Origins of the American Deaf-World: Assimilating and Differentiating Societies and Their Relation to Genetic Patterning

The Deaf-World in the United States has major roots in a triangle of New England Deaf communities that flourished early in the last century: Henniker, New Hampshire; Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts; and Sandy River Valley, Maine. The social fabric of these communities differed, a reflection of language and marriage practices that were underpinned, we hypothesize, by differences in genetic patterning. In order to evaluate that hypothesis, this article uses local records and newspapers, genealogies, the silent press, Edward Fay’s 1898 census of Deaf marriages, and Alexander Graham Bell’s notebooks to illuminate the Henniker Deaf community for the first time; it also builds on prior work concerning the Vineyard community.