Deaf History: 1800–1880

The history of policy, legislation, and development for the Deaf in the 19th century is closely tied to the issue of education of the Deaf, beginning with the efforts of Charles-Michel de l’Épée in the latter decades of the 18th century. L’Épée was a French philanthropist who lived in the 17th century and advocated educating the Deaf by way of their natural sign language. The history of education for the Deaf encompasses a convoluted series of debates and legislation, which runs through most of the 19th century up to the detrimental declarations of the Congress of Milan in 1880, which banned sign language in the classrooms in favor of the oral method. Oralist theories of Deaf education gained prominence in the last decades of the ...