The principal aims of the League are to help the deafened in the matter of procuring employment; to render aid and sympathy in times of misfortune; to alleviate their social isolation and to provide lessons in lip reading.
With these objects in view the League has a club room at 406 Geary Street, where are held class meetings, and various social activities, all of which have done much toward giving the deafened a normal cheerful outlook.
In the matter of helping the deafened to procure work, the League has interested many firms and convinced them of the desirability of employing the hard of hearing because of their unusual conscientious performance of their work and power of concentration.
To overcome the morbid sensitiveness of the deaf, entertainments, moving pictures, a study club and classes for lip reading practice and various social meetings have had very happy results. The hard of hearing are thrown in contact with each other and with normal hearing people. All these functions have been wonderfully successful in bringing happiness and hopefulness into discouraged lives.
The League now enrolls 125 members, each year showing a decided growth.
The League's membership includes not only the hard of hearing, but many normal hearing persons who are interested in the work for the deafened. The work for the years 1918 and 1919 includes the League's Auxiliary of the American Red Cross, which made surgical dressings, outfits for Belgian babies, and French orphans, besides knitting at home, and took part in the second war drive and the Christmas roll call.
Each summer the League holds two picnics, going by motor or boat to some pleasure park for lunch and a day's outing. Every month there is a party to celebrate the birthdays of members and an evening at a motion picture play.
Every Tuesday morning and Friday evening throughout the year the League
conducts a class for practice in lip-reading, which has an average attendance
of twenty. Two hundred and eighty-one private lessons have also been given.
On Wednesday afternoons many members attend the study
club, when an hour is devoted to the study of interesting subjects,
followed by a social hour, tea being served.
The League has a Consulting Board of Otologists, who examine and advise any members who so desire. Dr. Harrington B. GRAHAM is in charge of this branch of the work.
The League is associated with the San Francisco Social Service Exchange, the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, and the American Association for the Hard of Hearing.
OFFICERS 1920-1921
Mrs. John E. D. TRASK, President
Harrington B. GRAHAM, M. D., Vice-President
Mrs. Charles C. McNEILL, Recording Secretary
Miss Heloise M. THIBAULT, Corresponding Secretary
Mrs. Alfred NEWMAN, Treasurer