I used to believe Bell was simply a villain—his very name inspired nothing but rage within me. And so most surprising to me, as I learned more about him, were the ways that Bell revolutionized many things in the deaf world for the better. He helped fund the educations of countless deaf children, helped to open deaf schools across the nation, in many ways helped to advocate for the idea that the deaf were the same as anyone else. -Katie Booth
…Saving can become more important than recognizing; fixing more important than loving. This was Bell’s greatest mistake. He got so caught up in the feeling of sympathy that he never veered into empathy; his imagination didn’t stretch enough to understand, or even ask, what the deaf themselves wanted. -Katie Booth
Oscillating between the feelings of love, intrigue, bewilderment and melancholy, this book by Katie Booth is surely among the best books I have ever read, not just about the deaf community but among all of my reading list put together. It left me teary in places, ripped my heart apart with emotions, left me in awe of the true passion which fosters invention. I could not help but contrast the time before music on the radio to an incredibly connected world today, telephone in its barebones to where I can seamlessly read all about it on my smart phone switching on demand between reading and narration. What a wonderful love story where deafness was never a barrier between the deaf and the hearing. Out of $149, the first money that Alexander Graham Bell made on the telephone, he used $85 to get a custom-made silver miniature replica telephone for his wife, Mabel, who kept that silver telephone her whole life. Bell, who had a deaf mother, also went against her wishes to marry a deaf woman. What an influencer and an inventor. We are drawn into the narrative of his tireless effort to save the president who was holding on to his life after an assassination attempt. As big as those contributions sound, the special place in his life was always for the education of the deaf. Bell, whose life’s biggest passion was deaf education, would also go down in history as “the most to be feared, enemy of the American deaf”.
The history of Deaf people in America is presented in a fascinating way. One of the things that stood out to me is that both the first signing school and the first Oral school for the deaf in America were established through the efforts of parents of deaf children. Whichever method they chose, it was their attempt to do what they believed to be the best for their child. In 1817, the first school for the Deaf, the American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb was opened through the pivotal efforts of Mason Cogswell. He was so impressed by the impact of Thomas Gallaudet’s efforts to teach his deaf daughter Alice Cogswell that he decided to open a school. He sent Thomas Galludet abroad to see how the deaf were educated in Europe. Fast forward to 1866, Gardiner opened a small experimental school in Chelmsford which was the first Oral school for the deaf in America. Gardiner was the father of Mabel Hubbard who lost her hearing in 1862 when she was 6 years old due to severe sickness. She would later go on to become Bell’s love interest and his future wife. Two parents changed the future of deaf education and the course of history for generations to come.
As the narrative is set in the 19th century, the research and politics in that era provide a captivating backdrop. We take a peek at the workings of the United States Patent Office in the time when the Washington Monument was only half built with cows grazing underneath it. Spoiler alert for those few like me, Helen Keller makes an entry as I learn that her life crossed paths with that of Bell.
Folks may shy away from this book because they might suspect it to be a rant against Alexander Graham Bell or they might suspect it could be a tiring reporting about the invention of the telephone. On the contrary, this book is a balanced narrative of the contributions, passions and commitment of AG Bell towards science and deaf education. In fact 3/4th way into the book I felt nothing but inspired by his story. It’s towards the tail end that we learn about the places where he faltered along the way. I was mortified to learn about the proposition of the state’s right to sterilize developmentally disabled people in institutions which paved the way for even more sterilizations, often including those of the deaf. We further learn that Nazi Germany modeled their early sterilization laws after the United States’ legislation.
An estimated 40 percent of the total German deaf population was sterilized during the Nazi era. As time went on, disabled citizens in institutions, including the deaf, were permitted to starve to death, and under the 1939 program “Operation T4,” they were systematically murdered.
It is suggested that Bell was never in favor of a law to ban marriage among deaf people but he didn’t back down on the idea of marriage self-regulation for deaf people. Despite the fact that he did not believe that the birth of deaf children posed a certain risk of “endangering” the community, the committee he served on continued to push for legislation and advocated for sterilization. To some degree I feel we cannot blame Bell for the time he existed in. In fact his views seem to be ahead of their time to me. Not that it absolves him of his doings, but something to be mindful of. To put things in context, we have to remember that it was within Bell’s lifetime that the black men were granted the right to vote, the US supreme court had just recognized white women as citizens but still denied them the voting rights, the idea of women scientists and politicians was considered absurd. Given the contributions he made and the glory he earned, he also has to carry the burden for spearheading some of the ideas which misfired or were misrepresented. As Booth writes elsewhere that
in person, Bell was intensely humble even though he was surely one of the great minds of his time. In person, he listened and he conversed and he signed. It was never, in practice, his goal to make others feel small or worthless
Detailed and well researched,after reading Katie Booth’s work it is hard to believe that the life of Alexander Graham Bell is not more widely known outside the deaf community besides being the inventor of the telephone. This book made me a huge fan of Katie Booth’s work. In her biography section I found a mention of the essay ‘The Sign for This’ and I was able to find it here. Can’t wait to read her other works. Readers can visit her website at https://www.katiebooth.net/