Description
Book SynopsisDuring the early nineteenth century, schools for the deaf appeared in the US for the first time. This book places the growth of the Deaf community at the heart of the story of deaf education and explains how the unexpected emergence of Deafness provoked the pedagogical battles that dominated the field of deaf education in the nineteenth century.
Trade Review[A] useful addition to the still-developing history of the nation's evolving deaf community. * The Journal of American History *
R.A.R. Edwards' Words Made Flesh: Nineteenth-Century Deaf Education and the Growth of Deaf Culture is a brilliant study of the emergence of a deaf community in nineteenth-century America . . . . Beyond a more nuanced account of the emergence of the American Deaf community, this monograph is ultimately a revisionist history of the ongoing conflict over pedagogical methods in deaf education. Building on the established historiography produced by a small cadre of deaf historians, Edwards represents a new generation of scholarship in the field, offering a revisionist thesis of the ideas originally presented by Van Cleve and Crouch over twenty years ago. Words Made Flesh is a fine addition to New York University press's history of disability series. * Common-Place *
[This book is] provocative, detailed, and a welcome examination of the emergence of a signing deaf culture. * American Historical Review *
In this gracefully written book, Edwards offers both a fascinating narrative and a provocative, revisionist thesis.Scholars and general readers interested in the Deaf community and American cultural history will find it a rewarding read. -- Douglas Baynton,University of Iowa
Words Made Fleshis a stimulating, beautifully written, and thoroughly engaging book. -- James W. Trent * American Studies *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc: A Yale Man and a Deaf Man Open a School and Create a World 2 Manual Education: An American Beginning 3 Learning to Be Deaf: Lessons from the Residential School 4 The Deaf Way: Living a Deaf Life 5 Horace Mann and Samuel Gridley Howe: The First American Oralists 6 Languages of Signs: Methodical versus Natural 7 The Fight over the Clarke School: Manualists and Oralists Confront Deafness Conclusion Notes Index About the Author
