Rochester History journal Author Spotlight: Exploring the Roots of Rochester's Deaf Community

Today, most of us know Rochester as being home to one of the largest deaf communities in the United States. But the city has been a home to deaf people for nearly two hundred years.

This lecture, based on the feature article of the Spring 2025 issue of Rochester History, will explore the emergence of the deaf community in Rochester during the middle of the nineteenth century. It will trace the movement of deaf New Yorkers, both white and Black, from their days as students at the New York School for the Deaf in New York City to their settlement as young adults in Rochester.

Rebecca Edwards is a professor of history at Rochester Institute of Technology. Her latest book, with co-author Eric C. Nystrom, is Ordinary Lives: Recovering Deaf Social History Through the American Census (2024). This book is available at our library. https://albert.rit.edu/record=b4625971~S3

An ASL interpreter will be provided. Registration is recommended but not required.

This is an in-person program that will also be livestreamed at https://www.youtube.com/@RochesterPublicLibraryNY/streams.

Presented by the Office of Rochester and Monroe County History in partnership with Rochester Institute of Technology Department of History and RIT Press.

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