The Deaf Mute Howls (Gallaudet Classics in Deaf Studies)

Rating:
Summary: Ballin's "The Deaf Mute Howls" Truly a Deaf Classic
Review: Albert Ballin's _The Deaf Mute Howls_ has been rightly rescuedfrom obscurity by Gallaudet University Press. Balllin offers usvaluable insight into the Deaf community of the 1930s. As a utopian thinker, Ballin argued that all people, deaf and hearing, should learn sign language, in order to end the isolation of deaf people in a hearing world. This was a powerful "howl" indeed in the '30s, a time when oral education had succeeded in banishing sign language from schools for the deaf completely. Ballin reveals the discontent bubbling in the Deaf community in this difficult period, and his book remains an important one today for anyone interested in Deaf history. Doug Baynton's introduction to this new edition is also quite useful.