1 A note on terminology: The Section of Defects of Hearing and Speech existed inside a larger hospital that did not always focus on deafness or speech disability. Therefore, I will refer to this specific organization as the “Section” or the “Section of Defects of Hearing and Speech” throughout this article. The Section and speech professionals in the early twentieth century United States regularly referred to stuttering or other forms of speech disfluency as “speech defects.” I use this term only when referencing its contemporary use in the sources. Any time I discuss speech disfluency or speech disability, I have placed “speech defects” in quotation marks to reflect its reference to antiquated terminology rather than my adoption of the term.

2 “Seeing is Hearing: The Army is Educating its First Deaf Soldier by the Newest Methods,” Carry On: A Magazine on the Reconstruction of Disabled Soldiers and Sailors 1 (Sept. 1918): 15–16; “Seeing is Hearing: The Army is Educating its First Deaf Soldier by the Newest Methods,” Journal of the Missouri State Medical Association 15 (Nov. 1918): 411–12; “Must Write Wife: Deaf Soldier Quickly Taught,” Daily Panhandle (Amarillo, TX), Nov. 1, 1918; “Must Write Wife; Deaf Soldier Quickly Taught,” Evansville Indiana Press, Nov. 11, 1918; “Removing War’s Handicaps,” Princeton Union, Oct. 24, 1918; “Deaf Soldier Writes Wife After Learning in Army Overseas,” Walnut Valley Times (El Dorado, KS), Oct. 30, 1918.

3 Linda Kerber uses the term “obligation” of citizenship to suggest being bound or constrained to perform a social duty rather than performing it as a voluntary undertaking. Linda K. Kerber, No Constitutional Rights to Be Ladies: Women and the Obligations of Citizenship (New York: Hill and Wang, 1998), xxi.

4 Adler, Jessica L., Burdens of War: Creating the United States Veterans Health System (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kinder, John M., Paying with Their Bodies: American War and the Problem of the Disabled Veteran (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Linker, Beth, War’s Waste: Rehabilitation in World War I America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 See, for example, Baynton, Douglas C., Forbidden Signs: American Culture and the Campaign Against Sign Language (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Branson, Jan and Miller, Don, Damned for their Difference: The Cultural Construction of Deaf People as Disabled: A Sociological History (Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Buchanan, Robert M., Illusions of Equality: Deaf Americans in School and Factory, 1850-1950 (Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Burch, Susan, Signs of Resistance: American Deaf Cultural History, 1900 to World War II (New York: New York University Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Burch, Susan and Kafer, Alison, eds., Deaf and Disability Studies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 2010)Google Scholar; Burch, Susan and Joyner, Hannah, Unspeakable: The Story of Junius Wilson (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Davis, Lennard J., Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness, and the Body (New York: Verso, 1995)Google Scholar; Edwards, R.A.R., Words Made Flesh: Nineteenth-Century Deaf Education and the Growth of Deaf Culture (New York: New York University Press, 2012)Google Scholar; Greenwald, Brian H. and Murray, Joseph J., eds., In Our Own Hands: Essays in Deaf History, 1780-1970 (Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Groce, Nora Ellen, Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language: Hereditary Deafness on Martha’s Vineyard (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985)Google Scholar; Virdi, Jaipreet, Hearing Happiness: Deafness Cures in History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 One exception is Katherrine Healey’s article, “More Than Meets the Eye: Deafness and In/Visible Disabilities,” Canadian Medical Association Journal 189 (April 2017): E506–E507. Many scholars define “Deaf” as a community of deaf people sharing the same language, cultural values, history, and social life, and “deaf” as “simply those who do not hear.” “Deaf” therefore connotes a community situated cultural and socially around a shared language. These definitions help conceptualize deafness as an identity as well as a biological fact. See: Davis, Enforcing Normalcy, 100; Mirzoeff, Nicholas, “Paper, Picture, Sign: Conversations between the Deaf, the Hard of Hearing, and Others” in “Defects”: Engendering the Modern Body, eds. Deutsch, Helen and Nussbaum, Felicity (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), 78–79 Google Scholar.

7 Capozzola, Christopher, Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 For a discussion on the Progressive Era links among disability, work, and citizenship, see Rose, Sarah F., No Right to Be Idle: The Invention of Disability, 1840s-1930s (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 For a discussion on the intersections of disability and citizenship, see Hirschmann, Nancy J. and Linker, Beth, Civil Disabilities: Citizenship, Membership, and Belonging (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 John Kinder and Jason Higgins use the phrase “marginalized veterans” to signify veterans who did not share equally in the benefits of the status as a veteran due to social exclusions based on race, class, gender, sexuality, or disability. I refer to this framework periodically throughout this article. Kinder, John M. and Higgins, Jason A., eds., Service Denied: Marginalized Veterans in Modern American History (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2022), 3–7 Google Scholar.

11 Speech language pathologist May Kirk Scripture similarly defined “speech defects” as including aphasia (absence of speech), aphonia (loss of voice), stuttering, lisping, “cluttering,” and “negligent speech.” May Kirk Scripture, “The Etiology of Speech Defects,” Laryngoscope 28 (Jan. 1918): 26–30; “Sources of American Language Featured in First Parade For Efficiency in Speech,” Birmingham News, November 26, 1916; “Teachers to Wage A Better English Purity Campaign,” Montgomery Advertiser, August 23, 1916; “To Rout Bad English By Pageants and Plays,” Kansas City Star, Oct. 24, 1919; “Better Speech Week Observed Two Times: Montevallo Girls Dramatize Mistakes, and Invent Clever Devices for Arousing Sentiment for Speech Improvement,” Birmingham News, Nov. 26, 1916; “Provincialism and Company: Written by the Emma Hart Willard Dramatic Club, Montevallo, Alabama” Birmingham News, Nov. 26, 1916.

12 “Are You Planning to Observe ‘Ain’t-less’ Day?” Junction City Weekly Union, May 2, 1918.

13 Edward M. Thierry, “Out To War On That Awful Slang!” Lexington Leader, Jul. 28, 1920.

14 “Children Prefer Bad Grammar,” Charlotte Observer, Jun. 17, 1920.

15 “An Unspeakable Speech,” Rock Island Argus, Aug. 4, 1920.

16 “Better Speech Week in Local Schools,” Post Star (Glens Falls), Feb. 16, 1920.

17 Ed Duffy, “‘Better Speech’ Week Will Be Observed by Sixty Thousand D.C. Students: Mother Tongue Undefiled 7 Days,” Washington Times, Nov. 6, 1921.

18 B.C. Van Wye, “Speech Training for Patriotic Service,” Quarterly Journal of Speech Education 4 (Oct. 1918): 369.

19 Van Wye, “Speech Training for Patriotic Service,” 371.

20 “Speech Defects and the War for Democracy,” Survey, Oct. 19, 1918.

21 Van Wye, “Speech Training for Patriotic Service,” 367–68.

22 Judith Felson Duchan, “The Early Years of Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in U.S. Schools,” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 41 (Apr. 2010): 152–59; “Annual Report,” 51:25, State of New York Fifty-First Annual Report of the State Board of Charities, Feb. 18, 1918, 27; James Sonnett Greene, “Releasing the Tongues of Men: How Speech Defects Are Successfully Cured at a Free Medical Clinic for Their Treatment,” Survey, Oct. 19, 1918, 65–67.

23 “A Free Clinic for Normal Speech in the Interests of Individual and Communal Efficiency,” box 396, folder 710: Speech Defects, entry NM 29, Records of the Office of the Surgeon General, Record Group 112, National Archives, College Park, MD.

24 “A Free Clinic for Normal Speech in the Interests of Individual and Communal Efficiency.”

25 Murray, Joseph J., “‘Enlightened Selfishness’: Gallaudet College and Deaf Citizenship in the United States, 1864-1904,” in In Our Own Hands: Essays in Deaf History, 1780-1970, eds. Greenwald, Brian H. and Murray, Joseph J. (Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 2016), 30 Google Scholar; Anja Werner, “Why Give Him a Sign Which Hearing People Do Not Understand…?: Public Discourses about Deafness, 1780-1914,” in In Our Own Hands, 1–8.

26 Rembis, Michael, “Disability and the History of Eugenics,” in The Oxford Handbook of Disability History, eds. Rembis, Michael, Kudlick, Catherine, and Nielsen, Kim E. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 87 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Douglas C. Baynton, Defectives in the Land: Disability and Immigration in the Age of Eugenics (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016), 8; Robinson, Tavian, “‘We Are of a Different Class’: Ableist Rhetoric in Deaf America, 1880-1920,” in Deaf and Disability Studies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, eds. Burch, Susan and Kafer, Alison (Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 2010), 6Google Scholar; Schweik, Susan M., The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public (New York: New York University Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

28 Baynton, Forbidden Signs, 15, 108.

29 For a discussion on Progressive Era reform movements, see Clapp, Elizabeth J., Mothers of All Children: Women Reformers and the Rise of Juvenile Courts in Progressive America (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Foster, Carrie A., The Women and the Warriors: The U.S. Section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 1915-1946 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Mink, Gwendolyn, The Wages of Motherhood: Inequality in the Welfare State, 1917-1942 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

30 Baynton, Forbidden Signs, 9.

31 “The Education of the Deaf From the Viewpoint of the Educated Deaf,” Silent Worker 30 (Nov. 1917): 17–18.

32 “The Sign Language,” Silent Worker 30 (Dec. 1917): 40.

33 Jaipreet Virdi, “Prevention & Conservation: Historicizing the Stigma of Hearing Loss, 1910-1940,” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 45:4 (2017): 532.

34 Angela Jordan, “Student Military Training and the Great War,” https://archives.library.illinois.edu/blog/military-training (accessed Oct. 11, 2018).

35 Edward E. Ragna, “A Deaf Cadet at Fort H.G. Wright,” Silent Worker 29 (Jun. 1917): 149.

36 J. Frederick Meagher, “Nadfratities,” Silent Worker 30 (Nov. 1917): 31.

37 John J. Cloud, “Ambulance Driver for the Deaf in France,” Silent Worker 30 (Oct. 1917): 6.

38 “War Injuries and Neuroses of the Ear,” Lancet, Feb. 24, 1917.

39 Bryant, William Sohier, “Prevalence of Ear Injuries and Diseases in the French Army,” Journal of Laryngology, Rhinology and Otology 32 (Nov. 1917): 338 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Gordon Berry, M.D., “War Surgery of the Larynx, With Special Reference to the Work at Cape May,” Transactions of the Annual Meeting of the American Laryngological Association (1921): 306–08.

41 Berry, “War Surgery of the Larynx,” 308–10.

42 “Table 20: Battle Injuries, by anatomical part and by military agent, admissions, death, and case fatalities, single and multiple wounds, officers and enlisted men, 1917-18,” The Medical Department of the United States in the World War, Volume XI: Surgery (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1927).

43 Loeb, Hanau W., Military Surgery of the Ear, Nose and Throat (New York: Lea & Febiger, 1918), 42–52 Google Scholar.

44 Loeb, Military Surgery of the Ear, Nose and Throat, 127.

45 “Becker Almost Shot To Pieces,” Kingston Daily Freeman, Feb. 3, 1919; “Has Seventh Operation,” Poughkeepsie Eagle News, Mar. 24, 1920.

46 Harris P. Mosher, “An Informal Report on Oto-Laryngology in the First Year of the War,” Transactions of the Fortieth Annual Meeting of the American Laryngological Association, May 27th, 28th, and 29th, 1918 (New York: The American Laryngological Association, 1918), 89–92.

47 “History of U.S. Army General Hospital No. 11, Cape May, New Jersey,” folder: 314.7-2, box 223, entry NM 31 (K), RG 112, NA–College Park.

48 Ireland, M.W., “In Hospitals Caring for Defects of Hearing and Speech” in The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War , Volume XIII, Part One: Physical Reconstruction and Vocational Education (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1927), 186 Google Scholar.

49 Ireland, “In Hospitals Caring for Defects of Hearing and Speech,” 185–88.

50 U.S. Veterans’ Bureau, Annual Report of the Director for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1922 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1922), 308–10; U.S. Veterans’ Bureau, Annual Report of the Director for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1923 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1923), 427; U.S. Veterans’ Bureau, “Training of Soldiers Who Lost Their Hearing Or Who Acquired Speech Defects,” American Annals of the Deaf 67 (1922): 90–91.

51 C.R. Darnall, “Report as to the complete or near deaf and speech defects in your hospital,” Nov. 19, 1918, folder: 741.-1 (Hearing and Vision, Deaf and Deafness, Blind and Blindness, Age, Height, Weight, etc.), box 433, entry NM 29, RG 112, NA–College Park.

52 The section for arthritis, located within the orthopedic division at Lakewood, continuously lacked adequate staff and wrote repeatedly to the surgeon general seeking more cases to study. And the official stance of the surgeon general regarding the Diabetic Service was that despite life the life threatening ailment soldiers be given short trial periods of no more than three weeks to educate them on proper diet, but they should not take up beds that could be used for “more legitimate” purposes. Major John Bryant, “Report of Consultant, U.S.A. General Hospital #9, Lakewood, N.J.” Jan. 24, 1919, folder 353.91-1 (G.H. #9) K Jan-March 1919, box 215, entry NM 31(K), RG 112, NA–College Park; Acting Surgeon General to the Commanding Officer of U.S. Army General Hospital No. 9, “Policy concerning treatment of Diabetes” Sept. 18, 1918, folder 730.7 – Diabetes, box 943, entry UD 8, RG 112, NA–College Park; Captain F.M. Allen, “Effective treatment of diabetic cases” Nov. 20, 1918, folder 730.7 – Diabetes, box 943, entry UD 8, RG 112, NA–College Park.

53 The Chief of the Oto-Laryngological Service to the American Red Cross at U.S.A. General Hospital No. 11, “Present Status of patients discharged from Section of Defects of Hearing” May 2, 1919, folder: 705 Oto Laryngological Patients, box 958, entry UD 8, RG 112, NA–College Park.

54 “Deaf Soldiers Hear With Eyes,” New Castle Herald, Sept. 26, 1919.

55 Federal Board for Vocational Education, “Standards and Directions Regarding Corrective Speech Courses,” American Annals of the Deaf 66 (1921): 196–98.

56 Healey, “More Than Meets the Eye,” E506; Virdi, “Prevention & Conservation,” 532.

57 Healey, “More Than Meets the Eye,” E506-E507.

58 Arthur C. Manning, “Reconstruction of Deafened American Soldiers,” American Annals of the Deaf 65 (1920): 80.

59 Richardson, Charles W., “Organizing of Section of Defects of Hearing and Speech. Division of Physical Reconstruction, Surgeon General’s Office,” Transactions of the American Otological Society, Fifty-Second Annual Meeting 15, 1 (1919): 50–51 Google Scholar.

60 Richardson, “Organizing the Section of Defects of Hearing and Speech,” 57.

61 Richardson, “Reeducation and Reconstruction of Defectives in Hearing and Speech,” 137.

62 Pemberton, Alfred H., “First Impressions of a Deaf Soldier,” Volta Review 21 (Jan. 1919): 40 Google Scholar.

63 Healey, “More Than Meets the Eye,” E506-E507; Richardson, “Reconstruction of Defects of Hearing and Speech,” 37.

64 Richardson, “Reconstruction of Defects of Hearing and Speech,” 37. There is no indication that the Federal Board for Vocational Education required the men to shave their mustaches.

65 Sanders, , “Hospital No. 11, Cape May, N.J.,” Silent Worker 31 (June 1919): 161–62Google Scholar.

66 Pemberton, “First Impressions of a Deaf Soldier,” 40.

67 United States Veterans’ Bureau, “Over 500 War-Deafened Veterans Able to ‘Hear’ Through Lip-Reading,” The Volta Review 24 (1922): 107.

68 Richardson, “Reeducation and Reconstruction of Defectives in Hearing and Speech,” 148.

69 “The O.D. Page,” Volta Review 27 (May 1925): 246–47.

70 Terry, Alice, “Reconstructing Cleider Rodman,” Silent Worker 33 (May 1921): 262–63Google Scholar.

71 United States Veterans’ Bureau, “Over 500 War-Deafened Veterans Able to ‘Hear’ Through Lip-Reading,” 107–08.

72 Robert M. Buchanan, Illusions of Equality, xv; Mirzoeff, “Paper, Picture, Sign,” 82; Nielsen, Kim E., A Disability History of the United States (Boston: Beacon Press, 2012), 7.Google Scholar

73 Burch and Joyner, Unspeakable, 1–3. See also Bakke, Dave, God Knows His Name: The True Story of John Doe No. 24 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

74 See, for example, Adler, Burdens of War; Paul R.D. Lawrie, Forging a Laboring Race: The African American Worker in the Progressive Era (New York: New York University Press, 2016); Lawrie, Paul R.D., “‘Salvaging the Negro:’ Race, Rehabilitation, and the Body Politic in World War I America, 1917-1924” in Disability Histories, ed. Rembis, Michael and Burch, Susan (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2014)Google Scholar.

75 Richardson, “Organization of Section of Defects of Hearing and Speech,” 48.

76 “Report on the Section of Defects of Hearing and Speech” folder: unnamed, box 224, entry NM 31 (K), RG 112, NA–College Park.

77 “Lip-Reading Ability,” Silent Worker 35 (May 1923): 353.

78 Virdi, “Prevention & Conservation,” 533 and 542.

79 Clark, Eunice Hunter, “Case of the Deafened Soldier: Necessity of Preparing to Reconstruct 2,000 Men a Year Who Have Lost Their Hearing in Battle,” Volta Review 20 (Oct. 1918): 653 Google Scholar.

80 Richardson, “Reeducation and Reconstruction of Defectives in Hearing and Speech,” 133–34.

81 “Seeing Is Hearing,” 411.

82 U.S. Veterans’ Bureau, Annual Report of the Director for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1923, 427.

83 Bureau, U.S. Veterans’, Annual Report of the Director for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1922 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1922), 309 Google Scholar.

84 Raymond, Estelle M., “What the Government is Doing for Soldiers With Speech Defects,” Quarterly Journal of Speech Education 7 (Feb. 1921): 2–3 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

85 Raymond, “What the Government is Doing for Soldiers With Speech Defects,” 3–4.

86 Carlisle, Chester L., “The Interpretation of Inadequate Behavior Through Neuropsychiatric Symptoms,” Medical Bulletin 2 (Mar. 1926): 241–42Google Scholar.

87 Carlisle, “The Interpretation of Inadequate Behavior Through Neuropsychiatric Symptoms,” 243–44.

88 Ibid., 244.

89 Ibid.

90 Skyberg, Victor O., “Vocational Rehabilitation of Deafened Veterans of the World War,” Volta Review 26 (Sept. 1924): 410 Google Scholar.

91 Skyberg, “Vocational Rehabilitation,” 410.

92 “The O.D. Page,” Volta Review 27 (Jun. 1925): 317.

93 “Washington Wonders at Deaf Convention,” Jacksonville Daily Journal, Aug. 12, 1926.

94 “Arlington,” Deaf-Mutes’ Journal 55 (Sept. 9 1926): 1.

95 See Capozzola, Uncle Sam Wants You.

96 “Seeing is Hearing,” 15–16.