History
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The history of Deaf Americans, for the most part, parallels that of American Sign Language (ASL).
Although Deaf American identity is now strongly tied to the use of American Sign Language, its roots can be found in early Deaf communities on the American East Coast, including those that communicated using Martha's Vineyard Sign Language.
An important event in the history of "Deaf Americans" was the introduction of French Sign Language to the Deaf community at the American School for the Deaf in 1817. The many different cultures met at a confluence and formed one Deaf American Deaf culture centered around ASL. The culture transferred from student to student and from alumni to their respective home communities.
This tradition continued until 1880 when oralism began to replace manualism as the dominant approach to Deaf education, almost obliterating ASL and Deaf culture in America. Oralism was the main philosophy in Deaf education until 1965 when the linguist William Stokoe argued that ASL should be regarded as a full language with all of the expressive power of any oral language. Deaf Pride began to shoot higher than it had in a century and Deaf education returned to manualism for the most part.
Read more about this topic: Deaf American
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