“The Absolute Indifference of the Majority”: The Western Canadian Association of the Deaf and the Establishment of Deaf Education in Saskatchewan, 1923–1931

Abstract

This article examines the role of the Western Canadian Association of the Deaf (wcad) in the establishment of the Saskatchewan School for the Deaf (ssd) from 1923–1931. Using correspondence between provincial officials, wcad figures, parents of deaf children, as well as extensive application records and contemporary deaf publications, it contributes to a growing body of historical literature that seeks to reappraise the political advocacy and agency of deaf and disabled people in Canada before the late twentieth century. This article argues that the wcad was instrumental in both forcing the government of Saskatchewan to meaningfully extend compulsory education to deaf children and youth, and in advising the governments of James Gardiner and J.T.M. Anderson on how best to establish an ssd that met many of the Association’s key cultural, linguistic, and educational demands.