Elizabeth Logan Helm Nitchie (May 2, 1880 – February 16, 1961) was an American educator and expert on lip reading.
Elizabeth Helm Nitchie | |
|---|---|
 Elizabeth Helm Nitchie, from a 1927 publication | |
| Born | Elizabeth Logan Helm May 2, 1880 Elizabethtown, Kentucky |
| Died | February 16, 1961 New York City |
| Occupation | Educator |
| Spouse | Edward Bartlett Nitchie |
Early life and education
editElizabeth Helm was born in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, the daughter of William Logan Helm and Florence Murray Helm.[1] Her father died when she was a little girl. She was from the same extended family as John L. Helm, governor of Kentucky, and Benjamin Hardin Helm, a Confederate Army general during the American Civil War. (Her grandfather Henry Benjamin Helm was the first cousin of the governor.)[2]
Career
editNitchie worked as a stenographer as a young woman.[3] In 1917, Nitchie succeeded her late husband as principal of the New York School for the Hard of Hearing, later known as the Nitchie School of Lip-Reading,[4] in New York City.[5][6] She frequently spoke and wrote about lip-reading in the 1920s and 1930s.[3][7][8] "My own greatest handicap in teaching lip reading to the deaf is that I myself have normal hearing," she told a Brooklyn Daily Eagle interviewer in 1927. "All my teachers are either totally or partially deaf, and the general feeling is that only a deaf person can understand the attitude of the deaf and be a successful teacher."[9] She retired from running the school in 1928.[3]
In her later career Nitchie worked in advertising at The New York Times, and ran a stenographic bureau. She taught lip-reading to children in St. Louis in 1937.[3]
Publications
editPersonal life
editElizabeth Logan Helm married Edward Bartlett Nitchie in 1908.[13] They had a son, Edward Jr.[14] Her husband, who was deaf, died in 1917,[6] and she died in 1961, at the age of 80, in New York City.[15] Her grave is in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.
References
edit- ^ "Marriage of Nitchie / Helm". Kentucky Advocate. 1908-06-22. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-05-21.
- ^ Helm and Todd family photographs and papers, University of Kentucky Libraries Special Collections.
- ^ a b c d Standish, Myles (1937-10-17). "Specialist in the Art of Lip Reading". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. p. 81. Retrieved 2023-05-21 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Lip School Chartered; Scholarships Are Planned in New Institution for Deaf". The New York Times. 1929-04-11. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-05-21.
- ^ Rosenthal, Pauline T. "Elizabeth Helm Nitchie: An Appreciation to Commemorate Her Tenth Anniversary as Head of the Nitchie School" The Volta Review 29(12)(December 1927): 755.
- ^ a b "Edward B. Nitchie Dies". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 1917-10-05. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-05-21 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Woman Teaches the Deaf to 'Hear' with their Eyes". The Kansas City Times. 1927-10-17. p. 6. Retrieved 2023-05-21 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Before the 'Mike'". Leader-Telegram. 1927-02-19. p. 13. Retrieved 2023-05-21 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Coster, Esther A. (1927-11-13). "Best Speech Critics are Deaf". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. p. 96. Retrieved 2023-05-21 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Coleman, Grace D. (1923). "Review of Advanced Lessons in Lip-Reading". American Annals of the Deaf. 68 (2): 164. ISSN 0002-726X. JSTOR 44462110.
- ^ Nitchie, Mrs Elizabeth Helm (1923). Advanced Lessons in Lip-reading. Frederick A. Stokes Company.
- ^ Gebhart, Helen M. "Review of Lip-reading Principles and Practice", Oralism and Auralism 9(1&2)(1930): 55.
- ^ "Marriage Announcements". The New York Times. 1908-06-20. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-05-21.
- ^ "Nitchie, Edward Bartlett (1876-1917)". Jane Addams Digital Edition. Retrieved 2023-05-21.
- ^ "Mrs. Edward Nitchie". The New York Times. 1961-02-18. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-05-21.