“History Matters” Workshop Oral-Visual Interviews with Gerald “Bummy” Burstein, Melvin “Mel” Carter, and Frank Turk Part 1
Background Information
Interview Information
Interviews with Gerald “Bummy” Burstein (GB), Melvin “Mel” Carter (MC), and Frank Turk (FT) were incorporated into the Commission of Deaf, DeafBlind, and Hard of Hearing Minnesotans’ (MNCDHH) Oral-Visual History Project. The interviews were recorded during the “History Matters” Workshop that MNCDHH sponsored on October 1, 2010 at the Depot Renaissance Hotel (225 3rd Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55401).
This workshop was part of a joint celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Commission of Deaf, DeafBlind and Hard of Hearing Minnesotans (MNCDHH), the 30th Anniversary of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services Division (DHHSD), and the 125th Anniversary of the Minnesota Association of Deaf Citizens (MADC).
The presenters were Teika Pakalns (TP) and Marian Rengel (MR), and the interviewer was Douglas Bahl (DB).
Translation Notes
A note about translation of the interviews: The interviews were recorded in American Sign Language (ASL). The interviewer and interviewees used ASL as a first language, and the signed information was translated into vernacular or spoken English by Certified and volunteer interpreters.
Of the two presenters, one used ASL as a first language, and the other used spoken English as a first language. The presenters’ comments were not considered to be part of the oral-visual history interviews, but their comments were transcribed from spoken English (direct or translated from ASL by the interpreters) and included in this transcript for accessibility purposes.
This transcript and the open captions in the video are based on the spoken English information.
Actions are in brackets. Translation notes are in parentheses and italics (using the emphasis font), and they represent additional information and corrections about what was said.
Transcript of Interviews with Gerald “Bummy” Burstein, Melvin “Mel” Carter, and Frank Turk
Key to names:
TP = Teika Pakalns (signs in American Sign Language, voiced in English by interpreters)
MR = Marian Rengel (voices in English)
DB = Douglas Bahl (signs in American Sign Language, voiced in English by interpreters)
FT = Frank Turk (signs in American Sign Language, voiced in English by interpreters)
GB = Gerald “Bummy” Burstein (signs in American Sign Language, voiced in English by interpreters)
MC = Melvin “Mel” Carter (signs in American Sign Language, voiced in English by interpreters)
[Interview time 00:26:26]
[Visual of Teika Pakalns signing.]
TP: Thank you so much for coming. My name is Teika Pakalns and I am deaf and I’m here on behalf of the Commission of Deaf, DeafBlind and Hard of Hearing Minnesotans. I’m here to do the introduction at this beautiful Depot hotel in Minneapolis on this beautiful day. So thank you.
I want to know, first, if you can all see me? That’s good because the workshop is going to be called History Matters (fingerspells word “Matters”) or History Matters (signs “Matters” as in the word “important”). It’s not history errors (signs “Matters” as in the phrases “doesn’t matter” and “what’s the matter”), it’s (that) history is important. The reason we’re here is to celebrate the rich history and the many contributions by Minnesotans that were deaf, deafblind and hard of hearing. I want to let you know that this year the Commission for the Deaf, DeafBlind and Hard of Hearing of Minnesota (Minnesotans), otherwise known as MCDHH, again for those in the back – MCDHH, has written a grant to the Minnesota Digital Library for three different organizations. MSADAA, standing for Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf Alumni Association Museum – I think I got that right. Secondly, MADC, Minnesota Association of Deaf Citizens, and finally, Thompson Hall, and many of you are familiar with Thompson Hall. That’s the Charles Thompson Memorial Hall. It’s located in St. Paul.
What we’re doing is we’re gathering many documents, photos, letter, papers, everything – bringing it all into one repository and giving it – this is a collaboration and a collection from all of the organizations that I previously mentioned – and to have them scanned. Soon they will be available on the Internet for all of you to be able to view. I’m sorry we don’t have an example for you to actually take a look at right now, but they will be demonstrated soon. You will be able to see them and we will talk about them later. We have some examples but I can explain some of them without showing you the pictures. There is a collection of information, of photographs of history – very important history. We have rare photos from 1884 from a group, from the National Association of the Deaf (signs “National” instead of “National Association of the Deaf”) conference of deaf educators and principals during the time of Alexander Graham Bell – when he participated. I heard there were a lot of arguments there about Deaf education and which methods to follow (oralism vs. manualism). Lots of notes from that. But the information from that group in the photos was also with four years previously, in 1880 (that group photo was taken four years after 1880), the conference in Milan where they supported Deaf (signs “oral” instead of “Deaf”) education. So there are a lot of important historic pictures that will be soon digital and available. Another example is of Thompson Hall in St. Paul. We do have photographs of Margaret Thompson when she set up the actual footgrounds (signs “cornerstone” instead of “footgrounds”) for building Thompson Hall. We also have photos of individuals like a man named John Lowby. I’m not sure – have you heard of John Lowby? He was a DeafBlind individual and he was a woodworker. There’s pictures of him and his work. So we have a variety of different groups and individuals and events that are captured. We also have a group of Deaf artists that have done things like etchings. That’s where you actually scratch a picture or image into a plate or a metal and then cover it with ink and transpose it onto paper. There are very important Deaf artists here in Minnesota – Cadwallader (Lincoln) Washburn. I know many of you recognize him. I think I recognize some faces that took the tour of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (with me). I’ve seen several of your faces there recently, on tours. Washburn was important because he was actually born here in Minneapolis. He did go to the Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf in Faribault. He became deaf at the age of five and his parents sent him there. From there he went to Gallaudet University (signs “College” instead of “University”) and became an artist, following Gallaudet. He became famous throughout the world, not just here in Minnesota, but throughout the U.S. In the U.S. he has over one thousand works of his, and Thompson Hall does have several of his works there too. We do have his work here at the museum, also. Those pictures will all be scanned and put on the Internet soon. So if you didn’t have an opportunity to visit Thompson Hall or the Minneapolis Institute for the Arts, you can certainly find it at home on your computer wherever you are.
This is a picture, for example. The reason we have this picture, you may be wondering, it’s not from our Deaf collection, but as I told you about Washburn, as an important artist from this area – he was born from (signed “into” instead of “from”) a very wealthy family, the Washburn family. I’m sure you’ve maybe heard that name all over the Cities. This is the Washburn Mill that was here in Minneapolis – in fact, just outside this window. This is the Mill area here where they have the old flour mills. If you have free time, please go and tour that area. It is very nice. It’s cool and there’s a lot of Deaf history there with his family. Here’s the picture of the mill. That’s what we found off the Web.
This – on “Minnesota Reflections,” [pointing at the top of the “Minnesota Reflections” website projected onto the screen] that is this search window at the top. You can type in any key word – deaf, Washburn, or anything like that – put it in the search window and see what pops up. Maybe we’ll have somebody who can do that for us today to give you more examples.
So, back to what we were talking about – the work here is done by the Minnesota Digital Library, and it is done by Marian Rengel. She was happy to join us today and give us a presentation. She will be working on this project with us. I would like to introduce her, and then after that, you’ll hear some Deaf stories being told up here.
[Interview time 09:16:29]
(Now I will introduce Marian.) She’s in her fifth year here, working with the outreach coordinators for the Minnesota Digital Library, otherwise known as MDL. It’s a statewide collaboration for organizations and libraries, museums, and historical associations, and other organizations who are interested in developing information originals (signs “digital resources” instead of “information originals”) (and putting them) into one repository (on the Web). She’s been involved with MDL since its start in 2000. In 2006, she became MDL’s only paid staff member. Isn’t that correct, Marian? She said yes. And she’s worked with different organizations throughout Minnesota, trying to digitize their collections and make them freely available to all people. There’s no cost to accessing it. I’ve tried it myself, put in different search words to see what would come up. Currently on “Minnesota Reflections,” they have 52,000 objects from over 115 organizations. Soon, they will be – will include our three organizations – MSADAA, MADC, and Thompson Hall.
I’m told here that Marian is proud to be the fourth generation Minnesotan. So, I’m curious, Marian, do you know what year your family moved here to Minnesota and settled? 1854. That’s just before Minnesota became a state officially, isn’t that correct? Ah, 1854, four years before Minnesota became officially a state. Interesting fact. Now she works for MDL for the (signs “as a” instead of “for the”) state member in the James W. Miller Learning (Resource) Center at (St. Cloud State) University. That’s where she currently is.
And it’s now with pleasure that I would like to introduce to you Marian Rengel.
[Interview time 11:53:00]
[Visual of Marian speaking and interpreter signing.]
MR: Good morning, everyone. Is it (the microphone) on? There we go. I’m not used to microphones. I project very well on my own. Thank you.
As Teika said, my name is Marian Rengel. I’m the outreach coordinator for the Minnesota Digital Library. The Minnesota Digital Library is a collaboration amongst the state’s library museum, historical societies and other organizations. We are not a formal organization. We’re a collaboration and all of those organizations provide resources and talent to make the Minnesota Digital Library work. “Minnesota Reflections” is our signature project, our big main project, but it’s not all we do. It is what I’m going to talk about today, however.
I’ve been working with the Commission of Deaf, DeafBlind and Hard of Hearing Minnesotans since about last fall (2009), when Cynthia Weitzel first approached me to see if her organization or organizations qualified to be part of “Minnesota Reflections.” To work with “Minnesota Reflections,” you must be a formal organization or a government entity in Minnesota. You must have collections and be responsible for collections. You can’t do things that somebody else owns and put them in “Reflections,” they have to be yours.
[Images on projector screen are not visible.]
So the Commission worked on behalf of the three organizations that Teika described. They supplied us with a formal application and the application – leave it up here on the screen for you for just a little while for you to take a look at – describes the object that we have already digitized on behalf of the Commission and the three organizations it’s working with. This section shows you the photographs and some of the etchings of Cadwallader Lincoln Washburn. We also – Cynthia and the people she was working with on this project also included a variety of documents. All told, the collection coming in from the Commission is almost 500 objects. They’ve all been scanned, and we’re just waiting for Cynthia and a group of people she’s working with, including Doug Bahl, who should be around – but I don’t know. [Interpreter points Doug Bahl out to Marian.] Thank you. On creating the metadata or the descriptions of the objects that are going in (from the collection).
To clarify, “Minnesota Reflections” has more than 52,000 objects and we are growing steadily, so don’t think that what I show you today is all that you’ll be able to see. And we would welcome another application in the coming years from the groups that worked on this project. We have worked with more than 115 organizations so far. I lose count. I have approximately 12 applications on my desk for the current phase of digitization, and half of those are new so I’m not sure what we’re up to yet, but it’s more than 115 organizations. I also wanted – I have a poster –
[Video visuals of 6 historical photographs showing: students fingerspelling with a teacher; participants in the 1884 Conference of Superintendents and Principals; the 1908 football team at the Minnesota School for the Deaf; four young women ice skating; students in military uniform; and Tate Hall at the Minnesota School for the Deaf.]
Ready? Okay, “Minnesota Reflections,” again, is a project of the Minnesota Digital Library. Our website is http://reflections.mndigital.org. I have out on the table out front, bookmarks. Take as many as you want, not just one for yourself, one for your spouse, children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, teachers, students, anyone. I brought about 500 today. I’ve got plenty to go around. If you would like, we can hand them out now if anybody can take ‘em. Teika? And please, take a bunch.
“Minnesota Reflections” – we’re in phase seven of developing this (website). This is our basic interface. The place I would like to show you is our contributors’ page, which you can find by either clicking on “browse by collection” or on the “contributors” button at the top of the page. I’m sorry, click on the “contributors’ button or on “browse by collection” and this will take you to the same page. Here you get all of the organizations that have contributed to “Minnesota Reflections” in alphabetical order. Though you’ll see there is a problem with it. Your collection will go in here, it will go under the Commission for Deaf, DeafBlind and Hard of Hearing Minnesotans. We are talking about some ways to separate out the three contributing organizations and provide access into them, but from this page, it will be the Commission that is listed. And it should go between the College of St. Scholastica and Concordia University in St. Paul. So look for it here.
If you know a region of the state that you’re interested in, or are interested in an organization, you can go to this site and look for it. I’m from Stearns County, from St. Cloud, I spend a fair amount of time using Stearns County as an example and I will go back to that in a moment. The way most people access our collection is to do a basic search, and this is a very simple term search. We have photographs, documents including letters, some government documents, ledgers, journals. We have maps of – growing, growing collections of maps of Minnesota. All of that is in here and all of it is term searchable based on its metadata. So on Teika’s suggestion, I looked up Washburn Mill this morning and here you can see the results of the search. You get a thumbnail of each object, its title, subject headings and a description. If you click on either the thumbnail or the title, it will take you into the full record for that object. These are stereographs contributed, I believe, by the Hennepin County Library, of the mill, and no, we don’t have stereo viewers to look at them with.
A few things about looking at a picture in here, particularly when your collection comes up. The information below each picture is the metadata. This is the information that Doug and Cynthia are working on for all of the objects in your collection. It’s not an easy task. So as soon as we have this material and as soon as it is approved, by me, the collection will be ready to be loaded into our server. All of the words in blue are searchable. Then with each image, we have something really cool. I don’t know if this is the best picture but we have a zoom feature and all you need to do is click on the image and it will increase in size, and you get a close-up of that image. To navigate around the image, you need to know that you have a thumbnail to the right, and if you click in that thumbnail, you will be able to move where that red box appears and see what’s in there.
I would like to show you a couple of examples that I love to zoom in so that you can see how good your stuff will look when it’s in here. The St. Paul Public Library contributed an amazing collection of images from the construction of that library in the early 1900s, and these are amongst some of my favorite photographs in the collection. These were taken on a regular monthly basis by a professional photographer. This isn’t the best one, but it’s close. You can zoom in and see the detailed images of construction at work on that library.
[Visual of St. Paul Public Library photos on projector screen, Marian and the interpreter.]
Many of the photos have people in them so you get to see the people at work. Again, I would click on a different part of the picture and the thumbnail to move that red box. I can show you one more awesome picture, it will make a difference in some of the group pictures I’ve seen in your collection. This is from the Order of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, the founders of St. Catherine University. There is a portrait of some young novices that I absolutely love.
[Visual of photo of novice nuns on projector screen, Marian and the interpreter.]
Again, you’ll notice below the picture is the metadata, the information about what’s in the picture, and then you can zoom in – and I promise you, this looks so much better on my computer screen than it does on the projector.
[Images on projector screen are not visible.]
This young woman is one of my favorites.
[Visual of Marian holding up her own laptop to show the audience.]
I don’t know, can you see how much better that looks? So on your computers, it will be amazing. All of the photographs in your collection will let you zoom in on them in the same fashion.
I do want to show you – since there are documents in your collection, I want to show you how to view a document. We have what I consider an amazing collection of letters written by Minnesota author Sinclair Lewis, who, all of you should know, was born in Sauk Centre. These letters were written by Lewis to his mistress in the late 1930s and ‘40s when he was in his early 50s and she was 18, or she was 18 when he met her. So I like telling that story, college students really like that story. We have a policy in “Minnesota Reflections” that if anything comes into us that is handwritten, we must have a transcript. About half of these letters are handwritten and we have transcripts for all of them. Anything that is typewritten or typeset will be run through optical character recognition software that allows a computer to provide us with text that’s fully searchable. This is an example of a typeset document. As with the letters, you may zoom in on it, making it somewhat easier to read on the screen, but the tighter you zoom in, the less likely you are to have the whole document in front of you. So there is a button to push – this menu is very important in the left (side). Document description – if you click “go” while it says that in the menu, you’ll get the metadata. The same information you saw below the picture, but for the document. You also have an option of choosing page and text, clicking “go,” and then an additional window opens that includes an image of the document, as well as either the transcription or the result of the optical character recognition work. You can see it needs some cleaning. We did our best to clean this up, but the computer database didn’t like our work. But then you can very easily read what’s going on. All of the documents that were part of your project, or the project of the Commission, will appear the same way. They will be easily searchable so all of that history of deaf community will be easily searchable for people across Minnesota. Indeed, across the world.
There’s much more to show you. I would like to point out that there is a feature called “advanced search.” In the advanced search, you may choose to search all collections, or when yours is in here, you could just choose the Commission’s collection. It will be down here under C-o-m. In that case, you would click on it, click “add,” go here – I know there’s nothing in Crow Wing on the deaf community. I know their collection very well. But you could then type in a term that you wanted to use, and this can get very sophisticated. So some of you who are doing greater research on your collection or want to just focus on the collection from the Commission, you would want to use the advanced search, choose the Commission’s collection, add it to this side and then do your term searches here. But if you want to see how it works – how your search terms, excuse me, might work across all the collections, you might want to do a specific search here that includes an exact phrase. I didn’t find any results this morning but I’m going to try again. Once the Commission’s collection is in, I will be able to do this and I will find Thompson Hall’s drawings, pictures, sketches in here. But you could do other specific terms. I imagine Doug, as a historian, would want more specific powerful search than our simple search would do. But up in the right-hand corner of every page is our basic search button, and you can simply go in there and add the terms that you would want to search. These are the results. I find it very interesting that the Red Lake plat book comes up in the search of deaf. If I want to find out why, I should be able to bring the image up, look at a table of contents, and this is telling me that something on this page talks about – or has the word “deaf” in it. I can go to page and text, and I should be able to discover in the words to the right the word “deaf.” Ah-ha, there it is.
[Visual of photo of plat book page on projector screen, Marian and the interpreter.]
Now, what you need to know about plat books is there is a lot of back material in them that has nothing to do with the county that the plat book is about, so you will find a lot of information in our collection that has nothing to do with Minnesota but still may be of interest to you as a researcher, or to your community. That was about New England Deaf and Dumb Asylum founded in 1818, on a page about the history of the United States. I gave you a very quick tour, a very quick tour. Your handout tells you more about how Minnesota Digital Library works with organizations across the state, who is eligible to contribute, who is not, what kinds of images we’re trying to bring into our collection, what we’re not, up to a degree, and says a little bit more about some of the features of “Minnesota Reflections.” I would welcome an invitation back, if people were interested in a workshop on using “Reflections” and searching it so if there’s any interest in that, contact me, let me know and I would be glad to come back. I would again like to point out that this is where you will find your collection when it is online.
[Images on projector screen are not visible.]
One other step Cynthia and Doug are going to have to complete is a description of the organization to go on this profile page and a link to the home page that they would like us to use. Once it’s here and ready, I’m sure they’ll be announcing it to the community. So, with that, I would like to open this up to questions.
(Question from audience.) I’m curious if you could open up Faribault, Minnesota, and see if there’s anything there.
MR: Faribault County or Faribault city? City. That assumes I know how to spell “Faribault.” F-a-r-i… see? What did I spell? I had it right. A simple search of the term “Faribault” would bring up anything that has that word in it. I know the city itself wouldn’t have a collection. As far as I know, we haven’t worked with the Faribault Area Historical Society, so the city is in which county? Rice has not done a project with us. I’ve been trying and trying and trying, so if you know the director at the Rice County Historical Society, talk with her. For some reason, she hasn’t wanted to bring collections in here. Yours – in fact, the materials that we get from the Alumni Association will be the first materials from Faribault in “Minnesota Reflections.” But I do believe – I have to confess, I get my counties that start with “F” confused. The Faribault County has done some work with us, primarily through the efforts of a volunteer librarian down there who has helped them do their work. So the county has but not the city. In the back?
[Visual of Marian, the interpreter, and Matt Starr.]
(Question from audience.) I’m Matt Starr, visiting from Rochester, New York, not Rochester, Minnesota, but New York. This makes me so envious, what we’ve done in New York, we don’t have anything like that. Hopefully we’ll find a way. Anyway, my question, as you gather old documents from our historic past, the names and the terminology over the years have changed. I don’t know if we had the word “deaf” in our jargon earlier. You may have seen deaf or mute and other things that have changed so how can you help us search if we want to enter a key word for the search? Is deaf enough? Maybe we’re going to miss something because the old terminology from the older documents (has) yeah, different descriptors.
[Visual of Marian and the interpreter.]
MR: I understand your question very well and it is a question that is not exclusive to this community. It’s part of the Native American community, for example. Very important, which terms do you use? Not to be offensive but do you use some of the – do you use “redskins”? It all depends on the power of the metadata that comes into our collection. So when Doug and Cynthia are writing that and completing our Excel spreadsheet – the Minnesota Digital Library is not historians. As not members of any particular community, turn to the people within a community to answer those questions. So it would be up to Doug and Cynthia to know the terms that might have been in use when the photograph was taken, or when an organization was established, to help you be able to search for them and find them. Another word that came in that result but we’re finding, for example, in the mental health community is the word “asylum.” As a matter of fact, I’m working with an organization on an orphanage community there in St. Paul, on orphanages, but they were called orphan asylums. Well, if the people writing the metadata do not use the term “asylum,” someone searching for orphan asylums will not find that picture. So, if I were you, I would talk with Doug. Doug, use these terms. Not right now.
[Visual of Marian, the interpreter, and Doug Bahl.]
DB: But you’re right, I agree. It used to be the Minnesota School for the Deaf under the Minnesota Institute for Defectives. Matt’s right, Defectives. If we don’t include that, we have to take responsibility for making sure that’s included. Deaf, Defective, mentally retarded, so on.
[Visual of Marian and the interpreter.]
MR: Absolutely you’re right. That is one of the challenges of creating a database like this, one of the challenges of history, of digitization and of library site creating the metadata. If you would like me to run “Reflections” through its paces a little bit and suggest some terms I could search for, I would be happy to do that. Let me show you one of my favorites here quickly. This is my last name. I know the answer to this question before I bring it up. Yes, there is something in our collection with my last name in it. This is a plat book from Stearns County, circa – can I read that – 1896.
[Visual of photo of plat book page on projector screen, Marian and the interpreter.]
And you saw in red in the table of contents the results of my search. Somewhere on this page is my last name. I used to say I don’t know where or why I don’t want to look, but finally I bothered to look. I went into page and text, looked where I found it, looked what was in its neighborhood and found out that it’s actually in the upper right corner. Sorry. There it is. Now, I do not know who this John F. Rengel is. There were lots of John Rengels here in the 1800s, my great-grandfather was not the only John to emigrate here from Prussia. But my name is in here. Now, just to show you some complexity of maps, I know – let’s back this out. I know in part because I used to volunteer at the Stearns History Museum and I did a little research on my family years ago, that my great-grandfather did own property in St. Cloud.
[Visual of photo of map on projector screen, Marian and the interpreter.]
Now, my optical character recognition software in “Minnesota Reflections” cannot do maps, cannot do anything with crooked lines, cannot do anything with handwriting. We need nice straight lines to have a computer do the work, so since these aren’t nice straight lines, we don’t make these pages searchable. You have to know what you’re looking for. But, I know what I’m looking for, and this is information on the property that my great-grandfather owned in St. Cloud. I had to verify that through other documents, of course, but now I have a map to show people where my great-grandfather owned property.
[Visual of “Minnesota Reflections” website on projector screen, Marian and the interpreter.]
So if anyone had a last name you want me to try. We tried Teika’s – want me to stop? One name. We got permission for one name. Down here in the white sweater with the pink. Correct? K-e-y-e-s? See what happens. It’s relatively common in Minnesota. So we got 14 search results. You can tell these are documents. Oh, I love these. I love these. This is a catalog from one of our normal schools, St. Cloud State University, which is where I work, was a normal school, and we have some of their earliest catalogs so there was someone named Anna C. Keyes from Sauk Rapids, Minnesota, as a student there in 1884-85. So there’s – pretty powerful, and we got that just because this document – sorry – went through optical character recognition and we captured the text. But you can find out that there was an Anna Keyes in St. Cloud Normal School. If I were to do a search for my first name, Marian, I would get about 15 results, including people who went to school at the Normal School. We have a lot of projects coming in that would do more of that genealogical kind of work. We have catalogs coming in from Macalester, Mankato, more coming in St. Cloud State University. We have the earliest newspapers of those schools coming in and we are just growing by leaps and bounds this year. We could easily be in the neighborhood of 65,000 objects by June (2011). So looks like my time is up. Thank you all for allowing me to come. Appreciate it. Thank you very much.
[Visual of Teika Pakalns signing.]
TP: How about another round of applause? That was wonderful. Thank you for your time, Marion. We appreciate having you here.
[Interview time 40:25:24]
TP: I know we could go on and on and talk about our fascinating history but we have to move on and do some wrap-up here and try to be close to on time. All of this information is important because, as I said earlier, History matters (signs “matters” as in the word “important”). It is the history of our community here. As you all know, knowledge is power. So I want to remind you that the three organizations involved have already done their part in gathering their collections, but if you have another organization in mind, for example the Metro Deaf School or the Minnesota DeafBlind Association, consider having your collections posted online as well. You can talk to Marian about that. We encourage more organizations to get involved with this project.
Also, because you are interested in history because you are here in the workshop, I want you to know that we have Dr. T. Alan Hurwitz from Gallaudet University, history in the making, and we’re pleased to have him with us here today. [Applause.] We also have Nancy Bloch who is the CEO of the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) with us here today. Welcome to you, too, and thank you, Nancy, for coming to join us for the day. I now will turn over the program to Doug Bahl, who is our local Deaf historian. Doug will have a few stories to entertain us with today. So, Doug, if you would come forward?
