Forbidden Signs explores American culture from the mid-nineteenth century to 1920 through the lens of one striking episode: the campaign led by Alexander Graham Bell and other prominent Americans to suppress the use of sign language among deaf people. The metaphors and images used to describe the deaf - outsiders; beings of silence, innocence, and mystery; users of a language alternately seen as ancient and noble or primitive and animal-like - offer...

Alexander Graham Bell invented not only the telephone, but also early versions of the phonograph, the metal detector, airplanes, and hydrofoil boats. This Scottish immigrant was also a pioneering speech teacher and a champion of educating those with hearing impairments, work he felt was his most important contribution to society. Bell worked with famous Americans such as Helen Keller and aviators Glenn Curtiss and Samuel P. Langley, and his inventions...

Explores the history of American Sign Language and deaf culture, including ongoing controversies within the deaf community today.