"Scenes in the History of the Deaf and Dumb": Angeline Fuller’s Strategic Sentimentality and the Development of an American Deaf Identity

Abstract

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, most deaf Americans were isolated, both from one another and from the communities in which they resided, by linguistic barriers. At the time, no common American sign language existed, meaning that deaf people who did not speak English had to resort to a series of home signs invented with their families to communicate. The formation of the first permanent schools, beginning in 1817 with the American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, began to change this situation.1 The language developed at these schools allowed the Deaf to begin identifying themselves as a distinct cultural group and to articulate their own history, customs, and values.2 Writing played a critical role in spreading this sense of community beyond school walls. As Christopher Krentz has noted, writing “has the ability to shape and share cultural identity and to produce relationships between groups. Through writing, people can support or subvert power arrangements, not to mention concepts of reality and order.”3 For Deaf authors in particular, writing provided a space where communication could occur without the barriers often imposed by face-to-face encounters, allowing them to forge relationships with deaf people from around the country. While some early Deaf writing fell into the trap of uncritically repeating stereotypes about deaf people, much of this literature took advantage of the medium to question what it meant to be deaf in America and, in so doing, to begin to outline a Deaf cultural identity.4 Angeline Fuller’s “Scenes in the History of the Deaf and Dumb,” which appeared in her book The Venture (1883), participates in this project by providing one of the first literary accounts from a Deaf perspective. Throughout