Deaf Innovator of TTY passes away at 81
*Corrections: Paul Taylor’s wife’s parents were not deaf as mentioned in this story. Also, Paul died at his home, not at a group home. We truly regret the errors.
How many of you remember the days of using a TTY?
[TTY: HELLO GA]
I certainly do. Paul Taylor, a deaf man who was an innovator who advanced the technology behind the TTY device and pushed for its widespread use in the U.S. and for relay services to be provided, died on January 11, 2021 at the age of 81 due to Alzheimer’s.
Our technology today has advanced in many ways but we can’t forget those who paved the way for our access to communication back then.
Paul was a chemical engineer at an aircraft company in Missouri and was married to a deaf woman, Sally, who had deaf parents. At that time there was no such thing as a TTY network, so it was difficult to communicate quickly with them. Remember, there were no smartphones or VP or anything like that.
Paul found out that a deaf man named Robert Weitbrecht invented a TTY modem. He got two of them and installed a private phone line between his home and his wife’s parents’ home, which was a few blocks away. Now they could call each other and stay in touch in case of emergencies.
From that point, Paul pushed for a growing network of TTYs both locally and nationwide, and for relay services to be provided by local and the federal government funding. also created the nation’s first local telephone relay system for the deaf in the 1970’s.
Here are some comments from Eric Kaika, the CEO of TDI.
Eric Kaika: “People tend to cite DPN as the catalyst for the ADA, but honestly I think it all started back in 1964, when Robert Weitbrecht invented the TTY modem.
When he learned about the TTY modem he immediately bought two. One for him, and the other for Sally's parents who lived two blocks over. Paul Taylor was living in Missouri with his wife, Sally, where he worked as an engineer for an aircraft company.
Shortly after acquiring his TTY, Paul founded a local advocacy organization which acted as a news outlet for deaf residents. People would call the number and receive emergency weather forecasts, breaking news, and other news feeds. Remember, TV had no captioning back then.
He also created one of the earliest private relay programs where families in St. Louis paid $2/month to make real-time calls to an operator who would voice the message and type back the response.”
“...then DPN happened, and later Congress started its ADA hearings when they called in people to speak. Paul was the second person to testify to Congress and spoke about the need for a relay service which will provide deaf people independence, employability, career mobility and success. He also explained how the existing state programs were ineffective furthering the need to establish it on a national level.
When the ADA was signed into law, the FCC, Federal Communications Commission, the agency responsible for relay services, hired Paul Taylor to draft the relay rules which are the same rules that we have today.”
Renca: Thank you for sharing. We can see that he had an immense impact on communication access for deaf people.
[Sponsored Video from Convo: https://www.convorelay.com/download]
Paul taught at NTID for 30 years and later moved to Portland to be close to their daughter Irene.
In an “Oregon Live” article, it explains that Irene’s son was born deaf. He got two cochlear implants. Eventually Paul and Sally also got cochlear implants.
This led to Irene making a documentary film centralizing Paul and Sally’s experiences with their cochlear implant surgeries called, “Hear and Now.” The documentary film won awards at Sundance Film Festival and a Peabody Award.
Paul was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2017. He passed away peacefully at a group home in Portland.
So, when you use any kind of relay service, you can thank Paul Taylor for being one of the people that made it happen.
[TTY: BYE PAUL TAYLOR BYE SKSK]
https://www.oregonlive.com/health/2021/02/he-died-in-portland-his-legacy-of-helping-the-deaf-communicate-with-the-world.html
https://tdiforaccess.org/paul-taylor-one-of-the-early-tty-activists-dies/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2_skVb8Qpw
https://books.google.com/books?id=4bgvh1lTQwcC&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=Paul+Taylor++TTY&source=bl&ots=TdA0WDfJ_0&sig=w3vwWOY6Ddk1UqAP8w-H6URYcPU&hl=en&ei=wrngSsjMB4iylAe4rYzICw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Paul%20Taylor%20%20TTY&f=false