Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race: A Paper Presented to the National Academy of Sciences at New Haven, November 13, 1883 by BELL, ALEXANDER GRAHAM - 1885

Isha Books , . Hardback. New.

Washington: Government Printing Office No date [1884]. Spine ends and cover corners worn; front inner hinge cracked.. First Separate Edition. Original Cloth. Good.

Washington DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1984. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Wraps. Fair. Format is approximately 9.75 inches by 12.25 inches. 86, [2] pages. Tables. Footnotes. Appendix. Many pages uncut! Cover worn, torn, soiled, chipped, and separated at the back (but mostly present). Alexander Graham Bell (March 3, 1847 - August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born scientist, inventor, engineer, and innovator who is credited with inventing and patenting the first practical telephone. He also founded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1885. Bell's father, grandfather, and brother had all been associated with work on elocution and speech and both his mother and wife were deaf, profoundly influencing Bell's work. His research on hearing and speech led him to experiment with hearing devices which eventually culminated in Bell being awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone in 1876. Bell considered his invention an intrusion on his real work as a… Read More

[Washington DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1884. First edition, quarto, pp. 86; folding graph; original brown cloth, gilt title on upper cover, paper label on spine with title in manuscript; covers stained, textblock clean and sound, front free endpaper excised; all else very good. A study of the heritability and intermarriage of the "congenitally deaf," which determined that deafness was an inheritable trait and that deaf individuals had a tendency to marry other deaf individuals. For Bell, this was considered a problem because he perceived a risk of a "deaf variety" of the human species of developing. He suggests both "repressive" and "preventive" measures for mitigating this tendency. Bell was a eugenicist, and his suggestion that deaf couples be deterred from marriage was in line with his general position on population management. Included is a thorough survey of individuals attending institutions for the deaf at the time of the lecture.