What did Alexander Graham Bell believe about deaf people and deafness? (list 4 examples)

Ban of Sign Language. Supported Oralism. Wanted to ban the marriage of 2 Deaf people. Supported integration of the Deaf in society.

Explanation:

Public sentiment in the hearing community started to turn away from signed language in the 1870s. This is often considered the “dark ages” in Deaf history. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, happened to have a mother who was Hard of Hearing. Bell was a firm believer in the oralist method and he taught the Deaf in Massachusetts and at the American School for the Deaf in Connecticut. While teaching, Bell was working on ways to transmit telegraph messages—in fact, this is what eventually led him to invent the telephone. This not only made him famous but also, ironically, left Deaf people out of the new technology. Bell married one of his Deaf students and continued to promote teaching the Deaf with their hearing peers. Bell even went so far as to call for banning the marriage of Deaf people to one another, saying it posed a threat of a “deaf-mute variety of the human race.” Though Bell’s educational ideas were taken up, thankfully his ideas about Deaf marriage were not! Bell is not looked upon fondly by the Deaf community for his views about getting rid of Deaf people.

Extra Info:

An international gathering of Deaf educators called the Conference of Milan occurred in 1880. At the conference, oral education for the Deaf was pronounced the superior method, even though the American delegation argued for manualism. This decision was a turning point in Deaf education as Sign Language was then banned in Deaf schools. Simultaneously, and further stirred by this conference, Deaf people were beginning to organize their own clubs, associations, newspapers, and communities. It was these communities who kept Sign Language alive during the time of suppression in the schools.

Deaf people began to participate more and more in public life in the 20th century, including being allowed to take the civil service test to work for the U.S. government in 1909. During World War I and II, the Deaf were not allowed to serve in the military, but since many jobs were left unfilled by men going off to war, Deaf people were able to take many of the factory jobs. Deaf people established themselves as upstanding members of society, good workers, and contributing taxpayers.