More negative self-image and perceptions can be identified through reading what Mabel wrote
about herself:
I have striven in every possible way to have that fact [my deafness] forgotten and so to appear
so completely normal that I would pass as one. To have anything to do with other deaf people
instantly brought the hardly concealed fact into evidence. So I have helped other things and
people……anything and everything but the deaf. To say a child was deaf was enough to make
me refuse to take any public notice of it. If help had to be given, it was always given at a
distance. Of all people I hated most was a teacher of the deaf. I was alw ays on the lookout for
a little difference in their manner of addressing me, which would reveal the fact that I was a
“case” in their eyes. (Toward, 1996, p. 236)
Daughter
Elsie
Mabel
(age 28)
Alexander
G. Bell
Daughter
Marian
Circa 1885
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Graham_Bell#/media/File:Alexander_Graham_Bell_and_family.jpg
Not only did Mabel attempt to avoid socializing with deaf people, she also saw to it that her
daughters had no involvement with them. Two years before her death, in a letter to her son-in-law,
Gilbert Grosvenor, she wrote:
When my girls were young, I was particularly careful to keep them away from association –
and therefore possible interest and sympathy – with the deaf. My husband was in entire
sympathy with my wish to keep our daughters away from contact with other deaf people whom
they might possibly want to marry. (Toward, 1996, pp. 236-237)
(Continue on the next page)
The Power of ASL
5
Summer 2017 – Issue 6