Originally published in 1931, this memoir is an unflinching look at the life experience of a woman struggling with identity and isolation. In harrowing yet lyrical prose, Pauline Leader assails her poverty and Jewish heritage and longs to fit in with...

This new collection bridges two dynamic academic fields: Women's Studies and Deaf Studies. The 14 contributors to this interdisciplinary volume apply research and methodological approaches from sociology, ethnography, literary/film studies, history,...

In July 2012, the 8th Deaf History International (DHI) Conference featured 27 presentations from members of Deaf communities around the world who related their own autobiographies as well as the biographies of historical Deaf individuals. The present...

Deafened at the age of six, Claire Blatchford was educated orally with speech lessons, speechreading, and hearing aids. Though successful both professionally and domestically, at the age of 67 Blatchford decided to undergo a cochlear implantation. In...

Raija Nieminen, a deaf woman from Finland, had been leading a very full life as both a librarian and mother of two children. Then her husband Jukka won an exciting new job designing the harbor in the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. Raija suddenly need...

Kyler Daniels was born in 1988 with a profound bilateral hearing loss. Her deafness went undetected for a year since newborn screening for hearing loss was not yet available. Kyler benefited, however, from the great support of her family and a string...

Concerned about aspects of her romantic relationships, Donna McDonald consulted with a psychologist who asked, "Your hearing loss must have had a big impact on you?" At age 45, with a successful career in social work policy, McDonald took umbrage at...

As an African American woman born in 1943, Maxine Childress Brown possessed a unique vantage point to witness the transformative events in her parents' lives. Both came from the South – her father, Herbert Childress, from Nashville, TN, and her mothe...

Doris Herrmann was born deaf in 1933 in Basel, Switzerland, and from the age of three, she possessed a mystical attraction to kangaroos. She recalls seeing them at that age for the first time at the Basel Zoo, and spending every spare moment visiting...

Most stories about disabled people are written for the sake of being inspirational. These stories tend to focus on some achievement, such as sports or academics, but rarely do they give a true and complete view of the challenges individuals must deal...