Date of Award
Summer 7-17-2013
Document Type
Thesis
First Advisor
Brian Greenwald
Second Advisor
William Ennis III
Abstract
Salary differences based on gender are generally known to exist and particularly within the educational workplace; however, deafness can also be a factor in pay difference. This study investigates the stereotype of white, hearing male dominance as well as the assumption of increased discrimination after the triumph of oralism at the Milan Congress of 1880 so that deafness resulted in a greater salary discrimination than gender. Sources include archival documents of financial records and annual reports from the school to Congress of the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf (PSD) from 1840 to 1900. The surprising results of the study add to the historical understanding of oppression in the mid-nineteenth century to the turn of the twentieth century in deaf schools; in particular the results suggest that gender had a greater impact on salary than deafness throughout this period. Perhaps because the reverse is true today, the common assumption has been that deafness has always had a greater negative impact on salary, and particularly so after the Milan Congress. This study analyzes the evidence of discrimination that contradicts these common assumptions about the impact of gender and deafness discrimination in residential schools for the deaf.
Recommended Citation
Turner, Brittany, "Salary Differentials Based on Gender and Deafness at the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf 1840 to 1900" (2013). Undergraduate University Honors Capstones. 30.
https://ida.gallaudet.edu/honors_capstones/30
