William George Hardy and Miriam Pauls Hardy Collection

Hardy held appointments in each of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. Arriving at Hopkins in 1947, he held the position of Associate Professor of Laryngology and Otology and Director of Aural and Speech Rehabilitation within the School of Medicine. In July of that year, Hardy was appointed to a directorship the Hearing and Speech Center, located in a wing of the Harriet Lane Home at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. The center opened in the summer of 1948. Hardy drew upon his wartime naval experience to found the center and was soon thereafter joined by Pauls and Haskins in 1949. The center was the first hearing and speech clinic affiliated with a medical school in the United States. He served in his role as its Director until 1975, and was succeeded by Hiroshi Shimizu. Beginning in 1949, Hardy jointly held the position of Associate Professor in the Division of Audiology and Speech through the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health’s Department of Physiological Hygiene, and was promoted to Professor in 1966. In 1970 under his direction, the division was renamed the Division of Communicative Science and moved to the Department of Public Health Administration. Hardy was appointed Head of that division until 1979, when he assumed the status of Professor Emeritus of Public Health Services Administration until his death in 1980. In 1976 he became as Associate Professor Emeritus of Laryngology and Otology, retiring from that position in 1978.

Hardy’s role at Hopkins was to integrate teaching, research, and clinical experience to generate social applications. His work was recognized nationally and internationally. As an audiologist and advocate, Hardy’s major contributions to the field of audiology included raising awareness about the problems of licensure and accountability within the profession of audiology, the need for mandatory screening of young children, and the therapeutic effects of education. Throughout his career he sought to bring together medicine, education, and outreach. His research, publications, and public presence helped to alter the field’s consensus on deafness and hearing-impairment by demonstrating that hearing impairment occurs along a variable spectrum, and that the brain – not the ears – is responsible for hearing. His work with children, early detection and education challenged trends of classifying hearing-impaired youths as mentally deficient or incorrigible. This work helped to construct hearing impairment as a multifaceted communicative disorder, emphasizing language and speech development in early childhood as essential to the treatment and prevention of hearing impairment.

He maintained many external affiliations in the capacities of leadership, membership, and consulting throughout his career, including the Alexander Graham Bell Association, the American Speech and Hearing Association, the U.S. Children’s Bureau, the Maryland State Health Department, and the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke.

William and Miriam Hardy were particularly recognized for their collaborative contributions to scientific knowledge and public awareness of deafness and hearing-impairment. As both a married and professional couple, the Hardys worked as a team throughout their careers, operating as a dynamic force in the field through their research, clinical practice, and outreach.

Biography: Miriam Pauls Hardy

Miriam Pauls Hardy was born Miriam Dorothy Pauls on February 4, 1912 in St. Louis, Missouri. She received her A.B. from Harris Teachers College, St. Louis in 1932, A.M. from Wayne State University in 1939, and Ph.D. from Northwestern in 1949. She additionally completed graduate work at the Central Institute for the Deaf, which shared an affiliation with Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to arriving at Johns Hopkins, she taught at the New Jersey School for the Deaf, was an instructor in special education at Michigan State Normal College and a clinical supervisor of hearing therapy in the Special Education Clinics at Indiana State Teachers College. During the Second World War, Hardy joined the Navy’s WAVES as a Lieutenant stationed at the speech and hearing rehabilitation center at the Naval Hospital in Philadelphia, where she met lifelong colleagues William G. Hardy and Harriet L. Haskins. Miriam married William on August 3, 1960. Following her wartime service, she returned to Northwestern to complete her doctorate and arrived at Hopkins in 1949 to commence work as an audiologist for the Hearing and Speech Center at the Johns Hopkins Hospital – the first hearing and speech center affiliated with a Medical School in the United States – with William G. Hardy and Harriet L. Haskins. The three later became known as H. H. and H.

Miriam Hardy held appointments in each of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. Beginning in 1949, she held appointments as Assistant Professor in the School of Hygiene and Public Health’s Division of Audiology and Speech (renamed the Division of Communicative Science in 1970), Assistant Professor of Laryngology and Otology in the School of Medicine, and Audiologist in the Hearing and Speech Center, located in a wing of the Harriet Lane Home at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. In 1956, she became Associate Professor in the Schools of Medicine and Hygiene and Public Health. She assumed the status of Associate Professor Emeritus in the Schools of Medicine and Hygiene and Public Health in 1977.

As an audiologist, language and speech pathologist, and advocate, Hardy’s approach drew on medicine, education, and outreach. Her research, publications, and public presence helped to alter expert consensus on deafness and hearing-impairment by demonstrating that hearing impairment occurred along a spectrum and should be viewed as a preventable disease. Her work with children, early detection, and education challenged trends of classifying hearing-impaired youths as mentally deficient or incorrigible. This work additionally helped to construct hearing impairment as a multifaceted communicative disorder, with an emphasis on language and speech development in early childhood as essential to the treatment and prevention of hearing impairment. Her contributions were recognized nationally and internationally.

She maintained multiple external affiliations throughout her career, most importantly serving as a consultant to the Maryland State Departments of Health and Education and the American Speech and Hearing Association, and as a member of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf.

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