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Author Booth, Katie (Writing instructor), author.

Title The invention of miracles : language, power, and Alexander Graham Bell's quest to end deafness / Katie Booth.

Publication Info. New York : Simon & Schuster, [2021]

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 Cheshire Public Library - Adult Department Lower Level  362.4283 BOOTH    Check Shelf
 Glastonbury, Welles-Turner Memorial Library - Adult Department  362.4283 BOOTH    Check Shelf
 Granby, F.H. Cossitt Branch - Adult  362.42 BOO    Check Shelf
 New Britain, Main Library - Non Fiction  362.42 BOO    Check Shelf
 Newington, Lucy Robbins Welles Library - Adult Department  362.42 BOOTH    Check Shelf
 Plainville Public Library - Non Fiction  362.42 BOO    Check Shelf
 Southington Library - Adult  362.4283 BOO    Check Shelf
 West Hartford, Noah Webster Library - Non Fiction  362.4283 BOOTH    Check Shelf
 Wethersfield Public Library - Non Fiction  362.42 BOOTH    Check Shelf
Edition First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition
Description ix, 402 pages ; 24 cm
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (page [339]-386) and index.
Summary "An astonishingly revisionist biography of Alexander Graham Bell, telling the true-and troubling-story of the inventor of the telephone. We think of Alexander Graham Bell as the inventor of the telephone, but that's not how he saw his own career. Bell was an elocution teacher by profession. As the son of a deaf woman and, later, husband to another, his goal in life from adolescence was to teach the deaf to speak. Even his tinkering sprang from his teaching work; the telephone had its origins as a speech reading machine. And yet by the end of his life, despite his best efforts-or perhaps, more accurately, because of them-Bell had become the American Deaf community's most powerful enemy. The Invention of Miracles recounts an extraordinary piece of forgotten history. Weaving together a moving love story with a fascinating tale of innovation, it follows the complicated tragedy of a brilliant young man who set about stamping out what he saw as a dangerous language: Sign. The book offers a heartbreaking look at how heroes can become villains and how good intentions are, unfortunately, nowhere near enough-as well as a powerful account of the dawn of a civil rights movement and the triumphant tale of how the Deaf community reclaimed their once-forbidden language. Katie Booth has been researching this story for over a decade, poring over Bell's papers, Library of Congress archives, and the records of deaf schools around America. But she's also lived with this story for her entire life. Witnessing the damaging impact of Bell's legacy on her family would set her on a path that upturned everything she thought she knew about language, power, deafness, and the telephone"-- Provided by publisher.
Subject Bell, Alexander Graham, 1847-1922.
Deaf -- Means of communication -- United States -- History.
Speech -- Study and teaching -- United States -- History.
Deaf -- Education -- United States -- History.
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General.
Bell, Alexander Graham, 1847-1922. (OCoLC)fst00043571
Deaf -- Education. (OCoLC)fst00888447
Deaf -- Means of communication. (OCoLC)fst00888490
Speech -- Study and teaching. (OCoLC)fst01129173
United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155
Genre/Form History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
Biographies.
Other Form: Online version: Booth, Katie (Writing instructor). Invention of miracles New York : Simon & Schuster, [2021] 9781501167102 (DLC) 2020040765
ISBN 9781501167096 (hardcover)
150116709X (hardcover)
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