Negotiating Normalcy: Deafness Cures in American History

»> Hi, everyone. Welcome to our first medical center hour of this semester. Really exciting event to kick off a great semester for us to come. My name is Justin Mutter, I'm the director of Medicine Center Hour. As you may not know, it is our medical center ethics of UVA. We are delighted to offer this in relationship with the Health Sciences library. This is a history of the Health Sciences lecture. This is a series that invites us to explore key topics and history of health care, health

professions, et cetera, that strongly influenced today's clinical practice and education and so on. I want it especially thank Meagan Cashwell, and Nancyburg, from the sciences library today for her steadfast collaboration and support of this event and making this happen. Our session today is a hybrid of in-person and Zoom. So when it comes time for the question and answer from our attendees, we will have a microphone for those of you who are here in the auditorium and for our friends on Zoo

m, we ask that you please put any questions in the Q&A tab of your Zoom screen and then our moderator will follow those and present those to our special guests today. It is now my pleasure to introduce our moderator for today's lecture. UVA's own professor Dominique Tobbell. A distinguished professor and Director of the Bjoring center for UVA School of Nursing. She is the author of three books including economic and social relationships that developed after World War II between the Universiti

es, governments, health care industries, health professions . All relationships that continue to impact our modern day health systems. Dominique , thank you so much, welcome. Thanks for guiding our conversation today. » DR. TOBBELL: Thank you, Justin. So it is with tremendous pleasure that I introduce today's speaker, Dr. Jaipreet Virdi. Dr. Virdi is an award winning historian whose research focuses on ways medicine and technology impact the lived experiences of disabled people. First boo

k, hearing happiness, deafness cures in history raises pivotal questions about deafness in American society and endless quest for cure. Hearing happiness received British history of sciences Hughs prize and history of medicine's Welch medal. Dr. Virdi on audiometry, medical aides and deafness and essays that appeared in the Atlantic, Washington post, welcome collections, psych and slate. She is also co-editior of two volumes, disability and Victorians attitudes interventions and legacies. And

colonial histories of plant based pharmaceuticals, special history of pharmacy and pharmaceuticals. As an educator, Dr. Virdi is Associate Professor at Department of History at University of Delaware where she teaches courses on disability histories, history of medicine and health activism. Born in Kuwait it Sikh parents, Dr. Virdi lost her hearing at age four to back tierian meningitis. By age six, her working class family immigrated to Toronto, Ontario where she would later attend a scho

ol for deaf and hard-of-hearing children. A product of so-called mainstreamed education, Dr. Virdi learned to lip read and rely on her hearing aids. She then attended public high schools, then received her bachelor's degrees in philosophy of science in York University. After graduation, she took some time off and worked in marketing and fashion merchandising before deciding to return to school. She received her master's and doctorate from the Institute for the History and Philosophy o from Un

iversity of Toronto. Today I'm absolutely delighted to welcome Dr. Virdi who will be speaking to us about negotiating normalcy. Deafness cures in American history. for that introduction, Dr. Tobbell. Thank you all for joining us today, both in- person and Zoom. For those of you that grabbed lunch, do enjoy. Today I'm going to be discussing a little bit -- sorry, sound okay? -- discussing from my first book, heary happiness. But to begin, I want to start with a letter written by a deaf woman n

amed Clara seaman who once lived in Ithaca, New York, during the early 20th century. In 1919 she wrote to Arthur Cramp. This fellow on the screen here. Cramp was Director of the propaganda Department of the mayo medical department later renamed. And this organization, at least this department, served as essentially as a clearing house for people to receive information about all kind of medical theraps that were being advertised or ask about integrity and practice. As Director, cramp ended u

p being the main contact person about people asking about medical therapy they were undertaking and many Americans who were concerned about their health concerns and health issues wrote letters to cramp. And the letters were all kept at mayo medical association archives in Chicago and give us a remarkable insight into history of disability and deafness. These are people talking about their health issue, describing the kind of treatment they received, and also outlining the challenges they we

re having with regard to being a deaf person or person with hearing impairment and living within and all of society. So this is one letter that Clara wrote to cramp. And she was specifically asking whether cramp could help her select a new course of treatment. There are so many ear phones, she writes, good, bad, and indifferent and so many kinds of artificial ear drums, et cetera, that one who is deaf spends a lot of time, money and nerves trying them out. Clara was debating asking another p

hysician for device. But explained to cramp it was very hard to find a physician who knows enough about these devices to know whether they fit or not. Even an ear specialist didn't know, they couldn't guarantee that this treatment would be effective. And this is what Clara wanted cramp to confirm. What permanent treatment for deafness on the health market that she could purchase. And Clara's story, and other Americans who wrote to cramp, in my book, hearing happiness, deafness cures in history

. At its core , hearing happiness Nairates how cures for deafness imagined and forwarded notions of normalcy that often times contradicted the experience of the deaf people moving through the auditory world. And following the archival trail where people do emerge, I unkfer stories, not just of medical despare or struggle or procure, but other stories about relationships and hope. People in their families. Families negotiated with otheres a even them selfs in the quest for normalcy. What thi

s book offers is these are all stories about the presence of normalcy and above all, what so-called hearing happiness meant to people who could hardly hear. And more importantly, the stories outline deafness as an auditory spectrum. With the variation of experiences, managing deafness, and attempting to treat it. Sometimes to create or make use of experiences of staff even in ears that had never heard anything. Through hearing happiness, I show how deaf people and their families, mostly hea

ring families, tried ordinary and extraordinary measures in the hopes of eliminating deafness. Often despite the potential of advisers, most of these careers were not in the claims to elevate deafness nor were they painless. But this did not stop people from either trying or recommending treatment. For if there was even a glimmer of possibility, a glimmer of hope , that the hearing could be fully restored, then that was the cure worth trying. This is what it's like to be deaf in America.

Any cure is better than no cure. So my book brings stability into the forefront of the American capitalism by seeing how the con section of deafness and hearing were not only transformed through medical discord but also expectation of able bodies, and in other words, then, like now, deaf people were expected, if not believed, to be required to fix hearing defects. In the 18th century, advertisement for deafness cure, as they recall, contain all kinds of self testing medical recipes, or home

remedies that were pedaled by traveling salesmen. All intervene in the market economy selling their own diagnostic technique and promoting innovation in order to find deafness as a medical rather than educational problem. The entrepreneurial flare of all specialists race for the question of credibility. How do we actually trust these cures ? Becoming tied up with most if not all deafness cures . So to put cures men that subscribe in the market of medical quackery and this was especially pro

found at the beginning of the 20th century when medicine advertisements started to feed into the growing public distrust of medical expert whose medicine fails for speedy treatments. Today I'm going to be drawing very generally from this and focusing on the marketing and expansion of hearing aid commerce in the 20th century to better understand how some of these cultural ideas about deafness will be propagated to the advertisement and through capitollist ideas of able bodies. So this largely

a period in which the solution of hearing became increasingly techo graphic. Introduced at a time government was showing hearing on national scale. Procedures were becoming more and more standardized and out of the chaos of the world war, a new category of hearing and cure rate emerges. Then for the hard-of-hearing, a group of people who lobbied for their condition to be classified as medical handicap, thereby distancing themselves from the deaf, capital D, community, rich culture, in languag

e. This classification has a new area of the medical and cultural area. And that is people, quote, not deaf and done for but rather hard-of- hearing and hopeful. These cultural transformations brought normalcy and began to be mediated by capitalists, advertisers, newspaper writers and consumers were all collectively having expectations by atrick lating a medical ethos. And started to become dependent on technology. Capitalism shaped what was normal deafness in America. Someone Godly, civic mi

nded, self sufficient and perhaps above all, hearing. For the application of electricity in medicine adding electro therapy capitalized on this idea that if we can send messages through long wires over long distances, then perhaps electricity through the body would unblock distayses and improve health. Indeed, the period between 1880 and 1920, often looking to as the golden age of electro therapy. Because this is a time when any reservation, any doubt about electricity, therapy efficacy start

ed to fall to the way side. People became more trust worthy or people trusted the potential of electricity to help cure diseases. Many entrepreneurs began it see the market potential of offering electro therapy as a treatment . These devices are often effective for the consumer who was either destructful or disappointed. These consumers could buy a cure when all other treatment options were limited or had failed. And in some instances, these electric machines were often promoted as the onl

y way to restore the nerve in the auditory canal to damage -- sorry, to correct any damages that affected hearing. This is the case for Carolyn perkins, who lived in Rochester, New York. In 1870, when Carolyn was two years old, her parents, philanthropist, gill man and Carolyn perkins, who laters started the school for the deaf. One of the most prominent surgeons at that time, Dr. Cornelius Agnew. In a private letter, Caroline wrote about her daughter being evaluated by Dr. Agnew. He kne

w from her movements before he made any examination that she could not hear. He started with hopeless and we need never to try to do anything for her, that she had no auditory nerve . It was paralyzed. The perkins were distraught about their diagnosis for their daughter. However, Caroline refused to give up and frequently explored different treatment options and specialists in the hopes that her daughter's deafness would be cured. In the meantime, learning about opportunities for deaf childre

n to learn sign language and learn how to speak and read and write. So the perkins employed a private tutor for her daughter and the teachers later go on and establish the foundation for training at Rochester school for the deaf. But still, the perkins hoped as their daughter grew that more and more medical opportunities would be available. So when Carolyn was 16, her mother took her to visit admin Agnew who add new electro therapy for deafness. That consisted of mild electric shock to appl

ied to the girl's ears. These treatments continues everyday over a several of several weeks in the homes that bold hearing would be permanently restored. For a moment there, you see that it was working. Carolyn would describe to her mother sounds she had never heard before. A dog barking. Scratch of dinner chairs on the floor. Even the moment the band at the park stopped playing. And if you have been around deaf people enough, or maybe if you yourself have any hearing issues, you knows th

ese are sounds heard by vibration. So you feel it is down. Reverberates objects. You know when they top. This is what happened with Carolyn here. But Agnew believed in his therapy. After a period of several months, he supposedly refined it to better improve Carolyn's hearing. Eventually reducing it into three times a week. And until he stopped because no further improvement would be obtained. Carolyn, after all, remained deaf. And she would go on to be a deaf teacher at Rochester school

for the deaf as well. But Carolyn was one of many middle and upper class deaf Americans who turned to or parents took their children , hoping that electric current could revitalize their nerves. But those unable to afford the leg try there were a range of medical devices available on the consumer market. With the rise of heck try if Ication or consumer goods they capitalized on the excitement of electric energy and means of salvation, like taking control over your own body in our own cours

e of treatment. Making you an extraordinary cure rater calling on the power of nature to rejuvenate health. You can buy all kinds of electro devices. Or larger equipment like the one pictured here. These were an easy remedy that could be felt by electric shocks and these were certainly attractive for consumers that could feel the immediate results of using electricity on their body. They could see sparks. They could feel the hair-raising and hear the low hum of the generator. And sometimes

shock that people could feel, sometimes strongly, that it worked as a placebo effect. This was a campaign launched by Gee Clifford Powell, who sold his electro vibe ratory cure for deaf miss out of Illinois. The device marketed in two versions, model A and reproduction of power packed in model B, which would aper by 1905 and much more compact model. The model A was advised to and model B was for general consumer. Pumping air into the ears to cotton covered electrodes soaked in salt water,

largely through the wires that are coming from the machine here. Which would be plugged into the ear. Up withs the so-called stethoscope apparatus was in the ear, you continue on the machine and electricity is put directly into the ear. Powell advertised the device as the wonder for the century. A positive and permanent care for deafness. And his advertisements were included along side of a self portrait in his glory. And he also claimed that this was a product that required very minimal i

ntervention from the physician. With no pain and no detention from work and could also have ancestry like his vibrator using the presence to unblock any blockages in your auditory canal. This was priced at $ 100 and sold to American and British clients who wrote requesting a trial for home or office use. But now, creating immediate danger , the vibration was part after therapy formula. Manufacturers of handheld devices claim that an immense vibe ratory force enabled elected ways to Pierce and

refresh each nerve and cell in the body. These vibe rating massagers were often inexpensive alternatives to the high frequency machine like Powell' s. And the massaging system was promoted with this idea that vibration could break up the potholes in the ear that they claim are responsible. So for example , Jordan's vibrator was compact for home and you can see the image, would clamp on to a table right here. And would you extend from the ear piece to the ear and crank to thement force of vib

ration to the ear. Another interesting device building on this idea was the ear-o-tone developed by moon who operated out of Toledo. And typical of the techniques used by electrical entrepreneur. Like buy this or your money back. Promised to work. And moon claimed for $25 the device is guaranteed to restore your hearing and claim that up to 95% of consumers obtained immediate benefits. Using the ear-o-tone. Now, one of the most notorious so-called vibe rating devices was a vibraphones. He

claimed that there was radium inside some of the models here. Which were really tiny metallic devices could you wear in your ear. What is fascinating about this device, claiming that with addition of vibration, would cure all kinds of diseases and permanently restore any lost hearing. Now you would think that these kind of electric their pi product were largely only promoted by electrical entrepreneurs or those quacks, old men. But even pioneering hearing aid companies, offer their own elec

trical cure for deafness or along side their main product. The further they stole the devices, the more the history of hearing didn't necessarily follow a linear path and was more advance hearing aids started to supplement the early questionable devices. But perhaps more importantly, the fact that hearing aid firm was selling these kinds of massagers and vibrating devices, it indicated this broader culture and stigma against deafness, in that a cure especially a cure is always much more secur

e in the device. The the first commercial wearable electrical hearing aid, later rebranded as acousticon and introduced in 1901, at the same time, you could also purchase a discounted cost, massacon. A device that that's then to the ears. Another hearing aid company is the gem phone company. Gem phone was very popular and very well received by deaf consumers. Still, the company promoted auto ear massage which consumers could obtain for discounted cost of $10 and free trial. And consumers w

ere told that vibration could stop the ear pain. That would develop as wearing the gem phone hearing aid. But also, supposedly, the ear massage could cure all kind of ear diseases by increasing blood to the cochlea. And finally the second oldest manufacturer of hearing aids, out of New York city, also had their own line of product promoted as a deafness cure. Now many of these kind of gadgets would actually disappear in the 1930s to change in regulation of the food and drug administration. A

nd the emergence of more and more powerful hearing aids. In the late 1940s, at the time, one of the top five hearing aid firms of the mid 20th century, created new training. Under the new product that was bringing at quote world's most afactive. It addressed ind enty of consumer whose favorite devices could be hidden or and we learned from the voiceover, now, vanity is working for us. Now hearing aids are part of the period market by the single force, bit biggest sing et force in the American

market. Pride, prestige, vanity, the desire to be at one's best, to look one's best, the desire to be modern, to be smart, to be in the swim, to look important, handsome, dignified. This distinguished look. With the world's most attractive hearing aid, a new powerful key to open up the entire hearing aid market. Very specific reference to vanity, translation in the market that began in the 1930s . This was a time when hearing and technology itself underwent a dramatic shift. When some m

ade it possible to combine the amplifier, microphone, both which are remnants of the carbon telephone. Into a single pocket unit connected to a receiver. These models allowed hearing aid devices to be hearable on the body and essentially just have the receiver, sometimes separate battery pack, and ear cores. These hearing aids were known as multipacks. And they were technologically superior to earlier devices. Far more powerful than ear tram pet. But users found wearing the device truss fr

eighting. the device frustrating. They were advice advised to wear the device under clothing. It was additional harnesses. When you wear devices like this, what ends up happening is your clothing rubs against the microphone and create a lot of sound distortion. That makes it complicated for having clear sound especially for understanding speech. As you can imagine, sound interference truss frustrated a lot of users. It was complicated because depending on hu you would wear it, wires were re

stricted and you could have the wire getting in the way. Think of a time before apple ear pod. A technology when we were wearing, what if I showed you wearing ear phones with the wire. Getting on things and ripping off and how annoying that was. A that was a daily experience of consumers wearing hearing aids like this . More cushily, users who complained to the company testified that wearing hearing aids like this actually revealed their deafness rather than concealed it. Because no matter

how much manufacturers boasted about their technology advances they could not create a device to allow a user to pass as hearing. So in response to this constant stream of complaints for consumers, Irving, President of another interus try leader, started in the speech to his industry sailsmen. He urged them to specifically target deaf consumer feeling same and adequacy. That obligated them to look to hire deafness. Instructing salesmen to focus on the psychological benefit of hearing aid.

You couldn't wear a hearing aid when a constituent because no matter how well a user could feel the aid , extreme confusion of mishearing with a is so common that actually gave away that this person was deaf. And the deaf phase was so discernible that salesmen carried laminated cards like this to show consumer before and answer. And you're actually one of my favorite advertisers lap lab rated and the pull how good hearing could improve well. So what twe is a name of image. Before image, at

the very top here within? . But at what price of deafness? We have this image after middle age white man having this at the time of acoustic hearing surrounding around him, being darker and darker as we get closer to his ear. Around him we see examples in cultural parts. What deafness leads as socially handicap. Experiencing and security in business. He experiences conversational strain on himself and others. And loneliness. And disturbs by others shouting at him. By acousticon, head is

up, children up, shoulders back, smile, and acousticon waived away from the era. What happens? Family life is enjoyed again. Companionship with children. Nearing this to comfort a few voice service. And experiencing and with the messages also circulated directly to consumers, and industry sponsored magazine such as better hearing sponsored and heaving and often made an appearance in the wading room of aughtologist or on tole gist offices. Other pamphlets targeted how deaf people themselves c

ould participate and self improvement. A pamphlet entitled "fashion" your passport to poise the hearing aids for the glamorous woman who wanted to maintain herself . And again about the deaf phrase at the stuck message here. Including no woman is prettier than the question and wearing the product allowed her to effectively assert her fashionable self. Now these strategies were directly aimed to capitalize on beauty and expectations remain to be stylish slim and well groomed. But no I collusio

n or trick with conceal darkness. But any leader with the driving force of hearing aiders up there and for both men and women. In the meantime, advertisers themselves need to target psychological messages and need to target the implications of how wearing the hearding product could be an individual experience. So we see a references of individualized fit. Hearing aids personalized in their so called appearance market. These messages became more compelling when manufacturers began to combi

ne to innovation emerging out of the second world war. Circuit boards and batteries to produce even smaller model that again became more powerful when all merge into one single. The mono-PAC. The commercial availability, trancister to have a hearing aid. And look for helpful but also smaller hearing aid. We start it see these box-like devices becoming smaller and smaller to the point they weren't completely in the ear. Hearing aids became so popular that a year after their introduction, 97%

of all hearing aids on the market were trancister model to be completely replace the 2 devices. But these trancister hearing aids were not more reliable for practical. They were smaller. Small enough they could be hidden in the ear or eye glasses frame and small size started to become the chief selling point of hearing aid company p. And this reconfigures the ability and such that nobody knows you are deaf. Correcting hearing loss became a matter of public service. And these devices were hig

hly gender and designed to be inconstituents were introducing leader as noted and responding to the consumers complaint. And vanity was still such an obstacle. That some hearing companies created very creative strategies to work around it. Avoiding the word death or hard of hearing in their advertisement. After focus group revealed like dislike the term. Instead they came up with this idea of this hearing doll, an imaginary bubble around each of us that is larger an larger the more the a

uditory world expands. As they technological advancements, enabled hearing aids to become smaller, many paradoxically, a stigma against deafness increased. Then people, hearing aid industry, for not choosing hearing aid, it is clear. To hear is to live. Advertisers of course were merely training this is not reality, and how deaf users integrated with their hearing aids, body or identity. But advertisers thought mirror distorted what it was left with. This meant some reality. Is what does be

tter hearing mean for those lives who are unrepresented in the advertisements? We have hardly seen nonwhite people in archive on advertisements before the 1960s but we see messages of matching all skin color or option of eb any or ivory of hearing aids that gives tracing ways an ethnicity through the corporate archive. So in conclusion, why advertisers crafted a vision of social life in America, the goal was to reflect ideas about individual health and happiness that encapsulated by the prod

uct. In a sense, the need for participating in the hearing society with tie deafness into technology. People who decline to wear an aid or refuse other kind of therapy were not stigmatized for being deaf but ties to refusing to be hearing. We still see this in paternalistic reprimand against people who wear Cochlear implants. And essentia expected to pass as hearing restoring normalcy, deaf people rely on hearing aids, medical therapy, electro therapy product, and a host of other kinds of un

conventional therapy the gr ball to deliver. Advertisers honed in this message. By establishing conformity through normality, the problem of deafness they interested is nothing more than the problem of better living. To fail into the hearing world meant to be un-American and to fail to conform was giving up a quest for hearing happiness. Thank you. for hearing happiness. Thank you. » As you ponder on your questions, I will take moderator liberty and ask one. Dr. Virdi, you know, throughou

t the history of the deafness cures you presented, a cost seems to be a big issue and cost status of potential consumers. So I'm particularly interested in especially once we see the introduction of hearing aids and that pressure, that responsibility to be hearing, how was the cost of the devices, how did that impact access and what of the possibility for health insurance for hearing aids? How does that play in? » DR. VIRDI: Okay it is on? Good. That is a really great question. About the cos

t of the device tells us something about who is using these products. I would argue before the 1930s , acoustic devices for hearing were incredibly expensive. Most people who purchase some early carbon devices, which range between, upwards of a couple hundred dollars, which is in like tens of thousands of dollars today were wealthy people. Many working class or poor people prefer to use very simple trumpet and it is with the very rich growth of sign language at the time, a different form of co

mmunication. The vacuum tube trancister hearing aid did not become affordable for the majority of people until after the first world war -- sorry, second world war. You have an ease of the hearing aid companies themselves have larger distribution and larger areas by salesmen. And have you pride in American modernism that allowed people to purchase new technology and have you more competition in the hearing aid market. Most hearing aids around the 1930s were upwards of 3 to $800. Again in

the downturn. If you convert the cost. During second world war, participation in war efforts, working factories et cetera, hearing aid companies competed for government contracts. To produce more affordable hearing aids. The lowest at this time was about $50. Which was really cheap at the time. Not that it was very effective. But it was cheap and available. The competition continued after the war. And in fact, like, how much something costs depends on the decision a person made to whet

her or not they wanted to purchase the device. And especially whether or not they could upgrade to newer models. So you see stories of people in the 1970s still wearing hearing aids from 1930s. Why didn't they upgrade? Because they couldn't afford it. More importantly I would claim, if 1930s hearing aid worked why would you constantly upgrade? Second part of your question about varying major issue today, in the American context, hearing aids are not covered by health insurance. They were

never meant to be covered by health insurance. From the 1950s through 1990s, the constant campaign in various senate committees because the hearing aid industry did not want to have hearing aids classified as medical devices. They were classified as medical devices, insurance would cover it. Rather to continue their monopoly, and to continue the markup. Even today, markup is about 275% of the manufacturing cost. In order to have that monopoly, the industry constantly lobbied for hearing aid

s to be classified as consumer products. And the result, and I don't know if some of you might know about the whole over-the- counter hearing aid that came up last year, over the count hearing aids were introduced as another capitalist interjection to the monopoly. So to give people more affordable options. But they are not effective for wide range or users and nor do they require that individualized fitting to actually improve how one wears hearing aids. So the solution would have been just

to reclassify hearing aids as medical devices to get insurance coverage. Not introduce more competition. Sorry, I could rant about this all day long. Tobbell Tobbell . » DR. TOBBELL: Thank you. We have questions in the chat. Can you say more about how deaf people responded to the devices? Did they blame themselves if the devices didn 't work? » DR. VIRDI: Absolutely. I have seen sources where some deaf people, especially with the first device. The deaf blamed themselves. They thought th

em not being able to easily wear the hearing aid was a reflection on their own bodily self. Especially when they were younger. There is a sense of pride that came with that. Older deaf people or people who lost hearing through progressive deafness or tried different items often blamed the device. Some of them wore devices for such a long time they knew how to maintain and repair their own devices. They knew what was not working, whether wire or battery, and they would argue with the compan

y. But there is no uniform experience. It very much varied. » DR. TOBBELL: Any questions from the room? » DR. VIRDI: They will get the microphone. » Hi, so my question regards, as I said, as stigma became solidified with focus seen as choosing not to hear, I was curious with these devices weren't effective, was it considered better to still perform wearing them for this to avoid that stigma then even if the device wasn't working for certain deaf folks? » DR. VIRDI: Great question. The me

ssages were always it is better to wear the device than to claim a deaf identity. Even if the device worked -- if they weren't having effective communication, say with sign language, it was still wearing the devices. In all deaf schools, you use hearing aids and speech therapy to teach your children rather than sign . They often had group hearing aids where they did large receiver and each child would have their own head phones. And a child that had difficulty or failed to hear was considere

d to be problematic. And it was their fault for not improving their auditory self. » Thank you for the great talk . Actually, my question might build on the answer you just gave. Maybe something to do with schools. But most of your talk focused on the relationship between the producers of the hearing aids and the users. And I was wondering, whether there were ways in which users themselves could communicate among each other, with what worked and what didn't work and modify them and your a

nswer a minute ago in a different context about like user modification of them or repair was really interesting too. Because they look like very black box sort of consumer devices. I guess just what sort of user culture was there around exchanging information and knowledge about them? Thank you. » DR. TOBBELL: Were you exchanging information with each other about what worked and what didn't? » DR. VIRDI: Yes. Absolutely. And that is a different project I'm doing right now. While hearing

happiness is about the marketing of devices were shared to the deaf communities, one project we are doing right now is on how deaf communities, like who threw marketing ideas out the door and claim for themselves what they want the device to do and one of the ways they did that is often by having workshops to organization like the league for hard-of-hearing which is organization that emerged in New York city in the United States and Canada. And the league often had workshops where people coul

d come in and like, publish the hearing aids and learn how to do basic maintenance. Maintenance culture, we were taught to fix things. Or know where to go to buy things that were wires or vacuum cleaners or things like that. And some of these that were shared were often published in magazines at school. And people also wrote to each other so they would read a magazine sponsored by zenith which did a profile and people would write to that person and say, hey, you talked about your hearing id

ea. You can tell me how to repair, blah blah. That was very common. A rich history here. And hearing aid companies did sell product maintenance books as well. So when they would buy something new, there was an instruction guide. That was also included in the box the hearing aid came in. The you also today mail out to get the repair parts. But the hearing aid, where it was coming together, working and repairing, it is really fascinating. And also how we think about our instruments, how we k

now that doing basic repair allowed to be more effective. And I explain, one more thing, is also, a lot of information about how to wear the hearing aid. So there are sources in which women struggling to do say like women who work as a dough domestic worker, she today clean and move and her body had to be flexible. You couldn't have wires getting in the way. So she designed a new dress pattern to put the hearing aid and external battery so she could do her job and then she shared that dres

s pattern in a deaf magazine as well. So there are lots of stories about that as well. » DR. TOBBELL: We have time for one more question. I have some in the chat that I'm going to turn to. Sorry. So in the early 19th century, establishment of schools for the deaf were often motivated by concerned for spiritual well-being of deaf people. And this person noticed in your earlier ads, you showed, demonstrated the same concern. Like do you struggle with hearing in church. Did this it not in la

ter marketing? » DR. VIRDI: Great question. In a sense, yes. All the way up until probably 1950, showing the element where deaf people could find themselves, including in church, was provided as added benefit. So there is an older history that other historians talked about. About missionaries of churches and missionary groups to evangelize deaf people to the Christian religion. And deaf people were often religious and wanted it hear church service. So they fought for churches to have group

hearing aids or different kinds of acoustic instruments built into the churches so they could hear the feature. And the messages were offered in advertisements were just as they were succeeding in school succeeding business. Being around your family and herring your baby cry. Kind of like one big thing. And creating more holistic picture about what it meant to be a deaf person. » DR. MUTTER: All right, unfortunately, we are out of time. But I want to thank you all for attending. Includi

ng those on Zoom. Thank you, Dr. Virdi, thank you, Dr. Tobbell, for this great lecture and discussion. Just a quick note about future medical center hours. As many close followers of our medical center hour know, we had to reschedule our event with the U.S. surgeon general in collaboration with the compasionate care institute of the School of Nursing last fall. That was scheduled to be early February. It is most likely at this point going to be a taped version. So look out for that in o

ur, those of you on our e-mail list serve. We will probably tape it, not live, but then share that with you in March. Our very next live medical center hour will be on February 21st. That will be a Zoom-only event. That is our second of the history of the Health Sciences lectures for this semester. We will virtually welcome, it'll be Zoom only, virtual only, Assistant Professor of history of science at Harvard University. Dr. Elm will speak us to on ground breaking work on immigration medi

cal graduates and care of under resourced communities in the United States. So hope you can join us if are that. Thank you, again, professor Virdi. Thanks for everyone for being here.