A Phone of Our Own – The Deaf Insurrection Against Ma Bell - Hardcover

Lang, Harry G

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1563680904 ISBN 13: 9781563680908

Publisher: Gallaudet University Press, 2000

Synopsis

In 1964, of the more than 85 million telephones in the United States and Canada, less than one percent were used regularly by deaf people. In that same year, three enterprising deaf men, Robert H. Weitbrecht, James C. Marsters, and Andrew Saks, started the process that led to deaf people around the world possessing an affordable phone system that they could use. Harry Lang's A Phone of Our Own: The Deaf Insurrection Against Ma Bell tells how these three men collaborated to solve the technical difficulties of developing a coupling device for TTYs that would translate sounds into discernible letters. More remarkably, and with the help of an expanding corps of Deaf advocates, they successfully assaulted the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), which in its efforts to protect its monopoly, smashed old TTYs to keep them from being used for potentially competitive purposes. A Phone of Our Own is an entertaining and engrossing story of how Deaf people fought and won, and changed the world for the better for deaf people everywhere.

About this title

Review

The best parts of this well-researched book describe the talents and personalities of the major players and the eventual cooperation from many sources that has allowed the deaf to enhance their personal, social, and professional lives by using a "phone." This account chronicles a most important leap for deaf communication from the 1960s through the 1990s, of which many of the hearing population are unaware.

Synopsis

Recounts the story of the three deaf men who collaborated in 1964 to solve the technical difficulties of developing a coupling device for teletypewriters (TTY) that would translate sounds into discernible letters, and finally give deaf people access to telecommunications. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Edition details

• Publisher: Gallaudet University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1563680904
• ISBN 13: 9781563680908
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256