The image at left is from Dr. Pamela Kincheloe's article, "The Hand of The Silent Worker: Reading an ASL Imageword," Disability Studies Quarterly, 36:2, 2016. Deaf schools offered training in the printing field. To provide practice, Deaf schools published Deaf newspapers (The Little Paper Family) overseen by Deaf editors and writers. As a result, we had many Deaf printers working at newspapers and the Government Printing Office (Washington, DC).
There were several reasons why Deaf printers were popular employees in the printing trade. The printing press rooms were very noisy, and this did not disturb the Deaf employees. Also, Deaf employees have strong visual and concentration abilities.
Gallaudet University has a website about the Washington Post newspaper's Deaf employees, union membership, printing history, Deaf schools' printing training, and a sign language glossary of printing terms. Review the website, which is linked below. If you are interested in finding biographies of Deaf printers, check out the Gallaudet Index to Deaf Biographies.
If you have questions, feel free to contact me, Joan Naturale - I am the NTID and Deaf Studies Librarian and am happy to help.
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