A Mighty Change

"The early part of the nineteenth century marked a dramatic shift in the perception of deaf people in the United States, beginning in 1817 with the establishment of the first permanent school for deaf students by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc. Theirs and other residential schools established during this period allowed deaf pupils to demonstrate that they could succeed in the classroom and beyond, disproving the then commonly held belief that deaf people were deficient and ineducable. A Mighty Change: An Anthology of Deaf American Writing, 1816-1864 documents this deaf cultural explosion in dramatic style, through the letters, essays, and poetry of deaf individuals who experienced this transformation firsthand."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved