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Vice President
Deirdre Schlehofer
Rochester Institute of Technology dxsnss @ rit. edu
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A while back, I stumbled across a picture of
Alexander Graham Bell, Helen Keller, and Anne Sullivan in
Chautauqua, New York in 1894. Best known as the instructor and lifelong companion of Helen, Anne was
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standing over Helen and Bell who were sitting next to each | ||
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Recording Secretary /
Newsletter Editor
Andrew P. J. Byrne
Framingham State University abyrne @ framingham. edu
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other. Helen, the first deaf-blind individual to earn a bachelor of arts degree, placed her right hand over Bell’ s right hand to feel the letters of the one-handed American manual alphabet being produced. What is interesting about the picture( see page 3) is that Bell appeared to be able to use the manual alphabet. It is well-known that Bell used the |
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two-handed British manual alphabet to communicate with | ||
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Treasurer
Harvey Nathanson
Austin Community College harvey. nathanson @ austincc. edu
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his mother who was hard of hearing. I could not help but wonder if he was familiar with signed language in addition to fingerspelling. This prompted me to dig even further into
Bell’ s knowledge and use of signed language.
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According to Van Cleve and Crouch( 1989), the | ||
Membership Director |
Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of |
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Ron Fenicle |
Deaf and Dumb Persons( now known as the American |
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ronfenicle @ gmail. com |
School for the Deaf or ASD) in Hartford invited Bell to the |
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school in the spring of 1872 to teach Visible Speech. While | ||
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SASL Journal
Editor-in-Chief
Jody H. Cripps
Towson University jcripps @ towson. edu
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residing there for two months, he“ learned enough American
Sign Language [ ASL ] to use it with some ease”( p. 117).
Lane( 1984) noted,“ At commencement, he talked to the graduating class in sign”( p. 349). However, Lane presented a somewhat different story. Before arriving in Hartford, Bell
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had already begun learning ASL in Boston, Massachusetts | ||
with several deaf adults, especially William Chamberlain, a | ||
brilliant graduate of ASD and one of the founders of the | ||
Members-at-Large |
New England Gallaudet Association. |
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Patrick Boudreault
Gallaudet University patrick. boudreault @ gallaudet. edu
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What convinced me that Bell knew ASL is the book that I read: The Deaf Mute Howls by Albert Ballin( originally published in 1930 and re-published by Gallaudet University
Press in 1998; see the next page for the book cover). Ballin
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Russell Rosen |
was deaf and born to deaf parents and attended the New |
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CUNY – Staten Island russell. rosen @ csi. cuny. edu |
York School for the Deaf( Fanwood) for a number of years.
He was heavily involved in the deaf community as a painter,
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Gabriel Arellano
Georgetown University ga430 @ georgetown. edu
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an American representative to the 1889 World Congress of the Deaf in Paris, a film actor, a writer, and a storyteller
( Lang & Meath-Lang, 1995). He was a native signer in every
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right. | ||
( Continue on page 3) |
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The Power of ASL |
2 |
Winter 2016 – Issue 4 |