Editor's Note: Lippitt House Museum invited students from Brown University’s Spring 2024 Group Independent Study (titled “Signs of Time: Deaf History, Education, and Policy”) in the Center for Language Studies, to do a blog series based on their research. As part of the course, they visited Lippitt House Museum to gain firsthand insight into the Lippitt family’s legacy. This prompted them to delve into the family’s long-standing roots within the New England Deaf community and write this blog series.
Jeanie Lippitt (1815-1940) was the daughter of Henry and Mary Ann Lippitt. She became deaf at four years old. Mary Ann Balch Lippitt (1823-1889) strived to create an education for her daughter that would allow her to participate in mainstream society. This led to the Lippitts’ connection with Alexander Graham Bell and Mary Ann’s advocacy for a specific type of deaf education: oralism. In the four following blog posts, you will learn what oralism is, how it rose to popularity in the 19th century at state, national, and even international levels, and why it is considered oppressive to the Deaf community.
The series also follows the development of the Rhode Island School for the Deaf, which was founded by Mary Ann in 1876. The school’s evolution in teaching approaches reflects broader positive transformations in attitudes toward Deafness and Deaf education. One important shift from "deaf" to "Deaf." The word “deaf" is a term signifying one’s auditory status, whereas “Deaf” is used by Deaf people to encapsulate their cultural-linguistic identity. This is why we will continue to use “deaf” and “Deaf” throughout the blog series depending on the different contexts. In our posts, we will introduce Deaf culture and Deaf gain in more detail. You will also read how, building upon the Lippitts’ legacy, Deaf education has grown and can continue to grow to be more effective and equitable.
Blog 1: Connections Between Jeanie Lippitt, Mary Ann Lippitt, and Alexander Graham Bell
Blog 2: Transformation of Rhode Island School for the Deaf from Oralism to Bilingual Education (to be published 11/6/24)
Blog 3: Shifting Perception of Deafness: Deaf Culture and Deaf Gain (to be published 11/13/24)
Blog 4: The Lasting Legacy of Oralism and the Never-Ending Fight for Progress (to be published 11/20/24)
Our team of students that conducted the research and created this blog series is made up of Irene Zhiyi Chen, Eric Hadley, Jerick Hartono, and Grace Moore. We all study American Sign Language at Brown University, and some of us are pursuing the Certificate of Intercultural Competence. Our interest in creating these blog posts stemmed from multiple perspectives, including personal experience for one of us as a hard-of-hearing individual, interest in historical and contemporary deaf education, and curiosities about the Lippitt family’s place in Rhode Island history. We wanted to extrapolate their involvement with Deaf history and parse the tension between the Lippitts’ goodwill and the harm of oralist methods.
We are so excited to share our work with Lippitt House Museum blog readers!
Click #DeafEducation to find all the posts in this series.
Guest bloggers: Eric Hadley AB Candidate '26 Theatre Arts & Performance Studies and Certificate in Intercultural Competence and Jerick Hartono AB Candidate Chemistry and Certificate in Engaged Scholarship, Brown University
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