Museum Information

The Nebraska School for the Deaf Museum is dedicated to preserving history of the Deaf experience in Nebraska that includes the school and community history, our culture and language. After preservation of the history, the goal of the Museum is to educate the public of our history, culture, and American Sign Language.

Museums are a "living and breathing" creation. It grows, expands, and changes with time. It is the responsibility of the museum to keep up with the trends and maintain a strong hold of the audience’s attention. Museums must be innovative in their presentation and interpretation of history especially one that is as unique as the history of the Deaf people in Nebraska. We envisioned that the NSD Museum will expand and grow with time. A working plan has been developed to ensure that the Museum will grow in the right direction.

Eventually, the NSD Museum will be renamed to the Nebraska Deaf Heritage Museum so that the museum will be an all-inclusive entity exhibiting the history of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing people regardless of which school they attended or the mode or modes of communication they use. The intent is to celebrate Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing experience in Nebraska from 1867 to the present.

The plan is underway to apply for a grant provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Service. Initially, the money will be used to hire an archivist to archive everything in our two storage rooms so that we may expand our ongoing exhibits. The Museum Committee and the archivist will evaluate each item for historical and cultural value before choosing the most applicable items. This "downsizing" will improve focus and increase the amount of space available for work. It is also planned that we will apply for the Nebraska Department of Tourism grant in the near future. This grant will help us attract more museum visitors.

In addition to the exhibits, the NSD Museum plans to provide educational programs to the public about Deaf history, culture, and American Sign Language in Nebraska. The museum has a space where traveling exhibits can be displayed for a given length of time. For example, during the African American History Month, the NSD Museum would have a presentation on the African American Deaf History along with exhibits of African American Deaf experience. The same would be true of Hispanic Heritage month which would then have exhibits of the Hispanic Deaf experience.

These planned increasing programs and exhibits leads to the vision of a new building in a new location suited for this unique purpose. The NSD Museum is currently housed at the old Nebraska School for the Deaf campus, for which the patrons of the museum are eternally grateful. But with the plan to expand as the time goes on, the issue of space will become critical. The construction of a new museum at a different location will become necessary. The new museum shall be named the Nebraska Deaf Heritage Museum (NDHM).

At the NDHM, historical and cultural exhibitions will be the "backbone" with interactive museum technology added to enhance learning and understanding. Prior to entering the main part of the museum, the visitors will first be ushered into a movie room where a short film summarizing what will be seen in the museum, will be shown. A spacious studio on one side of the building will house traveling exhibits.

Archives and a library with historical and cultural information pertaining to the deaf community especially in Nebraska, but also, where applicable, the rest of the United States, will be available to the public for research. The classroom and conference rooms will be the site for continuing education, workshops, and seminars co-sponsored by the NDHM and various organizations, agencies, universities, and colleges on subjects ranging from the care and storage of historical items and new trends in historical presentation in museums to the documenting and interpreting of Deaf history and the study of American Sign Language in historical context.

Finally, but not least, the NDHM will have a large storage facility with a humidity and temperature controlled environment to ensure the security and safety of all items.

To make this vision a reality will take a lot of time and money, and it will require diligence and patience from everybody involved. When the vision is realized, it will have added bonuses such as increased tourism in the neighboring area, which would mean a boost in local economy as people stop by to visit the museum. As increased public understanding and appreciation of the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing is one of the museum’s goals, when this happens, the NDHM can "chalk one up" for the success of its vision.

The Nebraska School for the Deaf Museum was founded in 1985 in the old Infirmary located above the Administration Building at the Nebraska School for the Deaf (NSD) under the leadership of Dr. George Propp (NSD ‘40).

When the Nebraska Department of Education closed the school in 1998, Nebraska School for the Deaf Alumni Association (NSDAA) quickly moved to preserve what otherwise might have been lost. With the generosity of the new owner of the campus, The Turning Point, NSDAA was able to reestablish the NSD Museum at the Training Center, formerly known as the old Thompson Dormitory. The NSD Museum reopened its door on August 4th, 2001 on the 100th anniversary of the Association.

The exhibits at the Museum includes a timeline of NSD along with local and state histories, and four displays consisting of various rooms representing dorm life in the seventies, a school room in the thirties, an athletic display, and a Teenage Club in the fifties.

Topics discussed include the communication and education controversy, contributions that Deaf people made to the American society, and many more. Art and woodwork done by students in early 20th century are also on display.

Welcome to the NSD Museum! When you come and visit, you will find the museum is filled with displays of rich historical stories and exhibits of the Nebraska School for the Deaf from the establishment of the school in 1869 to its closing in 1998. In the near future, we will include the general history of as close to all as possible deaf and hard-of-hearing experience in Nebraska from the Nebraska territorial days to the present.

We strive to make the museum an educational experience for all of our visitors so that you will feel like you have benefitted from the visit and have gained an appreciation for the Deaf citizens of Nebraska, past and present, of our struggles and our triumph over various adversaries, and our heritage and the American Sign Language.

If you wish to make any kind of donations or contributions, please feel free to contact our treasurer for more information. If you wish for information about the museum, please contact me. However if you have any information or items that you feel could help the museum, please do feel free to let us know!

Thank you for your interest in the NSD Museum and our history!

Daniel R. Darnall, (NSD '90) Historian
Nebraska School for the Deaf Alumni Association, Inc