Genetics, Disability, and Deafness

GENETICS, DISABILITY, AND DEAFNESS r·)I.:...... ~ ~:.\.,,{~'. " W' ," John Vickrey Van Cleve, Editor Gallaudet University Press \f\/::tc:hin,..,tr\n n r tial implications of these marriages "in the formation of a deaf variety of the human race."2 Bell's paper provoked an intense decades-long debate within Western Deaf communities and among professionals who worked with Deaf people.3 British and American educators had long corresponded with one another on Deaf-Deaf marriages; a leading British educator declared in 1857: "it is ... highly inexpedient that the deaf and dumb should marry with each other."4 Within the field of Deaf education, Deaf "TRUE LOVE Deaf marriages was an occasional topic of inquiry, but it was not until Bell's 1883 paper that hereditary deafness came into wider public atten AND SYMPATHY" tion.5 Bell updated the National Academy at its next three annual meet ings, and his ideas found resonance among these scientists and the The Deaf-Deaf general public, influenced by growing concern over the purity of national peoples.6 In the context ofheredity science and its practical application Marriages Debate in in the field of public health, Deaf-Deaf marriages were reconceptual ized as a menace to Western society. Tra nsatl antic Perspective While the debate over Deaf-Deaf marriages took place in specific nation-states, the ideas informing these national debates circulated across national boundaries. Belying conceptions of minorities as locked Joseph J. Murray into specific localities and employing purely locally based resistance, Deafpeople in the United States and Great Britain also shared ideas with one another to counter opposition to their right to marry whom they chose. Their actions illustrate both the ability of and limits facing a " I desire to draw attention to the fact that in this country small, geographically scattered minority to retain control of their own deafmutes marry deafmutes," said Alexander Graham Bell in his open lives in the face oflarger stigmatizing beliefs. Deaf people in the United ing presentation to the November 1883 session of the American National States and Britain debated the marriages issue at international confer Academy of Sciences. I The enormity of this fact "consumed the entire ences, in Deaf community periodicals, and during transatlantic jour morning session" of this mid-year meeting of America's most eminent neys. This exchange of ideas forged a common strategy of response by scientists and thinkers, who were apparently fascinated by the poten- Deaf people in the United States and Great Britain against attempts to paint them as hereditarily tainted'? This essay has benefited considerably from the input of a number of scholars. Deaf people rejected the notion that a "deaf-mute race" would Douglas Baymon and Linda Kerber gave nuanced, detailed, and a1ways-en~uraging result from Deaf-Deaf marriages. Their lived experiences suggested that feedback on this project from its earliest stages. Johanna Schoen offered Ill-depth the overwhelming majority of Deaf children came from hearing parents, comments on the organization of this essay and shared her knowledge of the and a similarly large majority of Deaf couples had hearing children. U.S. eugenics movement. Jeffrey Cox, Lisa Heineman, Paul Greenough, and Shelton Stromquist offered insightful observations on various drafts. An earlier Indeed, research initiated as a result of the debate would show that 8 version of this paper benefited from comments received at the German Historical more than 90 percent of Deaf couples had hearing children. Deaf Institute's 2003 Young Scholar's Forum. I am grateful to this community of people also harnessed tropes of domesticity to present Deaf-Deaf mar scholars for their willingness to share their time and ideas. riages as ordinary middle-class marriages. Claiming that Deaf-Deaf 42 44 Joseph J. Murray "TRUE LOVE AND SYMPATHY" 45 marriages were happier than Deaf-hearing marriages, Deaf people politic were first enacted in the United States in 1896, and they pro stressed a traditional right of citizenship: the right of men to enter a liferated across a number ofstates over the next decade. l7 The Deaf-Deaf domestic sphere oftheir own making.9 Both ofthese arguments lent sup marriages debate (Ook place well before any law was enacted and before port to a fundamental premise underlying the Deaf response; the per any other social group was targeted with specific reproductive restric ceived threat of Deaf-Deaf marriages did not warrant trampling the tions for reasons of heredity. As a small, easily identifiable population, individual rights of Deaf people in favor of an alleged national good. Deaf people seemed rhe ideal group by which to introduce ideas of , Eugenics was not a dearly delineated scientific field at the time of hereditary disease and population control into larger public practice. Not the Deaf-Deaf marriages debate. Indeed Ftancis Galton only coined only was the general public familiar with deafness, Deaf people were also" the word eugenics in the same year as Bell's New Haven address. 10 What the indirect recipient of public funds, via state schools for Deaf people. existed in the 1880s and 1890s was a loose international network of cor A clear case could be made that a reduction in the number of Deaf responding scholars and scientists interested in the transmission of people would both save money and eliminate a disability from society. hereditary traits and its impact on particular nations or groups of peo Promoted by Bell's energetic warnings of a "deaf-mute race," the mar ple. Scientists working on questions of heredity often corresponded riages of Deaf people became an object of attention among scientists, with extra-national counterparts, the British-American nexus being par educators, and the general public. ticularly noteworthy. I I Bell was a part of this network. He was inter To stem the emergence of such a race, Bell proposed a number of ested in questions of heredity and involved in the American eugenics measures (0 inhibit Deaf people from their traditional practice of mar movement from its earliest days. In 1907, Bell was offered the chair of rying one another. Bell rejected a legal ban on marriages of Deaf peo the American Breeder's Association's newly formed Committee on ple as impractical, since it would only promote "immorality" among Eugenics. He declined, but agreed to serve on the committee and later people already associating with one another. 18 The root of the problem chaired a subcommittee on hereditary deafness. 12 of"imermarriages" was "the preference that adult deaf~mutes exhibit for Bells ideas on Deaf-Deaf marriages fit the temper of his times well. the company of deaf-mutes rather than hearing persons."19 This pref In the late nineteenth century, a discourse was emerging that saw tra erence could be remedied by reducing contact between Deaf children. ditionalliberal beliefs in individual rights and autonomy supplemented To compel Deaf children (0 interact more with hearing children than by a vision of a collective national body regulated by professional sci with one another, Bell suggested the expansion of day schools to replace entists and health workers. 13 The idea of physical degeneration of residential schools for Deaf children. Bell felt sign language promoted national societies via the unchecked reproduction of hereditarily infe the "segregation" of Deaf people from larger society and stressed the edu rior classes emerged among reformers in these decades. 14 Reformers cation of Deaf children should "entirely discard the use of sign lan suggested various strategies to limit marriage and reproduction among guage, and cultivate the use of the vocal organs, and the reading of the "degenerate" groups of people, as well as foster childbearing among lips."20 From the start, Bell tied the prevention of Deaf-Deaf marriages socially acceptable groups. Some advocated restrictions on individual into his larger agenda, promoted the oral method in Deaf education, teproductive rights for the good of the nation. 15 Progressive groups, and linked both to the health of the nation. such as women's organizations in the United States and Britain, increas Bell's use of the terms intermarriage and deafmute race (0 describe ingly utilized the ideas of hereditarianism and eugenic thought. 16 the marriages of middle-class white Deaf people latched the idea of The Deaf-Deaf marriage debate is an early instance of how scien degeneracy to Deaf people, evoking stronger images than prevailing tisrs in the emerging field of eugenics could lend support to members notions of deafness as an infirmity were able to do. The generally under of an existing social institution-the field of Deaf education-in an stood meaning of the word intermarriage in this time meant marriages attempt to modify the reproductive practices of a particular group. between Europeans and non-European natives of colonial societies or Laws restricting the marriages of those deemed a threat (0 the body between different castes of non-European populations. By using the 46 Joseph J. Murray "TRUE LOVE AND SYMPATHY" 47 term intermarriage, Bell referred to both the interbreeding of an infe their right to choose their own marriage panners were now being called rior sUDset of the population and to marriages between members ofan into question. enclosed community, fortifYing his conclusions that the Deaf commu What was under threat in the Deaf-Deaf marriage debate was the nity needed to be dispersed before the specter ofa deaf-mute race could status of Deaf people, especially Deaf men, as autonomous individu be dispelled. 21 Gathered into a community and intermarrying, Deaf als in public life. Bell specified that he was opposed to legislative restric people were a visible and growing blight on the American na.tional tions on Deaf-Deaf marriages, but he brought his view on marriages to body.

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