Plate (Child's sign language or alphabet plate)

Description

This fascinating white earthenware (pearlware) “child’s plate” dates to around 1820 and was made in Staffordshire, England. The central reserve displays a blue transfer-printed chart illustrating a British Sign Language (BSL) alphabet with adjacent letters. Small plates like these, whether displaying the BSL chart or other designs, seem most commonly to have been presented as gifts to children, sometimes as a reward for success during their studies. Alternatively, they may have been produced as gifts to philanthropists who supported aid for those with disabilities. Although rare, children’s plates displaying sign-language motifs were produced by more than one English factory and in different colors. On this example, the consonant letters form concentric rings around a central circular panel showing the vowels (A, E, I, O, U). The British Sign Language alphabet, then as now, differs markedly from American signing alphabets. Also, the origins of British sign-language may date as early as the sixteenth-century, while American alphabets are said to have their origins in the early 1800s. The British alphabet on the plate forms an interesting comparison to a printed-on-paper chart regarding American Sign Language (ASL) in the Winterthur collection [1967.0224]. The paper print, also dating to the 1800s, is titled “MANUAL ALPHABET USED IN THE PENNSYLVANIA INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB” and illustrates quite different signing positions for the different letters. Although this version of American sign language appears to have been fairly popular, it was not the only one available. For exampled, a more detailed publication regarding signing, titled Language Addressed to the Different Senses, was published in 1865 in Hartford, Connecticut. (A copy resides in the Winterthur Library.) Understanding of sign language also has been encouraged by organizations including The Girl Scouts of America, who traditionally awarded a badge for accomplishments in signing. Sign language has evolved over time and varied depending on one’s location and access to resources. Because of segregation, for example, a Black American Sign Language (Black ASL) was developed. For more on that subject, see "The Hidden Treasure of Black ASL: Its History and Structure" by Carolyn McCaskill and others (Gallaudet University Press, 2020). For a child's mug in Staffordshire pearlware, bearing a blue transfer-printed version of the same alphabet, see 2020.0013.