Edward Bartlett Nitchie

Background

Edward Bartlett Nitchie was born on November 18, 1876 in Brooklyn, New York, United States. He was the son of Henry Evertson Nitchie and Elizabeth Woods Dunklee.

Education

At the age of fourteen Nitchie became almost totally deaf but he persisted in his efforts to obtain an education and attended successively the Adelphi Academy, Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Latin School, and Betts Academy, Stamford, Connecticut. By occupying a front seat, using an ear-trumpet, and interviewing his instructors after class he managed not only to attain but to keep up high grades. He entered Amherst in 1895, made Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year, became editor-in-chief of the Amherst Literary Magazine, was "ivy poet" at Commencement, and was graduated in 1899 magna cum laude.

Career

In spite of his brilliant record Nitchie had difficulty in finding employment. After several unsuccessful attempts he studied lip-reading and essayed to teach it and to devise simpler and easier methods of acquiring it. His own personal experience taught him to lay "less stress on technicalities and phonetic analysis and the mechanical phases of speech and speech-reading, and more on the mental processes involved". He believed that lip-reading must be largely self-taught. With the advice and sympathy of Alexander Graham Bell he put the results of his studies into his first book, Self-Instructor in Lip-Reading, published in 1902.

His second book, Lessons in Lip-Reading for Self Instruction, was published in 1905, and the revised edition in 1909. In 1912 appeared Lip-Reading Principles and Practice, which became the standard textbook in most schools. He also published a pamphlet, Lip-Reading Simplified.

In 1910 the Nitchie Alumni Association was formed to facilitate social intercourse and to award scholarships to deserving pupils without means, and this association expanded two years later into the Nitchie Service League. The program included recreation, instruction, and employment. Nitchie was largely responsible for breaking down the prejudice against deaf employees and for securing opportunities for them to earn their own living in occupations for which deafness was no serious bar. Two years later the organization became, at Nitchie's own suggestion, the New York League for the Hard-of-Hearing that there might be no misapprehension as to its purpose. This League was the parent of similar groups organized in many cities of the United States and Canada, united in a national federation, the membership composed mainly of the hard-of-hearing, but including many eminent otologists. Nitchie created a lifework out of his deafness. It gave him understanding and suggested courses of action.

For three out of the last six years of his life his work was interrupted by ill-health, but as often as the doctor permitted he went back to his work. He made wonderful use of the small pittance of life allowed him.

Achievements

• Nitchie started the New York School for the Hard-of-Hearing, which after his death became the Nitchie School. He taught 1, 100 pupils, and owing to the simplicity of his methods 117 of them became teachers much sought after by lip-reading schools everywhere. His pupils placed a memorial tablet in the Volta Bureau at Washington, and six of his teachers erected one in the Nitchie School.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Lip-reading principles and practise; a hand-book for teachers and for self instruction

    (Lip-reading principles and practise; a hand-book for teac...)

  • Lessons in Lip-Reading for Self-Instruction (Classic Reprint)

    (This book is intended not for the deaf-mute, but for the ...)

  • Lip-Reading: Principles and Practice: A Hand-Book for Teachers and for Self Instruction

    (1912. A handbook for teachers and for self instruction. N...)

Personality

Nitchie was a rarely sympathetic and understanding teacher.

His fertility in devising social amusements for the deaf, such as lip-reading contests, was amazing.

Connections

On June 18, 1908 he married Elizabeth Logan Helm in New York. They had one son.

Father:

Henry Evertson Nitchie

Mother:

Elizabeth Woods Dunklee

Spouse:

Elizabeth Logan Helm