DEAF HERITAGE IN CANADA
Reviewed by Stéphane-D. Perreault
Canadian Historical Review, Vol. 80, No. 2, June 1999, pp. 343-345.
Ten years of meticulous research by Clifton Carbin, with the support of the Canadian Cultural Society of the Deaf, has resulted in this impressive history of the deaf community in Canada. In twenty-one chapters, the author, himself deaf, examines the various aspects of what makes the deaf culture 'distinctive, diverse and enduring.' A testimony to the 'cultural maturity' of the Canadian deaf people, this work lays out the foundation for understanding the distinctiveness of the deaf culture.
In the first chapters of the book, Carbin discusses the education of the deaf in Europe, the United States, and the various regions of Canada. His approach to education goes beyond the ever recurring debate between oral and manual methods; it provides an insight into the vibrant student life that made schools for the deaf central in the development of deaf culture itself. Subsequent chapters address the decline of such educational institutions and the increasingly important role played by various clubs, associations, and organizations which currently give shape to the deaf community in Canada. After dealing with the beginnings and evolution of deaf associative life, the author offers thematic explorations in areas such as occupations, religion, communication through 'the printed page,' and the all-important sign languages. He then explores the contributions of deaf people to Canadian cultural life in the arts, sports, and leisure, as well as the influence of technology on the lives of the deaf. All these topics, along with consideration of such issues as deaf access to jobs in the military or drivers' licences, and the problems 'deaf' peddlers pose to the community, provide the non-deaf reader with a fascinating picture of the lives of deaf people and their accomplishments.
This work offers an excellent overview of the contributions of various influential deaf leaders, including Thomas Widd, the first deaf teacher at the Protestant Montreal deaf institution; David Peikoff, a community leader in the Prairies; and Raymond Dewar, who was instrumental in spurring pride and interest in Quebec sign language. However, this work is not only concerned with the 'great ones'; the experiences of average deaf individuals are also captured in these pages. So too is the contribution of various women to the life of the community as educators, artists, and community leaders. Although minority issues are not addressed separately, some mention is made of deaf members of ethnic minority groups; for example, Mona Thrasher, a deaf Inuit artist. In addition, the author touches on the lives of 'special' members of the deaf community, such as the deaf-blind, whose history is tied to that of the 'mainstream' deaf, especially in the educational field. The diversity of the deaf experience particularly comes to life in a final chapter entitled 'A Few Things More ...' where Carbin chronicles honours bestowed on deaf people within and outside the community as well as interesting anecdotes illustrative of the diversity of deaf life.
The chapters in this book are organized like those in a reference work. Chapters follow one another in a logical sequence, but each is somewhat independent from the others and can be consulted in isolation. Such a structure, in conjunction with a comprehensive index, allows for easy use of the volume. At times, however, cover-to-cover reading becomes a repetitive experience, with biographical annotations repeated from one chapter to the next. The elimination of some of these repetitions would have made the book an easier read without taking away from its usefulness as a reference work. Another problem with the volume, which is largely a result of the sources the author had at his disposal, is the uneven treatment of the various regions of Canada. Because of the greater development of deaf activism in Ontario, much of the material in the book focuses on that province. Chapter 7, on deaf organizations, is a case in point. Moreover, although a significant effort has been made to include the 'francophone' deaf from Quebec, their history in that province is rather sketchy as a result of sources largely being in French.
Deaf history is still in its infancy in Canada, and this book constitutes a major development in its making. In the United States, Gallaudet University, in Washington, DC – the oldest university for deaf people in the world – has provided a community of researchers and a spirit of political activism that has fuelled research into the history of the deaf in that country. The first major work to express the experiences of deaf communities in the United States, Deaf Heritage, by Jack R. Gannon (Silver Spring, Md: National Association of the Deaf 1981), now has an equivalent in Carbin's text. The author is one of the many Canadians trained at Gallaudet who are starting to make their mark in deaf studies.
Historians of deaf culture in Canada will most appreciate this volume. It constitutes the first effort at synthesizing the experience of deaf people in this country. That is also why the main body of the text is followed by an impressive series of endnotes (forty-eight pages) and two Additional Sources sections (sixty pages). The references are more than a mere testimony to the thoroughness of the research necessary to produce the volume; these lists of sources will prove an invaluable tool and should spur interest in more detailed historical studies of local deaf communities. It is to be hoped that this work will elicit more interest in the history of deaf communities across Canada by both deaf and hearing authors. The inclusion of the experiences of the deaf into the general framework of Canadian history could only enrich the understanding of the general Canadian experience.