About CID > History > About Our Founder

Max Aaron Goldstein, MD 1870-1941

Founding Director

Central Institute for the Deaf

St. Louis, Missouri

Born on April 19, 1870 in St. Louis to William and Hulda Goldstein, German emigrants
Graduated in 1892 from Missouri Medical College in St. Louis (which merged with Washington University in 1891)
Interned at St. Louis City Hospital and did postgraduate work in London and at the University of Strassburg
Became a nationally respected ear, nose and throat physician, educator and medical researcher
Learned about ways to teach deaf children to talk from Victor Urbantschisch at the Vienna Polyclinic in Austria
Founded CID - Central Institute for the Deaf in 1914, envisioning a place where parents, teachers and doctors would work together to help deaf children. He started CID in rooms over his medical office at Vandeventer Avenue and Westminster Place in St. Louis, Missouri.
Included within the original CID school the nation's first teacher training program for oral deaf education, which has evolved into the Program in Audiology and Communication Sciences (PACS), one of a consortium of programs known as CID at Washington University School of Medicine.
Conducted early deafness research and published dozens of articles, spanning professional interests ranging from early audiological devices, medical procedures, lipreading, psychological studies of deaf children and hearing in animals
Wrote two books, Problems of the Deaf (1933) and The Acoustic Method for Training of the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (1939)
Established a hearing and deafness research department that came to be known as the place where the science and profession of audiology were developed
Founded The Laryngoscope, a medical journal still published today
Invented one of the earliest hearing devices, the Simplex Tube
Started the Society of Progressive Oral Advocates, which later became the professional section of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, still active today, in Washington, DC
Started the St. Louis Hearing and Speech Center, still existent
Was friends with Helen Keller, taught her the "Two-Step"
Arranged a hearing test for famous baseball player Dizzy Dean after Dean was hit on the head with a ball in the 1934 World Series
Tried to have his own speech recorded, before calling a physician, when he suffered a stroke in December of 1940
Died on July 27, 1941 at his summer home in Frankfort, Michigan
Dr. Goldstein's great granddaughter, Laurie Miller, helps carry on his dream today as a member of the CID board of directors.