History

Martha's Vineyard is an island in Massachusetts and was home to the world's most famous Deaf community. Even though they were never more than a quarter of the population, nearly everyone used the local sign language which would go on to form the basis of ASL.

In August 1969, Allen and Beatrice Gardner of the University of Nevada published an article in the journal Science claiming to have communicated with a chimpanzee called Washoe. She had been brought up since 1966 in the Gardner's trailer and could use 100 signs. She was intelligent enough to sign "water bird" when she saw a swan. By the time of her death in 2007, she used 250 signs.

William Shaw (1869-1949) was arguably the greatest Deaf inventor. He invented Deaf-friendly doorbells, alarms, clocks, baby monitors and phones.

To celebrate International Women’s Day, here are the achievements of 5 famous D/deaf and hard of hearing British women.