A Place of Their Own: Creating the Deaf Community in America

A Place of Their Own: Creating the Deaf Community in America

A Place of Their Own: Creating the Deaf Community in America by John Vickrey Van Cleve and Barry A. Crouch

Katie Fox

CCAC – ASL 101

A Place of Their Own: Creating the Deaf Community in America by John Vickrey Van Cleve and Barry A. Crouch

Introduction

John V. Van Cleve is the chair of the history department and Barry A. Crouch is a professor of history at Gallaudet University. The school itself weighs in heavily on the very essence of deaf culture as it is known in America today. A Place of Their Own: Creating the Deaf Community in America, was written by John V. Van Cleve and Barry A. Crouch, uses original sources to paint a portrait of deaf culture in America, and the history that led to its establishment. This report will cover all of the components that make up culture, drawing references from the book to show how deaf culture evolved in America.

Culture

Culture has been defined in many ways. Merriam Webster Dictionary defines culture as "the act of developing the intellectual and moral faculties, especially by education, expert care and training, enlightenment and excellence of taste acquired by intellectual and aesthetic training" (Culture, 2012). This is key, as the book strongly emphasizes the role of education in the cultivation of a Deaf culture in America, with more than five chapters that have to do with education. Though it may be a given that education is imperative to the cultivation of any society, it is shown throughout the book to have, in this case, been rather hard won. This is first seen through the trials of people such as the Bollings, who had to travel abroad to receive any education at all, as well as those who were even less fortunate and could not afford such an essential expense (Crouch and Van Cleve, 1989). Though the education system came a long way from those pre-revolutionary American times, it was not without struggle and perseverance by many. In fact, it was nearly 100 years later that the deaf community finally saw its own college, in the 1850s (Crouch and Van Cleve, 1989). The dictionary goes on to define culture as having to do with humanities and fine arts, along with "broad aspects of science' such as vocational and technical training and ability, and furthermore to beliefs. This and the ability to pass on these attributes to future generations are factors that define culture (Culture, 2012). Surely, even from the first residential school of the deaf, this has been evidenced within the growing culture of the deaf in the United States. The distinguishing facets of