approximately what percent of deaf people who marry are married to other deaf people

Eugenics and Deafened People in 20th Century America

Trigger warning: allusion to The Holocaust.

Most Americans know Alexander Graham Bell equally the person who is credited with inventing the phone. What some don't know is that Bell was a scientist and researcher, interested not simply in sound, but engineering, helmsmanship, animal husbandry, biological science, and genetics. In fact, he specifically was interested in how genetics could improve the human race. At the time, this study was known as eugenics.

The aim of most eugenics movements was to impact reproductive practice through the application of theories of heredity. Eugenic practice sometimes aimed to forestall life (sterilization, contraception, segregation, ballgame in some instances); it aimed to bring nearly fitter life (environmental reforms, puériculture focused on the preparation and rearing of children, public health); it aimed to generate more than life (pronatalist interventions, treatment of infertility, "eutelegenesis"). And at its most farthermost, information technology concluded life (the so-chosen euthanasia of the disabled, the non-treatment of neonates). Eugenics ever had an evaluative logic at its core. Some man life was of more value — to the state, the nation, the race, future generations — than other human life, and thus its advocates sought to implement these practices differentially.
— [ The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics ]

You can encounter that eugenics was a wide surface area of study and enquiry, involving such things as infertility treatment and ecology reform. The report of eugenics was undertaken by some of the almost learned people, in a time that vaccination and other medical advances were also showing hope of reducing man illness, disability, and suffering.

In 1940s Germany, eugenics took a horrifying plough. Since that time, the word eugenics has been fraught with a dark and terrible connotation, understandably so.

Before that time, eugenics was only science, an emerging course of genetics, informed by science and the mores of the twenty-four hours. Alexander Graham Bell was a member of the the Committee on Eugenics, based in the United states of america, forth with Stanford president David Starr Jordan, and acclaimed botanist Luther Burbank. Their work led to the formation of the American Association for the Report and Prevention of Infant Bloodshed.

Due to his involvement in the Committee on Eugenics, Bell is sometimes accused of leading or participating in a eugenics movement against deafened people. This assertion is evidently false.

Alec Bong, with his wife, Mabel, and their two surviving daughters, Elsie and Marian, both of whom were born hearing.

Bell was interested in the written report of genetics, and how to meliorate people'south lives through genetics. His mother was deaf, and he married a deaf woman (with whom he had 4 children — and then much for the claim that Bell thought that deaf people shouldn't procreate), so he was keenly aware of the issues of deafness. He besides believed that many deaf people could learn how to listen and speak.

At the plow of the 20th century, there was obviously a rumor pervading the Deaf community that Bell, every bit fellow member of the Committee on Eugenics, was advocating for a prohibition of marriage between deafened people, to forbid them from creating more deaf children.

This rumor was not true.

In fact, Dr. James L. Smith, superintendent of the Minnesota Institute for Defectives, wrote to Bong, with the conventionalities that Bong was the Chair of the Committee on Eugenics (he wasn't the chair, he was simply a member). Smith had heard this rumor, that the Committee was poised to propose legislation making it illegal for deaf people to marry.[1]

From the NAD Committee chair in 1908: "Dr. Bell informed me that he was not the Chairman of the committee, though a member, and in closing his letter, he said, regarding the subject-matter of the communication: 'In order that you lot may know my attitude towards the subject of your communication, I may say that I have always deprecated legislative interference with the marriages of the deaf.' "

Bell had never proposed systematic repression of deaf people from marrying one another, and was, in fact, confronting meddling in the affairs of who married whom.

Bell informed Smith that the Chairman of the Commission on Eugenics was Dr. David Starr Jordan, of Stanford University, then Smith then wrote to Jordan:

"Dear Sir: Some time ago the press dispatches stated that the Committee of which you are Chairman had decided to propose legislation forbidding the intermarriage of the deaf forth with that of certain other classes.

This report has aroused intense feeling amidst the deaf as a class. At the Convention of the National Association of the Deafened, held at Norfolk concluding July, a commission was appointed to confer with your committee in the thing. As Chairman of that commission, I should like to know, before proceeding further, if the press report is true, and if the Commission on Eugenics has taken, or intends to take, whatever action looking to the inclusion of the deaf among undesirable classes whom it is proposed to bar from matrimonial alliances.

Yours respectfully,
J. L. Smith.
Faribault, Minn, January 25, 1908."

Jordan wrote back:

"Mr. J. L. Smith, Faribault, Minn.

Beloved Sir: The Committee on Eugenics has not recommended and has never thought of recommending the prohibition of the intermarriage of the deaf. If deafness has been caused by accident or illness it is not in any degree inheritable. For people built-in absolutely deaf there is the likelihood of its having an hereditary tendency, but this is a affair in which the people interested are concerned, and not a subject, I remember, for statute.

I had never heard of the matter to which you refer until Mr. Alexander G. Bell, one of the committee, wrote that he had received letters criticizing him for making such a proffer. Neither he, nor I, nor any member of the Committee on Eugenics is responsible for information technology. I am told that the idea originated with some committee on charities.

Very truly yours,

David Starr Jordan, President.
Stanford University, Cal., February 11, 1908."

Jordan too wrote to another NAD fellow member, at the aforementioned time:

"Dearest Sir: The report of the Committee on Eugenics was sent some time ago to Mr. Westward. M. Hays of the Agency of Agriculture at Washington, D.C. I presume that he will print information technology somewhere, only at nowadays I have no copies. The commission of the preceding yr, of which, I believe, Mr. Bell was Chairman, had no meetings, fabricated no report and did nix of any kind whatever. In that location is, therefore, no foundation for the statement [regarding the segregation of the deaf]. No innuendo regarding the deaf is contained in the report of the committee of the past year. In brief, I take not heard that any person connected with either committee had made any such recommendation. Equally to the residue, it seems to belong to the sphere of yellow journalism."

This satisfied the NAD, that the Committee on Eugenics has no interest in restricting the matrimony of deaf people to ane another. In fact, later on this exchange, the NAD concluded:

"The alphabetic character of Dr. Jordan above effectually disposes of the matter then far equally the Committee on Eugenics is concerned, and the deaf of the country have no basis to look for interference with their matrimonial rights. I accept communicated the results of my correspondence with Dr. Bell and Dr. Jordan to all my colleagues on the committee, and have advised them that no further action is called for on their part.

Yours respectfully,

J. L. Smith, Chairman. Faribault, Minn., February 22, 1908.

Mr. H. R. Smoak: I movement that the report be accepted. Seconded by Mr. H. Long and passed."

To summarize, as early on every bit 1908, the NAD was satisfied that Bell and other scientists studying eugenics had no interest whatsoever in preventing deaf people from marrying one another and producing children.

Now, allow's fast-forward to 1920, in Detroit. NAD is having its almanac convention. As reported in the 1921 Biennial Report of the Maryland Schoolhouse for the Deaf, recounting the activities of that meeting:

"Whereas, Statistics and ascertainment take shown that the liability to deaf offspring is increased to a marked extent past (ane) the intermarriage of the congenitally deaf, and (2) the spousal relationship of the congenitally deaf into families having deaf relatives… Resolved, That the National Association of the Deaf get on record as viewing such marriages with disapproval and earnestly urge the deaf to avoid such unions if possible." [2]

This history makes it clear that Alexander Graham Bong did not target deaf people in his role as a eugenics researcher.

It is as well articulate that the NAD did, in fact, support eugenics-informed behavior for deafened people, actively discouraging them from marrying other deaf people, or other people with deafness in their families, so that they would be less likely to accept deaf offspring.

I hope this historical business relationship helps to clarify the role of both Alexander Graham Bell and of the National Association for the Deaf with regards to the eugenics movement in the early 20th century in the United States.

Followup:

Some readers have shared this essay, and chosen into question the validity or veracity of its comments. Some even went so far equally to say that there weren't references to primary source materials (I promise you're all able to run across the links included above, but if you feel that something that should be cited is not, delight do allow me know).

I wrote a followup on some of this criticism, which I republish below.

I'g intimately familiar with Bell'southward 1884 scientific paper "Memoir upon the formation of a deaf diversity of the human race", which was written approximately 30 years prior to his 1908 correspondence cited in my essay, and nearly 35 years before the NAD's official opinion confronting intermarriage and procreation of deaf people. The lion'southward share of Bell's 1884 newspaper is tables, charts, and graphs about genetics and speculation on heritability of traits. Affiliate Half dozen is wildly criticized in Deaf militant organizations as a polemic confronting a deaf race. In fact, it is only an observation of the characteristics of a developing race, and what would either encourage or discourage its proliferation.

Bell never advocated against marriage or intermarriage of deaf people, nor did he support atrocities such as sterilization, abortion, or murder of deafened people — although many people seem to conflate the word "eugenics" with the horrors wrought past people such as Josef Mengele.

(From Bell, Alexander Thousand. "Spousal relationship." Scientific discipline, vol. 17, no. 424, 1891, pp. 160–163.)

At the plow of the 20th century, when Bong was doing this research and working with deafened people, deafness was a great hardship, both for deaf people themselves, and for their families — including Bell's family, as his female parent and wife were both deaf. There was no nationwide manual language for deafened people in the The states — manual advice differed wildly from institution to institution, and in most cases, from home to home (because at that time, many people thought that deaf children were not educable, and so were not schooled). The reality of the time was that nearly deaf people could only communicate with the people in their families through home sign "languages" (which were not full languages), or through more robust sign systems taught at individual small-scale schools or in villages throughout the nation (most of which were also not considered full languages). ASL didn't begin to gain traction until ASD drew students from Maine, New Hampshire, and Martha'due south Vineyard, and adapted those regional sign languages, along with French Sign Language, to create a truly robust and complete American Sign Language.

Many well-to-do American families sent their deaf children to Europe, to learn manual languages that had already evolved into robust advice systems, or to learn oral languages. In fact, it wasn't until the 1860s that nigh deaf schools in the Usa were using ASL, and it was rarely used outside of those institutions. Of course, this achievement was brusque-lived — the Milan Conference of 1880 was the beginning of a dismantling of this positive growth and development. (Many people don't know, though, that AG Bell was not, in fact, a consul to the Milan Briefing. There were more than than 7 nations represented at the Milan Conference, and a total of 4 delegates from simply two nations, the The states and Britain, were against giving preference to oral instruction over manual instruction of deaf children. There were five Us delegates and 55 British delegates. All other delegates from all other nations represented voted to prioritize spoken languages over signed languages.)

It wasn't until Stokoe arrived at Gallaudet in the 1950s that standardization on ASL, and its recognition as a complete language, was recognized, and it began to regain its rightful status equally a complete manual linguistic communication.

Today, Deaf civilisation and easy access to American Sign Language ways that deafness is not a hardship. Deaf people tin live perfectly fulfilling lives within the Deaf Community, deciding how much they wish to engage with hearing people, if at all. In the fourth dimension before the early 20th century, on the other hand, deafness was a hardship — documented fourth dimension and time once again past deaf advocates as well as NAD leaders of the time. Except for the fortunate few in deaf communities, being deafened was isolating, and the perceptions typical Americans had of deaf people were negative. Bong worked to dispel those myths — in fact, in the very essay of his I mentioned earlier, Bell said that information technology was learned people'due south obligation to dispel the fallacies nigh deafened people who don't speak, that signing "excite surprise and even sometimes alert in ignorant minds," and information technology was the learned people'due south responsibility to brainwash the common people otherwise.

Bell was one of the first and nigh well-respected men to assert that deaf people were non mentally impaired in whatever way, but instead had the aforementioned capacity for intellect as hearing people. In fact, "As early as 1872 he began a crusade for recognizing the intellectual possibilities of deafened children." (Osborne, Harold Smith. Biographical Memoir of Alexander Graham Bong, 1847–1922. Washington: National Academy of Sciences, 1943. Print.)

On the other hand, Edward Milner Gallaudet, son of Thomas Gallaudet, and a contemporary of Bong, had what now might seem to exist surprising thoughts. I will get out them here without comment.

(From Gallaudet, Edward M. "The Intermarriage of the Deafened, and Their Pedagogy." Scientific discipline, vol. 16, no. 408, 1890, pp. 295–299.)

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