Alexander Graham Bell Association Archives Preservation Assessment

FAIN: PG-51339-11

AG Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (Washington, DC 20007-2737)
Gary Yates (Project Director: May 2010 to November 2012)

A preservation assessment of archival materials documenting Alexander Graham Bell's educational work with the deaf. The assessment would provide the first step in making the archive more accessible to historians, hearing health professionals, educators, and families of the deaf and hard of hearing.

The Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (AG Bell) seeks funding to conduct a general preservation assessment that will help the organization develop a long-range plan for the care and accessibility of its archive collection. AG Bell's collection documents the history of deaf studies and deaf education from the 1800s to the present, with an emphasis on a listening and spoken language approach to communication. A significant portion of the archives includes the personal diaries of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, documenting his professional, technical and scientific endeavors within deaf education and speech as well as his other interests, activities and accomplishments from 1879 to his death in 1922. Helen Keller counted Dr. Bell as one of her most important mentors, and AG Bell's collection includes correspondence between Bell and Keller, as well as Thomas Edison and other famous individuals from that time period.