Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Signs Of Culture: Deafness In Nineteenth-Century America, Rebecca A. Rourke '90

Fenwick Scholar Program

While there is an abundance of research on twentieth-century manifestations of Deaf culture, the nineteenth-century roots have been largely overlooked. The creation of residential schools for the deaf gave the Deaf population a place to meet and share ideas, for the first time in American history. The close and sustained contact generated cultural development. This thesis addresses the development of a cultural identity among the Deaf population by attempting to compare the experiences and opinions of the Deaf and hearing communities as they existed in nineteenth-century America.