The historical demography of the Martha's Vineyard signing community.

ABSTRACT: The deaf population of Martha's Vineyard has fascinated scholars for more than a century since Alexander Graham Bell's research on the frequent occurrence of deafness there and since Groce's book on the island's signing community (Groce, N. E. (1985). Everyone here spoke sign language: Hereditary deafness on Martha's Vineyard. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.). In Groce's work, and in that of subsequent scholars, the Vineyard signing community has often been portrayed as remote and outlying, having developed independently of mainland signing communities for roughly 133 years until 1825. We re-examine that interpretation in light of historical, demographic, and genealogical evidence covering the period 1692-2008. We argue that the Vineyard signing community began in Chilmark in 1785

SUBMITTER: Power JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11195467 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature