter from there on February 15, 1836. He also led Mrs. Almeron Dickinson to Gen. Sam Houston in Gonzales to report the fate of the Alamo’s defenders.

For his bravery, a county in Texas is now named Deaf Smith County in his honor.

A HISTORY OF THE DEAF-BLIND

BEFORE HELEN KELLER:JULIA BRACE AND LAURA

BRIDGMAN

Most everyone has heard of Helen Keller and her great achievements even though she was deaf and blind, but few know anything about three of her predecessors, at least two having some notoriety in their day, Julia Brace and Laura Bridgman.

The first well-known deaf-blind person was Victorine Morriseau (1789-1832), a native of France, who successfully learned French as a child, and had some success with communicating in tactile sign language.

Julia Brace was born in 1807 in Hartford, Connecticut. She became deaf-blind from typhus at age five.

She had no special education until she enrolled at the Hartford school in June of 1825 at almost 18. While there, she acquired tactile American Sign Language from the other students. She was said to have been feisty, inquisitive, and tenacious when it came to having her rights and needs met.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Brace

Julia Brace(1807-1884)

She was still kind and gentle enough to care for the sick and made an excellent nurse.

Samuel Gridley Howe took Julia under his wing and enrolled Julia at his Perkins School for the Blind in 1842. He tried to teach her the English language, but she preferred to remain communicating in sign language, returning to the Hartford school in 1843 where she continued as a boarder until 1860.

Julia died in 1884 in Bloomfield, Connecticut, and is buried in an unmarked grave in the West Hill Cemetary.

-Continued-

She fulfilled her communal duties well, and excelled in sewing and knitting, though she made her grievances known when her unwanted “celebrity” status became too onerous for her.

She seemed to dislike the curious and inquisitive. Her memory of facts was tenacious, but it had no grasp of abstractions, and she had no comprehension of an idea of a Deity.

A B R I E F H I S T O R Y O F T H E D E A F - B L I N D B E F O R E H E L E N K E L L E R :

J U L I A B R A C E A N D L A U R A B R I D G M A N - C O N T .

Laura Dewey Lynn Bridgman was born in

Hanover, New Hampshire in 1829 to Daniel and

Harmony Bridgman.

She lost her eyesight, hearing, senses of smell

and taste, as well as a brother and two sisters,

to scarlet fever when she was an infant.

Laura recovered from the illness, but still

remained deaf-blind. As a child, she learned to

sew and knit through touch, but had no concept

or knowledge of language as a means of

communication.

Laura was sent to the Perkins Institution for the

Blind in Boston in 1837, a special school, that

was run by Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe and Lydia

Hall Drew.

Laura Bridgman(1829-1889)

Miss Bridgman eventually learnedthe whole alphabet and the tendigits as well as a broad education. On July 24, 1839, Laura wrote herown name legibly.

She learned rudimentary math asearly as June of 1840. She beganto keep a journal in 1841 and had avisit from the author CharlesDickens in 1842. By 1843, she hada succession of special teachersassigned to her, teaching her geography, astronomy, and religious instruction; she was writing religious poetry by 1867.

She died in 1889 and was buried in Dana Cemetery in Hanover, New Hampshire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Bridgman

THOMAS ALVA EDISONFAMOUS AMERICAN INVENTOR

WITH EARLY HEARING LOSS(1847-1931)

Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847 to Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr. and Nancy

Matthews Elliott in Milan, Ohio.

Edison was famous for being an American inventor and entrepreneur, developing devices that

greatly influenced the world of his day, and far beyond. Edison invented: the phonograph, the

motion picture camera, a longer-lasting and practical light bulb, a stock ticker, a mechanical vote

recorder, a battery for an early electric car, and mass usage electrical power. He is also credited

with being the father of the first industrial research laboratory

He developed scarlet fever at an early age, which led to hearing problems. These became

exacerbated by multiple inner-ear infections. But he would later attribute his hearing loss to

being struck on the ears by a train conductor who caught him in a fire on a boxcar where he had

been doing his lab experiments; the conductor threw him

off the train. It happened, he said, in Smith’s Creek, Michigan.

Edison was the fourth most prolific inventor in history, holding

1,093 patents in his name before he died on October 18, 1931

in West Orange, New Jersey. He was to become well known by

his nick-name, “The Wizard of Menlo Park,” a phrase coined by

a newspaper reporter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison

WILLIAM E . “DUMMY” HOY FA M O U S D E A F B A S E B A L L P L AY E R

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William Ellsworth “Dummy” Hoy is probably the best known deaf Major League Baseball player. He was born May 23, 1862 in Houcktown, Ohio, and attended the Ohio School for the Deaf, first playing for them before going to the majors as an American League center fielder.

He debuted in 1888 and ended his career in 1902, having played for four major league teams(one of only 29 players to have done this) including the Cincinatti Reds and two Washington, D.C. teams.

He is credited with causing the establishment of signals for safe and out calls.

Dummy was 99 when he died on December 15, 1961 in Ohio. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dummy_Hoy

DOUGLAS TILDEN D E A F S C U L P T O R

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The Mechanics Monument,

San Francisco

Douglas Tilden, one of California’s finest sculptors, was born May 1, 1860 into a wealthy family. Tilden fell victim to an epidemic of scarlet fever and lost his hearing when he was almost four.

His family adapted to the sudden hearing loss by sending him to the California Institution for the Education and Care of the Indigent Deaf and Dumb, and the Blind (now California School for the Deaf).

As a pupil, Tilden showed artistic talent and enthusiasm for the outdoors, which he combined into his artwork. He went on to study at the San Francisco School of Design, then spent a year studying at the University of California. After graduation and a frustrating job search, Tilden returned to his old school, where he proved to be a natural and passionate teacher.

After seeing a plaster sculpture created of his younger brother in 1883, Tilden was hooked. He learned the art of sculpting quickly and by 1885, he sold his first statue, The Tired Wrestler. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Tilden

Tilden ‘s sculpture, entitled The Baseball Player, was erected on the Champs Elysees. He also created The Bear Hunt and The Tired Boxer. The Tired Boxer garnered Tilden an honorable mention at the prestigious 1890 Salon, the highest status ever achieved by an American.

Tilden, the only deaf full-time teacher at the Mark Hopkins Institute, taught sculpture classes through gesturing. He retired from the Institute in 1902 devoting all his time to his sculpture.

JULIETTE GORDON LOWF O U N D E R O F T H E G I R L S C O U T S O F T H E U S A

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Juliette Magill Kinzie Gordon was born in Savannah, Georgia, and was known as "Daisy" for most of her life because when her uncle saw her as a baby girl, he said, "I'll bet she'll be a daisy!." Another one of her nicknames was "Little Ship." Her grandparents in the North called her that because she would always beg to hear the story about her great-grandmother, who was captured by Indians. Even though she was a captive, she was always joyful, so the Indians started calling her "Little-Ship-Under-Full-Sail."

When she was about 25 years old, Juliette suffered an ear infection which was treated with silver nitrate. This treatment damaged her ear, causing her to lose a great deal of her hearing in that ear.

At the age of 26, even though her parents had apprehensions, she married William Mackay "Willy" Low on December 21, 1886, which happened to be her parents' 29th wedding anniversary. A grain of rice thrown at the wedding became lodged in Juliette's good ear. When it was removed, her ear drum was punctured and became infected, causing her to become completely deaf in that ear. Her hearing was severely limited for the rest of her life.

Her marriage to Mr. Low proved to be childless and unhappy. Although the couple moved to England, Juliette continued her travels and divided her time between the British Isles and America. During the Spanish-American War, Juliette came back to America to aid in the war effort. Shehelped her mother organize a

Juliette Gordon Low

(1860-1927)convalescent hospital for wounded soldiers returning from Cuba. Her father was a commissioned general for the U.S. Army and served on the Puerto Rican Peace Commission.

(Continued)

J U L I E TT E G O R D O N L O WF O U N D E R O F T H E G I R L S C O U T S O F T H E U S A - C O N T.

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As early as 1901, due to her husband's infidelities, Juliette intended to get a divorce. However, her husband died before the divorce proceedings could be finalized. When his will was read, Juliette discovered that her husband had left his money to his mistress. She was left with a small widow's pension. It was in 1911 that Juliette met Second Boer War hero (and founder of the Scouting movement) Robert Baden-Powell and his sister Agnes. Juliette and Sir (later Lord) Baden Powell shared a passion for sculpture and art. Ms. Low also enjoyed working with iron.

While in the UK, Juliette worked as a Girl Guide leader for troops she organized in Scotland and London.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliette_Gordon_Low

Juliette decided to found something similar for the girls of America. On March 12, 1912, Juliette gathered 18 girls to register the first troop of American Girl Guides. Margaret "Daisy Doots" Gordon, her niece and namesake, was the first registered member, but did not attend the first meeting. The name of the organization was changed to Girl Scouts the following year. The organization was incorporated in 1915, with Juliette serving as president until 1920, when she was granted the title of founder.

Juliette was known for being eccentric and charming. She also wrote poems; sketched, wrote and acted in plays; and became a skilled painter and sculptor. She had many pets throughout her life and was particularly fond of exotic birds, Georgia mockingbirds, and dogs.

Juliette died January 17, 1927, from breast cancer, and was buried in her Scout uniform.

George W. Veditz Deaf Leader and Advocate

(1861-1937)

George Veditz was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1861 to German-speaking immigrants. He was deafened by illness at the age of nine.

He attended the Maryland School for the Deaf in Frederick, Maryland andwas a top student at Gallaudet College.

After graduating from Gallaudet, he taught at deaf schools in Maryland and Colorado.

Mr. Veditz founded the Colorado Association for the Deaf and was twice voted president of theNational Association of the Deaf (NAD).

George Veditz was a staunch advocate of Deaf rights and an opponent of oralism, or the oral method of teaching the deaf; throughout his life, he defended the use of sign language eloquently.

He spearheaded a project to record people using sign language on film, a pioneer of Deaf film making, and a legacy of early 20th Century ASL in action. George died in 1937.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Veditz

Calbraith (or Cal) Perry Rogers was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1879.

Cal Rodgers became totally deaf in one ear and partially deaf in the other at six years of age due to scarlet fever.

A wealthy sportsman and amateur pilot, Cal took up William Randolph Hearst’s offer of a $50,000 prize to be the first to fly across the United States coast-to-coast, and he succeeded on December 10, 1911.

He died in Long Beach in 1912 as the result of a plane crash during an exhibition event.

http://earlyaviators.com/erodgers.htm

Calbraith “Cal” Perry RodgersPioneering Pilot with Hearing

Loss(1879-1912)

Cal Rodgers Aviation Pioneer

HELEN KELLERD E A F- B L I N D H U M A N I TA R I A N, E D U C AT O R ,

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The name of Helen Adams Keller is known around the world as a symbol of courage in the face of overwhelming odds, yet she was much more than a symbol. She was a woman of luminousintelligence, high ambition and great accomplishment. She devoted her life tohelping others.

Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on June 27, 1880. When shewas only 19 months old, she contracteda fever that left her blind and deaf.

When she was almost seven years old, her parents engaged Anne Mansfield Sullivan to be her tutor. With enormousdedication, Miss Sullivan was able tohelp develop Helen's enormousintellect. Keller quickly learned to read and write, and spoke by the age of 10. When she was 20, she entered Radcliffe College, with Miss Sullivan at her side to spell textbooks – letter by letter – into her hand. Four years later, Radcliffe awarded Helen Keller a Bachelor’s degree magna cum laude.

After graduation, Helen Keller began her life's work of helping blind and deaf-blind people. She appeared before state and national legislatures and international forums, traveled around the world to lecture, and to visit areas with a

high incidence of blindness, and wrote numerous books and articles. She met every U.S. president from Grover

Cleveland to Lyndon Johnson, and played a major role in focusing the world's attention on the problems of the blind and the need for preventive measures.

Miss Keller won numerous honors, including honorary university degrees, the Lions Humanitarian Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and election to the Women's Hall of Fame. During her lifetime, she was consistently ranked near the top of "most admired" lists.

She died at her home of Arcan Ridge, in Easton, Connecticut, on June 1, 1968. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Keller

GEORGE E. HYDEDEAF AND SEMI-BLIND HISTORIAN

OF THE PLAINS INDIANS(1882-1968)

George Hyde was born in Omaha, Nebraska on June 10, 1882. By the time he was 16, George was profoundly deaf as well as semi-blind due to illness.

Hyde had established friendships with the Native Americans in and around Omaha, Nebraska. From an early age, he was fascinated with their teachings, sign language communication, and culture. George wrote lively but authoritative monographs and books about his subjects, one of them being the Sioux leader George Bent (pictured at lower right).

George used both powerful corrective lenses and a magnifying glass to write down the data and first-hand accounts he collected from his native Nebraskan informants.

George’s career as a Plains Indian Historian was a natural outgrowth of the love and admiration he had for Native Americans, making research a joy, despite his physicallimitations.

Where previous historians had relied on “official” documents and accounts from secondhand sources, George Hyde went directly to the source for hisbooks, an innovative approach for his time.

His major works include Red Cloud’s Folk (1937), A Sioux Chronicle (1956)and Spotted Tail’s Folk (1961), today considered classics in their genre.George Hyde died at age 85 in 1968 in his native Nebraska.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_E._Hyde

PRINCESS ALICE OF BATTENBERG

PRINCESS OF GREECEMOTHER OF PRINCE PHILIP,

DUKE OF EDINBURGH(1885-1969)

Princess Alice was born Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie in Windsor Castle on February 25, 1885, to Prince Louis of Battenberg and Princess Victoria of the House of Hesse; born congenitally deaf. She grew up in Germany, England, and the Mediterranean.

She married Prince Andrew of Greece in 1903, having four daughters and Prince Philip. They were exiled in 1917 with most of the Greek royal family .

The family returned to Greece a few years later but were again exiled because Prince Andrew was blamed, in part, for the defeat of Greece in the Greco-Turkish War occurring between 1919 and 1922. The family was returned to Greece in 1935 when the monarchy was restored.

Alice was committed to a sanatorium in 1930 due to paranoid schizophrenia, separating her from her husband for the rest of their days. After Alice recovered, to a degree, she began an itinerant, closeted existence in Central Europe, away from prying eyes, not speaking to the rest of the family until 1936. The funeral of her daughter, Cecile, killed with her husband and two of their children in a plane crash in 1937, helped her resume contact with her remaining family.

Princess Alice returned to Athens in 1938 to work with the poor, staying in Athens during World War II where she sheltered Jewish refugees of the War. After the War, Alice founded an order of Greek Orthodox nursing nuns called the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary.

After the fall of King Constantine II of Greece and the imposition of military rule there in 1967, she went to live out her days at Buckingham Palace with Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, dying of cancer on December 5, 1969.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Alice_of_Battenberg

Eleanor “Nellie” Zabel was born in Box Elder, SouthDakota on November 22,1892.

Nellie came down with the measles at the age of two,leaving her totally deaf.

She enrolled in aviation school, her first solo flighttaking place in 1928. She became South Dakota’s firstwoman to have a pilot’s license and the first deaf woman in history to learn to fly a plane.

She named her first plane “Pard” in honor of her father.

Nellie was inducted into the South Dakota Aviation Hallof Fame just before her death on September 2, 1991.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nellie_Zabel_Willhite

Eleanor “Nellie” Zabel Willhite

First Deaf Aviatrix

(1892-1991)

Image Courtesy of ricomputermuseum.org

TTY image courtesy of weitbrecht.com

Robert H. Weitbrecht was born on April 11, 1920 in

Orange, California, deafened by illness from a young age.

His mother taught him to read lips before he was sent to school with other deaf children, where he was taught to read and to speak using the oral method.

One of his teachers took him to factories when he was a child, instilling in him a love of science and how things worked. This lead to Weitbrecht being only truly happy when around, and working with, machines.

ROBERT H . WEITBRECHTS C I E N T I S T A N D I N V E N T O R

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His schooling later took him to Santa Ana Junior College and the University of California at Berkeley., He eventually graduated with a Masters in Astronomy at the University of Chicago.

He was an electronics scientist at the U.S. NavalAir Missile Test Center, and earned the U.S.Navy’s Superior Accomplishment Award after working on the Manhattan Project.

In 1948, he helped create the first worldwide radio communications system and later created acamera for focusing on stars.

With two other deaf scientists, he created the Phonetype Acoustic Coupler, now called the TTY machine. The TTY was groundbreaking in that it allowed deaf people to communicate over the telephone.

Robert died after being hit by a car in May of 1983.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Weitbrecht

ROY KAY HOLCOMBFATHER OF

“TOTAL COMMUNICATION”(1923-1998)

Roy Kay Holcomb was born on July 24, 1923 in Texas, one of eight children born to a dirt-poor laborer’s family. No one realized Roy was deaf until he was nine years of age, after which he was enrolled in the Texas School for the Deaf in Austin, Texas, a strictly oral-based, military-type school.

Roy struggled with his schooling, but he read well and excelled at baseball and basketball, and was the Blue Bison’s leading scorer after enrolling in Gallaudet University in 1943. He was one of Gallaudet’s “Five Iron Men” at the Mason-Dixon Conference Tournament at Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland. Roy played in all three games, winning the Tournament.

After graduating Gallaudet University in 1947, Roy married his deaf spouse Marjoriebell “Mabs’ Starkey and raised two deaf sons.http://deafpeople.com/history/history_info/roy_holcomb.html

Roy became an administrator at Gallaudet, popularizing the deaf learning system known as “Total Communication.” Total Communication is a philosophy first proposed by Holcomb which stated that each deaf student had a right to whatever form of teaching discipline and deaf communication style was the most suitable or appropriate for that child.

This philosophy represented a breakaway from the rigidity of a total oral approach to deaf education, oralism having dominated the education of the deaf for nearly a century before Holcomb’s new philosophical approach.

Roy Holcomb died ofParkinson’s disease onThanksgiving Day,November 26, 1998.

Image courtesy of deaflife.com

ANDREW J. FOSTERDEAF EDUCATOR

(1925-1987)

Foster was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1925, and lost his hearing at age eleven after suffering from spinal meningitis.

Drawn to a career in education, he attended the Alabama School for the Negro Deaf in Talladega and, in 1954, became the first African American to graduate from Gallaudet College in Washington, D.C. After obtaining his master's degree, Foster set out to achieve his childhood dream of establishing schools for deaf students.

In 1956, Foster founded the Christian Mission for Deaf Africans, and a year later he opened the Accra Mission School for the Deaf in Accra, Ghana. He also established a boarding school for deaf children in Mampong-Akwapim, near Accra, and a mission in Ibadan, Nigeria.

These institutions, which marked the beginning of education for the deaf in Africa, also created opportunities for Foster's African students to attend Gallaudet College.

Foster later received an honorary doctoral degree from Gallaudet for his contributions to the education of deaf people.

A deeply religious man, Foster taught sign language to many Africans so they could fulfill his favorite Bible verse, Isaiah 29:10: "In that day, the deaf will hear the words of the book."

Dedicated and tireless,he continued opening schools in Africa until the end of his life in 1987. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Foster_(educator)

Dr. Andrew J. Foster, a pioneer in education for deaf individuals, was instrumental in founding twenty-two schools and an equal number of religious programs for deaf children in more than twenty African countries.

GIL EASTMANDEAF ACTOR, DIRECTOR, PLAYWRIGHT, TEACHER,

AND WRITER(1934-2006)

Gilbert C. Eastman was born into a hearing family in Middletown, Connecticut on September 12, 1934.

He graduated from the American School for the Deaf in 1952 having learned ASL, as well as learning to communicate at home using speechreading and writing on paper with his parents and using fingerspelling with his two brothers.

Eastman received a B.A. degree from Gallaudet University in 1957 and an MFA in Drama from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., which was a pioneering achievement for someone deaf.

http://deafpeople.com/history/history_info/eastman.html

Having been asked to teach at Gallaudet

University, Gil founded and chaired the

Department of Drama (later to be called the

Theatre Arts Department) where he taught Drama

and “Visual-Gestural Communication,” a course he

designed personally, until 1992.

Mr. Eastman translated the Greek Tragedy Antigone

into American Sign Language (ASL) and he wrote

other plays, including: Sign Me Alice, Laurent Clerc: A

Profile, Hands, What?, Aladdin and His Magic Lamp,

Sign Me Alice II, and Can Do: A Revue. He helped

found the National Theatre of the Deaf and went on

tours with them from 1967-1971.

In the late 1980’s, Gil was co-host of the Emmy

Award-winning news magazine program on cable,

called “Deaf Mosaic” which featured stories of deaf

people around the world. Mr. Eastman died on

December 2, 2006.

(

Image courtesy of powells.com

Irving King Jordan was born to hearing parents on June 16, 1943 in Glen Riddle, Pennsylvania, a small town near Philadelphia.

Jordan became deaf at the age of 21 due to a motorcycle injury when he was flung into the windshield of a car resulting in a skull fracture.

Jordan went on to Gallaudet University earning a doctorate there in psychology, eventually becoming Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. He made numerous scholarly contributions to his field of study in his various appointments at Gallaudet.

I . KING JORDANF I R S T D E A F P R E S I D E N T

O F G A L L A U D E T U N I V E R S I T Y

The students, alumni, staff, faculty and friends of Gallaudet University thought that, since the college is the only one with all programs and services designed especially for the Deaf and hard of hearing, it was important that a deaf president was chosen to lead Gallaudet.

Jordan announced his intentions to retire from his position at Gallaudet on September 1, 2005, retiring in December of 2006.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._King_Jordan

On March 13, 1988, due to the “Deaf President Now” movement on campus, I. King Jordan was chosen as the President of Gallaudet University, the only deaf person to hold that office before Jordan’s tenure.

VINT CERF H A R D O F H E A R I N G C O - F O U N D I N G FAT H E R O F T H E I N T E R N E T

Vint Cerf was born Vinton Gray Cerf on June

23, 1943 in New Haven, Connecticut. He is

recognized as one of “the fathers of the

Internet” along with American computer

scientist Bob Kahn.

His string of honorary degrees and awards

include: The National Medal of

Technology The Turing Award The Presidential Medal of

Freedom, and Membership in the National

Academy of Engineering

Cerf graduated from Stanford University with a

B.S. in Mathematics, then on to IBM as a

systems engineer supporting QUIKTRAN.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vint_Cerf

Cerf was instrumental in connecting the first two nodes of the ARPANet, predecessor of the Internet, working with Robert E. Kahn who was working on the ARPANet hardware architecture. Cerf went on to become an assistant professor at Stanford University where he conducted research on packet network interconnection protocols and co-designed the DoD TCP/IP protocol suite with Mr. Kahn. Cerf was co-founder of the Internet Society with Bob Kahn in 1992.

In 1997, Cerf joined the Gallaudet University Board of Trustees, as he was hard of hearing.

Cerf was instrumental in forming ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) and was on their Board from 1999-2007. Since September, 2005, Cerf has worked as a Vice President of Google, as their Chief Internet Evangelist.

MARLEE MATLINDEAF ACTRESS OF STAGE,

FILM, AND SCREEN

Marlee Beth Matlin was born on August 24, 1965 in Morton Grove,Illinois. Marlee has been deaf since she was 18 months old, losing all the hearing in her right ear, and 80% in her left ear, possibly due to a congenitally malformed cochlea when she was born.

Matlin was in a deaf children’s theater group from the age of seven when she played Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. She continued with the group into her late teens when she was discovered by the actor/director Henry Winkler.

Winkler was searching for the right person to play the lead female role in the film version of the play Children of a Lesser God (1986) which would also star William Hurt. ‘Lesser God’ brought Marlee a Golden Globe award for Best Actress in a Drama and an Oscar for Best Actress.

At the time, Marlee was not only the youngest actress to win an Oscar

for Best Female Performer, but the only deaf person to do so, then and now.

She played a deaf widow in the movie Bridge to Silence and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her

work as the lead female role in the television series Reasonable Doubts (1991-1993); she was also nominated for an Emmy Award for a guest appearance in Picket Fences.

Matlin has appeared on many TV shows and has been nominated for Primetime Emmys for her roles on Seinfeld, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and The Practice.

Marlee has written three books: Deaf Child Crossing, Nobody’s Perfect, and I’ll Scream Later, her autobiography.

She starred in the movie What the Bleep Do We Know? In 2004 and was in the cable series The L Word from 2007 to 2009. She received a star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood on May 6, 2009.

Matlin is married to Kevin Grandalski, and has four children, two sons and two daughters. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlee_Matlin

THE ENDTHANK YOU FOR WATCHING!

As we conclude our Deaf Without Limits: Deaf and hard of Hearing Pioneers slideshow

presentation, we would like to acknowledge and thank these informative websites and

webpages for their valuable information:

About.Com, Deafness at

http://deafness.about.com/od/articlesand newsletters/a/famousdeaf.htm

Wikipedia

Deaf Scientist Corner at http://www,twu.edu/dsc/ and

Deaf People.Com at http://wwwdeafpeople.com/

PowerPoint Presentation developed and provided by Scott Bonilla-McIntyre,

Office Technician, Office of Deaf Access