No. 20 DEAF HISTORY INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER FALL 2004

The Man from Missouri: A Tribute to Jack Gannon

BY MICHAEL REIS

It has been almost twenty-five years since Jack Gannon's Deaf Heritage came out during the NAD Centennial Celebrations in 1980. It was the first time in America that anybody saw a comprehensive history of deaf people with sto-ries and pictures. There was so much we didn't know about ourselves!

I want to tell you a story about a little picture in Deaf Heritage that caused confusion, at first, and then surprise among deaf people in Indiana.

I grew up in Evansville, Indiana, and attend-ed the Indiana School for the Deaf (ISD) in Indianapolis - about 165 miles away and a four-hour drive through two-lane roads in southern Indiana. I graduated from ISD in 1970. When Deaf Heritage came out in 1980, I read the book from cover to cover. When I came to page 48, I was amazed to see the small picture of the Evansville Day School for the Deaf. I grew up in Evansville myself, yet I never heard of such a deaf school in myoId hometown!

In 1985, on a visit to Evansville, I stopped by the local deaf club. No one in the deaf club had seen Deaf Heritage before - things like this tend

to trickle slowly from the national level to the local level, especially in blue-collar areas of high under-employment. I showed the book around, and everyone was flabbergasted at the picture of the deaf school in Evansville! The book was passed around several times with the page with the mysterious picture held wide open. No one ever had recalled seeing a building like that.

People questioned me about the author, and when they learned that Mr. Gannon had graduat-ed from Missouri School for the Deaf and that he worked at the Gallaudet University Alumni Office, they scoffed. A former club president exclaimed, "Oh, that explains everything! That man from Missouri works at Gallaudet and he knows nothing about Evansville! I swear that the picture is a big mistake! You know, many smart deaf people at Gallaudet always work at the last minute, hurry up a lot and do lousy work! You just said that that book was for the big fancy NAD birthday party in Cincinnati. They probably found this picture of a deaf school in

CONTINUED ON PAGES 2 AND 3

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HISTORY.

2 DRI NEWSLETIER, No. 20 (FALL 2004)

The Man from Missouri:

the last minute and guessed that it was from Evansville! See, it shows how much those smart people in Gallaudet know nothing!" No one could argue with that logic, and the club mem-bers nodded their heads in agreement. There was no other possible explanation.

Five years later, when I was working at the US Department of Transportation at Washington D.C., I enjoyed going to the Gallaudet Library once a month and browsing through the Gallaudet Archives' collections of old magazines, papers, letters and pictures. A librarian there had asked me if I was interested in giving a pres-entation for the first international deaf history conference coming up in the summer of 1991. I was intrigued, because I was not a trained histo-rian and my college major was not even history! Somehow she was able to persuade me to write up a proposal to send to the conference commit-tee.

I decided to do a short history of ISD during the Depression years, which would involve read-ing all the issues of the school magazine, The Hoosier, from 1929 to 1939, which Gallaudet has on microfilm. It was there in The Hoosier that I noticed brief mentions of the "old deaf school in Evansville." Could the shadowy Evansville Day School for the Deaf really existed?

I made my presentation but I didn't think that it was interesting. There were no big changes at ISD during the Depression Years -except for an unexpected change of superintend-ents in 1935. I felt that talking about myoId school was much more like watching paint dry on a wall. Nevertheless, the first deaf history conference really helped me a lot with meeting people with similar interests and hearing about different books and different ways to get infor-mation.

It happened that in the following year, 1992, ISD held its biennial alumni reunion, and during

Continued ...

the reunion, I showed my paper around. One older graduate of ISD wanted me to meet Charley Whisman, official school historian. He was 80 years old, and had taught at ISD for so many years that everyone lost count. Mr. Whisman gave me his paperbound book, Highlights of the History of the Indiana School for the Deaf. Voila! Mr. Whisman's book not only mentioned the Evansville Day School, but furthermore, gave the name of the deaf man who founded it, and the exact year when it opened! Now, this was the clearest proof that this day school ever had existed!

I remembered that the first deaf history con-ference had mentioned several reference books on American deaf history in the 19th century. With Mr. Whisman's book at hand, I went to the aged volumes of Dr. Edward Fay's Histories of American Schools for the Deaf in 1892. I checked the table of contents for the list of day schools for the deaf, and I spotted a listing for the Evansville Day School for the Deaf in the last volume. I quickly flipped the pages of the last volume, and true enough, there was the etching of the house! That was where the etching on page 48 of the book Deaf Heritage came from!

In 1993, the convention of the national Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) was to be held in Evansville, and I realized this would be great place for me to present a paper on the old Evansville deaf school. It was fun going baok to the Gallaudet Library again for two nights every week for another year to read issues of The Deaf Mutes Journal and The Hoosier between 1887 and 1912. I remembered, however, that some speakers during the first international deaf history in 1991 stressed that it was also impor-tant to go back to local public libraries to search through old newspapers and local collections.

Those conference speakers were darn right! As I read through a list of all masters' theses and

dissertations on Indiana history written in Indiana colleges and universities, I spotted one master's thesis at Indiana University about the history of education in Evansville before 1900. It was written in 1948, but this old thesis had sev-eral references to the "old deaf-mute school" with even some enrollment data! I then checked the Evansville-Vanderburgh County School Corporation offices (the present school board of the public school system of Evansville), and there was another treasure lode of information! The School Corporation still had the handwritten minutes of school board meetings from the 19th century. Of course, the handwritten minutes had several references to the "deaf mute school" with classroom locations, changes in teachers and a long discussion about the final closing of the "deaf mute school" in 1902.

My most interesting experience researching in Evansville, however, was at the main branch of the public library. In the local history and genealogy room, I showed the head librarian the xeroxed copies of the Histories of the American Schools for the Deaf account of the Evansville day school, and the copies of articles from the Deaf Mutes Journal. The head librarian said in slow and clear mouth movements: "Honey, I have lived all my life in Evansville and I never heard of a deaf school here! Let me tell you something - don't believe everything you read in deaf papers!" She smiled and patted my shoul-der at the same time! It was easy to convince her that the "deaf papers" were right, however, by finding further documentation in old Evansville newspapers, the minutes of the school board, and the 1948 master's thesis.

It took about thirteen years to prove the exis-tence of the Evansville Day School -- from 1980 when Deaf Heritage was published to 1993 with my paper at the RID convention at Evansville. The deaf residents of Evansville, the former deaf club president, teachers at the Indiana School for the Deaf in Indianapolis, even the head librarian of the local and genealogy room of the Evansville Vanderburgh County Public Library -- all of these people are chastened to admit that the man from Missouri was right!

DHI NEWSLETTER, No. 20 (FALL 2004) 3

PHOTO OF JACK GANNON

COURTESY OF THE GALIAUDET UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES

4 DHI NEWSLETTER, No. 20 (FALL 2004)

From the Editor's Des k LOIS BRAGG

Dear Friends of Deaf History, We hope you are enjoying our new quar-

terly format. This fall, we have a retrospective on Jack Gannon's seminal Deaf Heritage, written by DHI member Michael Reis. I remember first seeing Jack's book at my sister's house in the early 1980s and totally amazed! Thanks, Michael, for this appreciative piece.

We also have a review of Henri Gaillard's 1917 travelogue of Deaf America. Gaillard was a Deaf Frenchman who came to America to cele-brate the centennial of the founding of the American School for the Deaf in 1817. While in America, he traveled widely and recorded his impressions of Deaf communities allover the country. This important book was translated for Gallaudet University Press by Will Sayers, a fre-quent contributor to the DHI Newsletter, and is reviewed here by my colleague Harry Markowicz.

I'm happy to annoupce that our editorial assistant, Sara Robinson, graduated with her MA

in Deaf Studies from Gallaudet last spring and is now employed full time in the Gallaudet Archives. Congratulations, Sara!

In our next issue, look for a review of the Deaf American journalist and poet, Laura Redden Searing, as well as Tom Harrington's always-useful "New and Noteworthy" column. Yours,

Henri Gaillard, Gaillard in Deaf America: A Portrait of the Deaf Community, 1917

Henri Gaillard, Gaillard in Deaf America: A Portrait of the Deaf Community, 1917 (Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University

Press, 2002). Translated by William Sayers. Edited by Robert Buchanan. 205

pp. $24·95. Bordeaux, France, June 23, 1917.

Four deaf Frenchmen are boarding a ship bound for America. On the way to their destina-tion the ship risks getting blown up by German submarines--America has just joined "The Great War" on the side of France and its allies--but this

danger doesn't deter them from their mission. Henri Gaillard, journalist, author, and activist, is

the leader of this delegation which has been

BOOI< REVIEW invited by the president of the National

Association of the Deaf (NAD) to participate in the centennial celebration of the founding of the

American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. A hundred years earlier, their com-patriot Laurent Clerc was instrumental in its cre-ation, and the creation of other schools, includ-

ing institutions in Philadelphia, New York, Washington, and ultimately Gallaudet College

(now University). Long after his death, the memory of Clerc's contribution to the education and welfare of deaf people in America remains

fresh in the minds of deaf people on both sides of the Atlantic.

Gaillard and the other members of the delegation

J J

1

represented French deaf people at the Clerc Centennial Celebration, but their mission includ-

ed learning all they could about the education, institutions, and organizations of the deaf in

America. After the NAD convention in Hartford, Gaillard and his companions spent three months traveling to half a dozen northeastern cities, ven-

turing as far south as Washington, D.C. to visit

Gallaudet College, and as far west as Akron, Ohio, where the Goodyear Company employed several hundred deaf workers. An astute observer, Gaillard

recorded in his journal every-thing they learned and saw. Everywhere they went, the Frenchmen were treated as

honored guests by their American brethren, a testament

to the solidarity that existed between French and American

deaf people. Back in France, Gaillard pub-lished his journal in 1919 as a book titled Mission de sourds-muets fran<;ais aux Etats-Unis

(Juillet 1917): rapport des delegues. In 1980, I came

across this book in the library of the Institut National de

DHI NEWSLETIER, No. 20 (FALL 2004) 5

their own companies. Gaillard's observations convinced him that deaf education in this coun-try was more advanced than in Europe and as a result deaf Americans had more opportunities and were living better than their counterpart

elsewhere. No other country could boast ofhav-ing an equivalent to Gallaudet College that pro-

vided leaders for the deaf throughout America.

This outsider's view of deaf America in the early part of

the last century may surprise the reader of today. We

think of France as the coun-try where sign-language-

based education came into its own and where by mid-19th century deaf artists,

writers, teachers, and arti-sans flourished. On the

other hand, America in its period of Oralism is thought of as the "Dark Ages." John

Buchanan has written an insightful introduction that

puts the journal in its histor-ical context and contributes to its accessibility and inter-

est for today's reader.

J eunes Sourds in Paris and found it fascinating, particu-

PHOTO OF GAILLARD

Finally, William Sayers' translation manages to cap-ture the flavor of Gaillard's writing, making it as enjoy-able to read as the original, larly for what it reveals about

the deaf community in America in the early part of the 20th Century. So when William Sayers asked me to suggest French books that merit

translation into English, Gaillard's journal was the first one to come to my mind. I am delighted

that Sayers' translation has been published. In his journal, Gaillard described in great detail their daily activities: the many social events they attended, the schools and organizations they vis-ited, the people they met, and his impressions of their lives. His comments on various aspects of American life and customs are very insightful.

Gaillard and his companions met some remark-able deaf men, including businessmen who ran

although I did catch one amusing mistranslation: on page 140, the text should read, "Each bath-room is designed for four students. There are

sinks with hot and cold water and mirrors." -- not "cold showers"!

-- Harry Markowicz is Associate Professor of English at Gallaudet University and the author

or co-author of many academic articles on American Sign Language.

6 DHI NEWSLETTER, No. 20 (FALL 2004)

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