Deaf Women: Overview

This guide focuses on successful global Deaf women.
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Researching Deaf Women

A Silent Worker cover showing a side profile picture of a deaf dancer, Helen Heckman.The image at left is from The Silent Worker. This guide will assist you in finding information about Deaf Women in a variety of formats. We have reference books, auto/biographies, DVDs, and online material on Deaf Women. You can search by career and/or by multicultural groups by using the Gallaudet University Library Guide to Deaf Biographies Database. For example, if you are interested in African Americans, you can look up that cultural group and get a list of names, descriptions of their careers, and citations to works about them.

There is a Deaf Suffragists/Activists InfoGuide if interested in this topic. 

We also have articles about Deaf Women in Deaf periodicals (magazines and journals). You can use the Gallaudet University University Index to Deaf Periodicals to find articles. Check out Karen Christie's Deaf Women History website.

Recommended encyclopedias are the online Gallaudet Encyclopedia. You can use the print or online encyclopedia, the Sage Encyclopedia of Deaf Studies to find more recent entries of Deaf women in various fields.

The Summon search box is the orange box on the RIT Libraries' homepage. Summon searches all of the library's content and is like a Google search of RIT Libraries' (and other libraries) materials. Use the left-hand column to filter your results (books, articles, videos, etc.). We also have scholarly works about Deaf Women which you will find using the Summon search,  RIT Libraries Catalog, and databases.

Check out  Deirdre Schlehofer's Undocumented Voices of Deaf Women Leaders: A Historical Analysis Project in Archives. BB Bourne-Firl YouTube, Carol Padden YouTube, and Jackie Roth YouTube. The video page lising all is here. 

Christine Kim, an alumna, performed in ASL the National Anthem and America the Beautiful during the 2020 Super Bowl. She has done international exhibits in museums. Find out more about her works. 

Check out Deaf Women Surdists, all from various fields.

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