Deaf education
Despite the success of Deaf education during the first part of the 19th century, by the 1860s the education system saw a shift in which the hearing community began to introduce the Oral method of educating Deaf students, which emphasized a speech-only approach to education and did not allow ASL in the classroom. The primary belief at the time is that this would help Deaf individuals integrate into society more easily. In 1880, a conference was held in Milan in which educators made a final decision that speech was to be the primary teaching method in the classroom. From then through the mid-20th century Deaf students would be punished to discourage communication through sign. Despite the suppression of ASL in Deaf education, it was still a common means of communication in dormitories, playgrounds and Deaf families. Following the introduction of the Oral method, the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) recorded a film project from 1913 through 1920 out of fear that ASL would not survive. George Veditz oversaw the project and recorded the first film,"The Preservation of the Sign Language." The project sought to record and preserve the words of Deaf individuals who had a strong sense of Deaf cultural identity. The film recordings included lectures, poems, stories and songs all of which comprise ASL literary genres. One of documented storytellers, John B. Hotchkiss, filmed a series of stories called "Memories of Old Hartford" about his time as a student at ASD in the 1860s. From his recorded memories, we know that ASL storytellers, and therefore at least some modern ASL literary genres, date back to at least the 1860s.