200 Years of Innovation: The Legacy of the American School for Deaf

Please join us for a FREE presentation by historian Rebecca Edwards (Rochester Institute of Technology) in conjunction with our exhibit Language, Culture, Communities: 200 Years of Impact by the American School for the Deaf.

The story of the American School for the Deaf is one of  remarkable educational innovation. In addition, Connecticut deaf history, as represented by the American School for the Deaf, is the very foundation of the larger story of American deaf history. The founding of the American School for the Deaf therefore represents a truly transformative breakthrough for the lives of deaf people in both Connecticut and in the United States. This lecture will  place the American School for the Deaf at the heart of American deaf history and explore how the innovative practices of the American School for the Deaf have shaped the lives of deaf Americans for 200 years.

This lecture will be American Sign Language (ASL) interpreted.

The lecture is free, but please RSVP to let us know you will attend at (860) 236-5621 x238 or rsvp@chs.org.

Rebecca Edwards is Professor of History at Rochester Institute of Technology. She joined the RIT faculty in 1998 after earning a Ph.D. in American history at the University of Rochester. Her research is focused on the impact of deaf individuals in society, and changes in the societal and sociological understanding of deafness. Her book Words Made Flesh: Nineteenth-Century Deaf Education and the Growth of Deaf Culture (The History of Disability) (2012), “explores the educational battles of the nineteenth century from both hearing and deaf points of view. It 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, and still reverberate today.”