For the past two centuries deaf people in the United States have faced more or less intense skepticism about their marriages to each other, largely due to fears of inherited deafness. Theses fears, while always present, have waxed and waned over time, becoming most prominent during the eugenics era of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At Gallaudet University, they were repeatedly expressed by the faculty and administration in a variety of forms and contexts, and echoed by many its students. This dissertation demonstrates the significant influence of these ideas at Gallaudet University on the wider deaf community over the last century; it traces how skepticism toward deaf marriage was framed in terms of hereditarian and, for a time, eugenic ideals; and it explored other more subtle but similarly effective attempts to influence marriage decisions by deaf people. The idea that deaf people should not marry one another was embraced by faculty in Gallaudet’s early decades, diffused from administration to faculty, from faculty to students (deaf undergraduates as well as hearing students studying deaf education), and ultimately carried to other deaf educational institutions via the alumni. While student responses to these ideas were fluid, their adoption by early administration and faculty had a profound and lasting impact. One result was that, during much of the early twentieth century, deaf people were less likely to marry, and when married less likely to have children.

The author argues that religion has provided the deaf community with a powerful language to convey their authority in struggles to preserve sign language. Employing religious rhetoric, the American deaf community historically overcame the oppression of a dominant hearing community that suppressed the use of sign language. Grounding his arguments for educating deaf Americans in his Protestant theology, the Reverend Thomas Gallaudet garnered support for the school by appealing to the Christian convictions of the citizens of Hartford - intertwining Protestantism with the emerging American deaf community. By exploring the school, sanctuary, and social activism of the American deaf community, the author provides evidence of deaf community rhetoric that includes religious themes and biblical references. For example, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, arguments for methods of how to teach deaf students divided on ideological grounds. Manualists who supported the use of sign language often grounded their arguments in Protestant theology, while oralists who were influenced by Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species grounded arguments in evolutionary thinking. The influence of biblical teachings was evident in the schools for the deaf. The chapel services perpetuated the use of sign language even in times when sign language was under attack. From these chapel services came a social purpose for the church sanctuary in the lives of deaf Americans in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America. The sanctuary also provided the deaf community with a political platform advocating sign language use. The social activism of the deaf community has taken on many forms. In the early twentieth century, the National Association of the Deaf president, George Veditz, used film to capture his fiery Preservation of the Sign Language, which is filled with religious rhetoric advocating the deaf community’s use of sign language. More recently, Deaf West Theatre’ production of Big River is an example of how artful expression is used to support the values of the deaf community. This dissertation concludes with the suggestion that technology has replaced many of the functions of religion in the lives of deaf Americans and the author encourages further research in specific areas.

When the Minority Health Improvement and Health Disparity Elimination Act of 2007 went into effect, there was a corresponding increase in research focused on cardiovascular disease (CVD) in underrepresented groups, except for 1: culturally Deaf Americans. Guided by the health belief model, the purpose of this study was to determine if there were significant differences in the level of knowledge, perceived barriers, and preventive behaviors associated with CVD among Deaf and hearing employees at Gallaudet University, Washington D.C. This cross-sectional quantitative research study used a survey with questions derived from 2 existing national surveys. One hundred eighty-six subjects were recruited on the campus of Gallaudet University. Chi-square analysis was conducted to seek any association between respondents and cardiovascular knowledge. A t test assessed for association between respondent characteristics and knowledge of CVD. A multivariate linear regression model was used to discover if differences in CVD knowledge score were predicted by socioeconomic factors. Deaf (28%) and hearing (43%) participants differed significantly in identifying all 6 correct signs/symptoms of heart attack (p = 0.04). Hearing females (80%) managed their blood pressure at healthy levels which is twice more than their Deaf female counterparts (61%, p = 0.01). Hearing Blacks (78%) had a discussion of their high blood pressure with their doctor more than Deaf Black counterparts (28%, p = 0.05). Gaining a better understanding of the Deaf health trends on CVD could inspire positive social change that ultimately could improve health for Deaf individuals in the United States.