Violating and "Decolonizing" Historic Legacies

Alexander Graham Bell Archives Canada

"I know that an idea has gone forth, and is very generally believed in by the deaf in this country, that I want to prevent you from marrying as you choose, and that I have tried to pass a law to interfere with your marriages."

"But, my friends, it is not true. I have never done such a thing, nor do I intend to."

"You can marry whom you choose, and I hope you will be happy. It is not for me to blame you for marrying to suit yourselves, for  you all know that I myself, the son of a deaf mother, have married a deaf wife."

Alexander Graham Bell, 1891 speech, Marriage: an Address to the Deaf 

 

Parks Canada 

"[He] devoted his life, with unusual success, to the benefit of mankind."

"[He] produced important inventions and discoveries in medicine, aeronautics, marine engineering, genetics and electrical science, and greatly advanced the methods and practices of teaching the deaf."

Parks Canada commemorative plaque, Baddeck, Nova Scotia

 

"He developed a herd of sheep that delivered twins, because sheep only deliver a single lamb at a time, and then it takes them a couple years, and that's a long time for the farmers to develop a herd of sheep."

"If  you could do it two at a time instead, twins instead of single ones, that would be geometrically much more efficient, and so he was part of this."

"He was one of the  founders of the American Breeders Association."

Ed Grosvenor, editor-in-chief American Heritage magazine, great-grandson of Alexander Graham Bell

 

The plaque in Nova Scotia, installed in 1977 for a  historic figure of international note and renown, designated a national historic person, was installed close to the summer home of the historic polymath, and it was where his life ended, in 1922. Parks Canada is now in the process of altering the wording on the plaque: "This designation was reviewed to understand Bell's connection to the eugenics movement", Parks Canada's website explains. It further goes on to explain that: "As a teacher of Deaf people, he developed oralist methods of instruction and discouraged the use of sign language among the Deaf community. Due to his eugenics beliefs, Bell argued against the intermarriage of congenitally Deaf people."

 

On the other side of the equation, Mr. Bell's descendants will have none of this woke nonsense, explaining that "What people today don't understand is that what he opposed was the sign language of 140 years ago. That's not modern sign language. Modern sign language was developed in the 1950s and I am certain that he would have thought it was brilliant", stated Ed Grosvenor in his great grandfather's defense. Going on to describe his ancestor's death-bed use of sign language himself when he was dying, responding to his deaf wife's appeal to her husband: 'Alec, don't leave me', signing 'No'. just as he took his last breath. 

 

As for the accusation of practising eugenics against  his great grandfather, Mr. Grosvenor points out that it was a connection practised through sheep farming and not eugenics centred on human biologics.  That interested was extended to genetic factors that might increase human longevity. When his great grandfather pointed out that if two deaf people had children together, a risk was entailed whereby those children would also be congenitally deaf -- a scientific observation, for he was a scientist. An obvious enough scientific acknowledgment of enhanced genetic inheritance. 

 

General view of Alexander Graham Bell National historic Site,  Parks Canada

 

It is the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada's contention that such reviews as the one being conducted for Alexander Graham Bell were required to recognize perceptions viewed through the lens of an overly European view where "out-dated or offensive terms or word choices", "controversial beliefs and behaviours" prevailed and "to reflect new information, new sources, or recent scholarship",  which led to the necessity to correct previously unrecognized moral blights. 

 

To which Ed Grosvenor responds that his great-grandfather was a humanitarian who organized protests opposing segregation in Canada, while advocating for women's suffrage. "And most of the money that he gave away-- and he died not a wealthy man -- most of it was given away to the deaf, to help the hearing impaired. And it just seems to me like it's kind of mean to focus on one aspect that you don't agree with, that you take out of context." 

 

Historian and great-grandson of Alexander Graham Bell, Ed Grosvenor stands in front of his ancestor's childhood home in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Handout)