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Manuscript Collection
Manuscripts – The Jerome D. Schein...
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MSS 200
Schein, Jerome D., 1923-2010
The Jerome D. Schein Papers, 1918-2008
Gallaudet University Archives
Descriptive Summary
Repository: Gallaudet University Archives
Call No.: MSS 200
Creator: Schein, Jerome D., 1923-2010
Title: The Jerome D. Schein Papers, 1918-2008
Quantity: 14 linear feet (28 document cases)
Abstract: Professional and personal papers of Dr. Jerome D. Schein, psychologist and demographer known for his work studying deafness, rehabilitation, and deaf culture.
Note: This document last updated February 2015.
Administrative Information
Acquisition Information: Assembled from collections donated by Dr. Schein between 1998 and 2008.
Processed By: Christopher Shea, February 2015.
Processing Note:
Conditions on Use and Access: This collection is open to the public with no restrictions. Photocopies may be made for scholarly research.
Related Material in the Archives:
Photographs
Vertical Files
Biographical Sketch
Born in 1923 in Minneapolis, Jerome D. Schein received a BA in psychology from the University of Minnesota in 1946 and then went on to take a MA in industrial psychology in 1947 and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology Requirements in 1958.
He began his academic career teaching clinical psychology at the University of Wisconsin, and then relocated to Florida, where he was an assistant professor of psychology. In 1960, disturbed by the unrest in the South during the civil rights movement, Dr. Schein began to apply for jobs at several colleges farther north, and ended up becoming a psychology professor at Gallaudet.
Dr. Schein’s experiences at Gallaudet gave him a lifelong fascination with deafness and deaf culture, and he made many close friends in the deaf community. He was the first to conduct a national study of the deaf population, and a similar study of the deaf-blind population. As director of Gallaudet’s Office of Psychological Research, he headed research projects to determine the extent of deafness in America, whether deaf drivers were really more dangerous, and other topics.
He left Gallaudet in 1968 to accept a deanship at the University of Cincinnati, and in 1970 relocated again, this time to head the Deafness Research and Training Center (DRTC) at New York University and teach sensory rehabilitation in NYU’s School of Education. In this capacity, Schein was active in setting up ASL classes for both deaf and hearing, and founded the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) to help ensure interpreter quality. He was made a Fellow of the American Psychological Association in 1976.
In 1986, he was awarded Gallaudet’s Powrie Vaux Doctor Chair, and three years later he was selected for the University of Alberta’s David Peikoff Chair of Deafness Studies. As of this writing, Dr. Schein is the only person to have held both the Doctor and Peikoff Chairs.
Dr. Schein left the Peikoff Chair in 1993. In retirement, he continued to be an active researcher, writer, and speaker on deafness and related subjects. Over the course of his life, he wrote 25 books and published over 200 refereed papers. He passed away in 2010.
Scope and Content
The bulk of this collection falls between Dr. Schein’s joining the DRTC in 1970 and his retirement in 1993. There is relatively little material from his time as a Gallaudet professor in the late 1960s. The material present is mostly dedicated to his work as a researcher, speaker, and writer, with little personal material outside of correspondence.
The research material present does not include Dr. Schein’s raw data and only fragmentary notes, but it does provide an extensive selection of papers, speeches, and projects he created while pursuing his interests: deafness and deaf culture, the demographics of deafness, rehabilitation, education, assistive technology, and hearing loss in the elderly.
Besides Dr. Schein’s research, the collection also includes a variety of site reports and evaluations that Dr. Schein provided for deaf education programs around the country, in particular extensive records from a multi-year examination of deaf education in Texas.
There is very little material related to his books, mostly correspondence with publishers and reviews. The collection also includes some course material from Dr. Schein’s teaching years in Florida and at NYU.
Series Descriptions
Series 1. CVs and honors, 1941-1999
Box 1
A collection of Dr. Schein’s CVs, lists of publications, and certificates of membership and awards that he received over the years. Also includes his high school diploma and some local newspaper clippings about awards he won in high school, as well as report cards from his undergraduate and graduate terms at the University of Minnesota.
Series 2. Projects, studies, and reports, 1961-1993
Boxes 2-5
Project and grant proposals, reports and statistics, and evaluations and correspondence related to academic projects undertaken by Dr. Schein and his colleagues. Includes site visit reports from various deaf schools and institutions that he evaluated. Readers from Gallaudet University may be particularly interested in his 1960s research projects (with Howard L. Roy) on predictors of success at Gallaudet and the physical characteristics of Gallaudet students.
See series 6-8, 12, and 14-17 for similar records on projects related to specific topics.
Series 3. Manuscripts, 1958-1996
Boxes 5-6
Manuscripts, notes, and correspondence for articles and research papers written by Dr. Schein on various topics related to deaf education, rehabilitation, and culture.
See series 4 for published versions of articles. See series 18 and 20 for drafts of reviews and abstracts by Dr. Schein, and series 22 for reviews of his work.
Series 4. Published articles, 1966-2006
Box 6
A collection of articles by Dr. Schein clipped from academic and popular journals, as well as some reprints. Includes the final published versions of some articles from series 3. Of interest is a clipping of Dr. Schein’s article on Deafness from the popular World Book Encyclopedia and a full copy of his book For Parents of Deaf Children.
Series 5. Speeches, 1964-1998
Boxes 6-8
Dr. Schein was a popular speaker, and this series collects the texts of speeches he made and papers he presented at various conferences. The bulk of the speeches are related to his particular interests in deafness, rehabilitation, and education. There is also a small collection of speeches he made at student orientation events while at the University of Cincinnati and NYU. It also includes a collection of overhead transparencies he used while speaking.
See series 11 for speeches given at specific conferences.
Series 6. DRTC records, 1970-1985
Boxes 8-11
Established at the beginning of the 1970s, the Deafness Research and Training Center in New York University’s School of Education was active in training interpreters and deaf educators, researching assistive technology and advocating for deaf-accessible TV, and raising public awareness of deafness.
As its director from 1970 to 1986, Dr. Schein was deeply involved in its work. This series includes some sample curricula for interpreter training and teaching severely impaired students, research and grant proposals, reports on studies made by the DRTC, correspondence, newsletters, and activity reports.
See series 8, 12, and 14-17 for more material from Dr. Schein’s work at DRTC. Series 24 has some photographs from DRTC events and projects.
Series 7. Peikoff Chair and Canada records, 1975-2001
Boxes 11-13
When Dr. Schein took the Peikoff Chair in 1989, he brought along his interest in demographics and interpreting service. This series includes records of research Dr. Schein did on the demographics of deafness in Canada, particularly western Canada, as well as work he did on the education and quality of Canadian interpreters. It also includes reports and correspondence from work he did for the Alberta Premier’s Council.
Series 8. Demographics research, 1918-2002
Boxes 13-14
A general collection of Dr. Schein’s work on demographics, particularly related to deafness. Includes research material, correspondence, notes, and papers on the topic. Of particular interest is some material from the National Census of the Deaf conducted by the NAD in the 1970s.
See series 2-6 for more papers and speeches related to demographic topics.
Series 9. Correspondence, 1961-2008
Boxes 14-17
A collection of Dr. Schein’s correspondence, mostly professional letters but with some personal material included. Of particular interest are a set of letters of congratulation on Dr. Schein’s biography of Frederick Schreiber, A Rose for Tomorrow; some postcards he sent his brother Harold while traveling; and correspondence for articles he wrote for the Encyclopedia of Deaf People and Deafness and the World Book Encyclopedia.
Series 10. Teaching materials, 1957-1986
Boxes 17-20
While Dr. Schein’s academic focus was more on research than education, he did teach classes on deafness and rehabilitation at New York University. Most of this series consists of reading lists, test materials, student papers, and lecture outlines and notes from his NYU classes, as well as NYU faculty activity reports. It also includes a collection of similar material from psychology classes he taught in the late 1950s in Florida.
Series 11. Conference records, 1961-2001
Boxes 20-22
A collection of materials from conferences, seminars, and workshops that Dr. Schein attended around the world. Includes agendas, programs, copies of speeches he made at these events, and correspondence about the events. See series 5 for more speeches and papers given by Dr. Schein.
Series 12. Assistive technology research, 1976-1989
Boxes 22-23
While at DRTC, Dr. Schein produced a variety of research reports on assistive technology, including hearing aids, TDDs, and television caption decoders. Some of the reports in this series were done for general information, and others were produced as market research for corporations that were planning to develop their own products in this area.
See series 6 for more on DRTC.
Series 13. Legal opinions and correspondence, 1967-2000
Box 24
Dr. Schein was often called on as an expert witness in cases involving the deaf, in particular cases related to the economic damage caused by deafness. This series includes his correspondence with lawyers, depositions and opinions from cases he was involved in, and some papers he wrote on law and the deaf.
Series 14. Deafness and health care project records, 1976-1997
Boxes 24-25
A collection of materials related to equal access to health care for the deaf. The bulk is records of a DRTC project to produce sign language manuals for health care professionals.
Series 15. Texas education evaluation records, 1975-1985
Boxes 25-26
Records of site visits and evaluations of curricula used in deaf education, conducted by Dr. Schein and DRTC. Includes records from the Houston Independent School District and a statewide evaluation of Texas’ deaf education program.
Series 16. Deaf driver research records, 1963-2002
Box 26
Dr. Schein was one of the researchers who looked into the performance of deaf drivers in the 1950s and 1960s, and helped disprove the belief that deaf drivers were inherently unsafe. This series includes his correspondence and some research material on various aspects of driving while deaf.
Series 17. Columbus Colony records, 1977-1981
Records of evaluations conducted by Dr. Schein and his colleagues for Columbus Colony, an apartment complex intended for the elderly deaf, deaf-blind, and otherwise disabled. Includes Dr. Schein’s reports on the site and some correspondence.
Series 18. Veterans Administration correspondence and reviews, 1985-2006
Box 27
Dr. Schein served on several rehabilitation committees at the Veterans Administration, and also contributed book reviews and abstracts to their publication, the Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development (JRRD). This series includes some committee minutes, drafts of Dr. Schein’s reviews and abstracts, and correspondence, mostly with the editors of JRRD.
See series 20 for more reviews written by Dr. Schein.
Series 19. Florida correspondence and minutes, 1993-2000
A small series of records from Broward County, Florida, where Dr. Schein settled after his retirement. Includes material on interpreter service in the county and lists of books and other materials he contributed to the Broward County library.
Series 20. Reviews, 1975-1998
Drafts of book reviews and abstracts written by Dr. Schein for various professional and popular journals.
See series 18 for more reviews written by Dr. Schein.
Series 21. Clippings, 1970-1989
Boxes 27-28
A collection of newspaper and magazine clippings documenting Dr. Schein’s career, including articles on the various posts he held during this time and articles that quote or interview him.
Series 22. Review clippings, 1975-1999
Box 28
Clipped reviews of some of Dr. Schein’s books, including For Parents of Deaf Children, Speaking the Language of Sign, At Home Among Strangers, and others. Also includes some brochures and advertisements for Dr. Schein’s books, mostly from Gallaudet University Press.
Series 23. Notes, undated
A collection of handwritten notes by Dr. Schein, including research notes and outlines for speeches and papers. Of interest is a set of sketches of the vertebrae with annotations.
Series 24. Photographs, 1962-1974
Mostly black-and-white photographs of Dr. Schein at various conferences and events, or posing with colleagues. Most photographs are not labeled. Includes some photos from DRTC film and television projects.