History of the Deaf (after 1880)

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This article looks at the history of the Deaf, or Deaf History, from the Milan Congress from 1880 to the 21st century .

The Congress in Milan in 1880

The articles Milan Congress of 1880 and History of the Deaf (after 1880) #The Congress of Milan 1880 overlap thematically. Help me to better differentiate or merge the articles (→  instructions ) . To do this, take part in the relevant redundancy discussion . Please remove this module only after the redundancy has been completely processed and do not forget to include the relevant entry on the redundancy discussion page{{ Done | 1 = ~~~~}}to mark. Coyote III ( discussion ) 18:04, Jun 21, 2013 (CEST)


According to the resolution of the "Paris Congress for the Improvement of the Lot of the Deaf and Mute" of September 30, 1878 , the Second International Congress of Deaf and Mute Teachers will be held in Italy from September 6 to 11, 1880, but in Milan instead of Como as originally decided . The premises in the Brerá Palace will be made available for the congress by the Lombard Institute for Arts and Sciences.

In addition to the ten-member organizing committee (all from France) and the three-member local committee (all from Italy) there were 18 other members and "corresponding members" from France , Sweden , Italy , Switzerland , Austria , Germany , the Netherlands , England and the USA present at the congress.

All members of Congress were hearing; deaf teachers were not invited to the organizing committee or as members.

The members of the Congress passed the following resolutions: (More detailed and complete descriptions in the article in the 1880 Congress of Milan )

1. Resolution: "Convinced of the undisputed superiority of spoken language over sign language (...), the congress declares that the use of spoken language in teaching and educating the deaf and dumb is preferable to sign language." This resolution was passed with great enthusiasm by the majority of the deaf-mute teachers assembled, but the representatives of Sweden and the USA voted against it.

2. Resolution: "Whereas the simultaneous use of sign language and the spoken word has the disadvantage that it interferes with speaking, lip reading and clarity of concepts, Congress believes that the the pure articulation method is preferable. "

3. Resolution: "Considering that instruction for the deaf and mute must be given through verbal language, the Congress pronounces itself:

  1. that the most effective means of making the speaking deaf-mute into possession of the colloquial language is to use the descriptive method, which consists in designating first through the word, then through the writing the objects and actions which have been brought before the pupils ;
  2. that on the lower levels one only has to guide the deaf and dumb to the observance of grammatical forms by means of examples and practical exercises and on the upper level to achieve this goal one has to add grammatical rules, but observing the greatest simplicity and the greatest possible clarity. "

4th resolution: "In view of the results that have emerged from numerous attempts made on deaf-mutes of all ages and living conditions who have recently left school, in that they answered questions about the most varied of subjects with certainty and sufficient clarity and with great skill read off the lips of others, the Congress explains:

  1. that the deaf-and-dumb taught by the pure articulation method do not forget the knowledge they have acquired after leaving school, but rather develop it further through oral intercourse with others and through reading;
  2. that they use spoken language exclusively in their intercourse with the senseless;
  3. that the ability to speak and read from the lips is by no means lost, but rather develops through use to greater skill. "

5. Resolution: Whereas large numbers of deaf-mutes lack the benefits of teaching because families and institutes do not have the necessary resources, Congress wishes the governments to organize the necessary events like that all the deaf and mute receive adequate instruction. "

As further explanations and views of the Congress has been presented:

  • "The Congress believes that the books that are accessible to the understanding of the deaf and mute can be placed in their hands at any time."
  • "Considering the particular difficulties of teaching the deaf and dumb according to the articulation method, and based on the experience of almost all deaf and dumb teachers, the Congress declares:
  • that the most favorable age for deaf and mute children to enter school is between the ages of 8 and 10;
  • that school attendance must last at least 7, better 8 years;
  • that a teacher using the pure articulation method cannot teach more than 10 students.

Considering that in institutions in which the pure articulation method has not been used up to that point, the introduction of it may only be carried out gradually and gradually in a clever calculation, the Congress is of the opinion:

  • that the new students form a special class in which lessons are given according to the articulation method;
  • that these pupils are to be separated from the other deaf and mute people who have already progressed too far to be taught by the articulation method, whose training must therefore be completed through sign language;
  • that a new class using the articulation method should be established every year until all older students who are being taught by sign language have completed their education. "

The aftermath of the Milan Congress

The implementation of the resolutions in the school system, especially by Germany and France, had far-reaching consequences:

  • The overemphasis on the linguistic side turned the deaf school into a speech and language school. This resulted in a narrowing of language and educational resources. A lot of time and effort was expended in acquiring the ability to speak, so that the increase in knowledge in the subject subjects was considerably restricted.
  • The exclusion of the sign, which was only required in isolated cases before the Milan Congress, was not made a detailed criterion of the method in many German-speaking schools. There were sometimes different behaviors with regard to sign aversion.

From: "History of education for the deaf and dumb", Eduard Walther, Bielefeld 1882.

  • The overemphasis on speaking sometimes led to a neglect or undervaluation of writing, as J. Vatter demanded: "Make the spoken word for the deaf and mute the bearer of the concept, the way of thinking. Only when the spoken word and the concept have been securely and intimately linked , the letter will be given for the sound and the written for the spoken word. The latter must not appear to the pupil as a sign for this or that thing, but merely as a means to fix what is said. " (at a meeting in Berlin in 1884)

quoted from Wolfgang Vater: Significance aspects of the Milan Congress of 1880. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on June 4, 2004 ; Retrieved July 15, 2004 .

  • In addition to the deficits in the purely school education, the deaf children also lose the role model of the successful life perspective of the deaf adult through the exclusion of deaf teachers. In many cases, especially those children who do not have deaf parents themselves (the majority) believe that they would later become hearing as adults. Until the end of the 20th century, this child-like belief is to be found again and again in schools for the hard of hearing and for the deaf.

1883
Alexander Graham Bell researched the striking accumulation of deafness on the Boston offshore island of Martha's Vineyard . Bell drew the wrong conclusions from his investigations in ignorance of the laws of inheritance formulated by Gregor Mendel and recommended in the monograph "Memoir upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race" a ban on marriage among the deaf and dumb, the eugenic control of US immigrants and warned Boarding schools for pigeons as possible breeding grounds for a deaf human race. Later work by eugenicists was based on Bell's information until well into the 20th century. As a result, numerous deaf people have been sterilized without their knowledge and without their consent .

1884
First German congress of deaf and dumb teachers in Berlin, on September 26, 1884, Karl Schneider, who headed deaf and dumb education in the Prussian Ministry of Education from 1879 to 1899, expressed the opinion: "The fact that work has not been done in vain shows that there are currently 96 German institutions speaking face to face using the pure spoken language method. "

1885
“Der Taubstummen-Courier” is published in Vienna and published until 1904.

1887
A.G. In February, Bell met seven-year-old Helen Keller in Washington DC .

1889
In Britain, the "Royal Commission on the Living Conditions and Education of the Deaf and Mute", founded in 1885, publishes a report in which they adopt the views of AG Bell on the marriage of the "deaf and dumb" to one another. However, the first president of the British Deaf and Dumb Association, Francis Maginn (1861–1918), warned the members of the commission beforehand: “We would like to raise concerns to the royal commission before they bring up everything the professor [is meant Bell] , accepted. Since I've been to America and learned a lot about Dr. Bell knows, I would like to say, that the deaf-mute in the United States recognize the fact that he is acting with all seriousness and the best of intentions, and that the respect they hold for him is not diminished by the disdain they hold for his Counter theories.

1890
mass petition of the “deaf and dumb” to the German emperor to draw his attention to the failures of the one-sided oral method.

1892
AG Bell founds the "American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf, Inc." (American Society for the Promotion of the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf), now the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf.

1893
The "National Deaf Mute College" is renamed "Gallaudet College"

The 20th century - between paralysis and leaps and bounds

The resolutions passed at the Milan congress of the “deaf-and-dumb educators” in 1880 on a one-sided verbal or oral education are enforced in practice. As a result, crippling lethargy has spread among pigeons in Europe and North America for decades . The world wars 1914–1918 and especially from 1933–1945 with the targeted persecution of deaf people under the rule of National Socialist Germany , with their unmanageable effects, also contributed to the insecurity and reduction of the social life of the deaf.

In the second half of the 20th century, however, there were new impulses which, compared to the previous attitude of the “deaf and dumb educators”, signaled a new acceptance of sign language . In the middle of the century, the linguists Bernard Tervoort in Europe and William Stokoe in the USA first demonstrated the status of a full-fledged language for sign language. Especially in the last quarter of the 20th century, this stimulates linguistic research into sign languages ​​in all countries of the world.

Technological progress in electronics in the last quarter of the 20th century led to an almost overturning development. For the first time the hearing impaired were in the 1970s, first with text phones the telephone network , at least within their community and even for emergency calls in the police or fire department use. In the further course, more and more new functions are added to the commercially available standard devices that can also be used by the hearing impaired. A first extension of the "reachable" telecommunication connections beyond the write telephone connections is possible with the fax machine. With a commercial distribution of the much earlier invented videophone hearing impaired to communicate over the telephone network for the first time in their own sign language. Further "range" extensions are possible with the SMS function of cell phones and the e-mail services of the Internet . After the Videophone has proven to be a commercial flop, sales are largely stopped. At the same time, however, video conferencing programs for computers were being used instead of videophones.

With the advent of the Internet, the information possibilities for the hearing impaired have expanded to a far greater extent than for the hearing. With the offer of webcams and chat functions on the Internet, sign language telecommunications are shifting from the telephone network to the Internet.

1900
Foundation of the Berlin deaf and dumb swimming club from 1900. The club, at that time one of the largest deaf sports clubs in Germany, existed under this name until German reunification in 1989 and then merged with the East Berlin Association in the “Berlin Deaf Sports Club” .

1924
The Comité International des Sports des Sourds organizes the first "World Games" for pigeons in Paris .

1927
Foundation of the Reich Association of the Deaf of Germany ReGeDe in Weimar

National Socialism and World War II

By the Nazi eugenics program in the German Reich made sterilization of the deaf. They were enforced with coercive measures or without their knowledge and consent during medical interventions.

Even religious institutions often participated for no apparent resistance to the measures for sterilization of so-called Erbkranker . In one Betheler hospital alone , 289 women and 803 men were sterilized. “Obey the authorities. Obey her, even if it is difficult for you, ” read an information leaflet by Protestant pastors that was distributed to“ deaf and dumb ”inmates in the homes of the Inner Mission . Because: "Wouldn't you be sad if you had to see that your children and grandchildren are deaf again?"

After the Nuremberg Laws were passed , the persecution and murder of deaf Jews began in 1935 . Before 1933 there were around 1,000 deaf Jews in Germany, 600 of them according to statements by contemporary witnesses in and around Berlin. Of these 600, barely three dozen survived the persecution. Felix Reich, director of the Israelite Deaf-Mute Asylum, managed to escape to London with ten students in 1939 . Twelve deaf Jews survived in Berlin by going into hiding.

1950

1951
Foundation of the World Association of the Deaf in Rome with 14 countries. First world congress of the pigeons "World Congress of the Deaf-Mutes".

Founding of the German Deaf Association as the successor to ReGeDe in the Federal Republic of Germany , first president is Karl Wacker.

1953
Bernard Tervoort , hearing educator and linguist from the Netherlands proves the value of sign language for communication among the deaf.

1955
Second World Congress of the Deaf , in Zagreb , Yugoslavia , renamed “World Congress of the Deaf”.

1957
Foundation of the "Association of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing" GSV as the successor to the ReGeDe in the GDR in Halle (Saale) .

1959
Third World Congress of the Deaf in Wiesbaden , Germany

1960
William Stokoe (1919–2000), linguist at Gallaudet College, examines the structures of the American sign language ASL for the first time using modern linguistics .

1963
Fourth World Congress of the Deaf in Stockholm , Sweden , renamed “World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf”.

1964
The deaf orthodontist James C. Marsters of Pasadena , California , USA , sends a
telex to the deaf physicist Robert Weitbrecht in Redwood City , California . Weitbrecht recognizes that the device is suitable for telecommunications for deaf people. He constructs a modem with which the teletype can be operated on the telephone network. This is the first writing telephone for deaf people, albeit in a voluminous and expensive form. With the advancement of electronics, the writing telephone in its present form is being developed.

1965
William Stokoe (1919–2000), American linguist, proves with his research that sign language is an independent language.

1975
Start of systematic research into German Sign Language by the linguist Siegmund Prillwitz in Hamburg .

Development of the first "German writing phone " by Michael Krause in Münster .

1977
In Germany the "Blue Books" with the depictions of the "Signs of the Deaf" are published by the deaf educators Starcke, Maisch and Wisch.

1980

The 15th International Congress on Education of the Deaf takes place in Hamburg.

1981
The hard-of-hearing teacher Bernd Rehling travels to the USA with colleagues from the Hamburg School for the Deaf to find out about interpreting training, and there he learns about American Sign Language ( ASL ). Based on this, Rehling coined the term German Sign Language DGS . At the same time, a parallel use of DGS and LBG is suggested for the unilateral use of the " spoken language accompanying gestures " (LBG) in school lessons.

1982
The Institute for German Sign Language and Communication of the Deaf is established under the direction of Siegmund Prillwitz at the University of Hamburg .

1985
In Germany, even among those affected by deaf people, sign language, which was previously inferior in value, is recognized as a fully-fledged language.

1987
The Society for Sign Language and Communication of the Deaf is founded under the direction of Siegmund Prillwitz in Hamburg .

1988
The deaf students of Gallaudet University in the USA protest for the first time against the fact that a hearing person is always appointed president of the university. They organize the "Deaf President Now" movement, which receives nationwide attention and prominent support. You win the fight, and as a result, Irving King Jordan becomes the first deaf university president and Philip Bravin becomes the first deaf board chairman.

1989
The first international Deaf Way Conference and Festival is organized in Washington DC on the grounds of Gallaudet University and in a large convention hotel in the city.

1990
The cochlear implant hearing prostheses, developed since the 1970s, appear on the market. This enables the deaf and the severely hard of hearing to perceive sounds and even learn to understand language with appropriate listening training. If an auditory-verbal therapy is started in the first year of life , almost normal language development is possible. From a medical point of view, the cochlear implant is indicated when a hearing aid can give little or no hearing.

1993
The German Association of the Deaf e. V. founds the "Interest Group for the Promotion of the Culture of the Deaf" (IFKG). In 1998 the IFKG was renamed "Culture and History of the Deaf" (KuGG).

The 1st "German Deaf Culture Days" are held in Hamburg.

1994
The self-help association of the speech- oriented deaf people is founded and is called Speech-Speaking Communicating Hearing Impaired Switzerland (LKH Switzerland). The dispute over methods flares up again , but this time mainly among the deaf themselves.

1996
The "Deaf History - Interest Group for the History of the Deaf" is founded.

1997
At the Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences , Magdeburg campus, the field of sign language interpreting is set up in the social and health sector . The first professor is Regina Leven , who is herself a coda (child of deaf parents).

2000

2000
The "Friends of Speech-Communicating Hearing Impaired Germany - LKHD - e.V." (LKHD e.V.) is established.

2001
The KuGG, founded in 1993, and the "Deaf History - Interest Group for the History of the Deaf", founded in 1996, merge. At the beginning of 2002 the newly formed KuGG was entered in the register of associations at the Berlin District Court.

2002
The second international "Deaf Way Conference and Festival" is organized in Washington DC on the grounds of Gallaudet University and in a Washington congress hall as well as in local museums and theaters.

2004
The CI Interest Group Switzerland (CI-IG Switzerland) is founded.

2009
With Ádám Kósa , a deaf
person becomes a member of the European Parliament for the first time .

2010
At the ICED Congress in Vancouver, Canada, a declaration by various institutions - Organizing Committee of ICED, Canadian Association of the Deaf, World Federation of the Deaf, British Columbia Deaf Community - is signed and promulgated, in which the resolutions of the Milan Congress of 1880 to be called injustice with repentance. At the same time, all nations are called upon to fully observe the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities , including the right of deaf people to use sign language, and to form a partnership with and participation of deaf people in education policy in the respective countries.

See also

literature

  • Edward F. Fay: Edward Miner Gallaudet . In: American Annals of the Deaf , 62,5 (1917), pp. 399-403
  • Items. (PDF; 2.1 MB) In: Thüringisches Ärzteblatt , 2009
  • Harlan Lane: Hear with the soul. The life story of the deaf and mute Laurent Clerc and his struggle for the recognition of sign language . Dtv, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-423-11314-6

See also: History of the Deaf # Literature and Media

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ History . University of Hamburg. Retrieved April 21, 2019.
  2. Who we are and what we do . Society for Sign Language and Communication of the Deaf eV. Retrieved April 21, 2019.