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Martha's Vineyard is a 100 square mile (259 km²) Island off the southern coast of Cape Cod , and is often known simply as "the Vineyard". Located in the U.S. Commonwealth Of Massachusetts , the Vineyard makes up most of the County Of Dukes County, Massachusetts (the rest of the county consists of Cuttyhunk and the other Elizabeth Islands ). It was home to one of the earliest known Deaf communities, and consequently a special Dialect of Sign Language , Martha's Vineyard Sign Language , developed on the island. The island is now primarily known as a Summer Colony . HISTORY Originally (and still) inhabited by the Wampanoag Indians, Martha's Vineyard was known in their Language as ''Noepe'', or "land amid the streams." It was named Martha's Vineyard by English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold , who sailed to the island in 1602 . Gosnold's mother-in-law as well as his daughter, who died in infancy, were each named Martha. It is debated that the original name of the island was ''Martin's Vineyard'' (possibly after the captain of Gosnold's ship, John Martin); many islanders up to the 1700s called it by this name. The validity of this is unknown, though. Like the nearby island of Nantucket , Martha's Vineyard was brought to prominence in the 19th Century by the Whaling industry, sending ships around the world to hunt whales for their oil and Blubber . The discovery of Petroleum in Pennsylvania , producing a cheaper source of oil for lamps, led to an almost complete collapse of the industry by 1870 . After the Old Colony railroad came to mainland Woods Hole in 1872, summer residences began to develop on the island. The island struggled financially through the Great Depression , but since then its reputation as a Resort for Tourist s and the wealthy has continued to grow. There is still a substantial Wampanoag population on the Vineyard, mainly located in the town of Aquinnah . Aquinnah (which means "land under the hill" in the Wampanoag language) was formerly known as Gay Head, but was recently renamed its original Indian name. The island received international notoriety on July 18 , 1969 , when Mary Jo Kopechne was killed when a car driven by U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy drove off the Dike Bridge (also spelled Dyke Bridge). The bridge connected Chappaquiddick Island (which is next to the Vineyard and generally thought of as part of it) with an isolated barrier beach. On November 23, 1970, in the Atlantic Ocean just west of Aquinnah, Simas Kudirka, a Soviet seaman of Lithuanian nationality, Defected to the United States by leaping onto a U.S. Coast Guard cutter from a Soviet ship. In one of the most embarrassing incidents in modern American history, the Coast Guard allowed a detachment of KGB agents to board the cutter, arrest Kudirka and take him back to the Soviet Union . Martha's Vineyard received further notoriety on July 16 , 1999 , when a plane crash off its coast claimed the lives of pilot John F. Kennedy, Jr. , his wife Carolyn Bessette , and her sister, Lauren Bessette . Kennedy's mother, former U.S. first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis , maintained a home in Aquinnah until her death in 1994. Martha's Vineyard received more world-wide attention when U.S. President William J. Clinton spent vacation time on the island during his presidency, along with his wife, future US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and their daughter Chelsea . While the Clintons have made the Island famous in recent years, during the 1800's another famous President Ulysses S. Grant was also a summer visitor, staying in a Gingerbread cottage in the Methodist campground in Oak Bluffs. In '' were filmed on the island as well. In June, 2005 the island celebrated the 30th anniversary of ''Jaws'' with a weekend long " JawsFest ." Distressed over redistricting, in 1977, Martha's Vineyard tried to Secede from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts along with the island of Nantucket to become the nation's 51st state {Link without Title} . On March 5 , 1982 , John Belushi died of a drug overdose in Los Angeles, California, and was buried four days later in Abel's Hill Cemetery in Chilmark. On his gravestone is the quote: "Though I may be gone, Rock 'N' Roll lives on." Due to the many visitors to his grave and the threat of vandalism, his body was moved elsewhere within the cemetery. Many people visit his grave and in the summer it is often littered with beer cans, joints and other "tokens" to Belushi. In the summer of 2000, an outbreak of Tularemia , also known as rabbit fever, resulted in one fatality, and brought the interest of the CDC as a potential investigative ground for aerosolized '' Francisella Tularensis ''. Over the following summers, Martha's Vineyard was identified as the only place in the world where documented cases of tularemia resulted from Lawn Mowing . The research may prove valuable in preventing Bioterrorism . POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY Martha's Vineyard is made up of six towns:
RESIDENTS Locals refer to Martha's Vineyard as "The Island" or "The Vineyard" and its residents as "Islanders" or "Vineyarders". Its relatively small year round population has led to a very activist citizenry who are highly involved in the Island's day to day activities. Tourism , over development, politics and many other subjects are of keen interest to the community. Keeping the balance between the much needed tourist economy and the Ecology and Wildlife of the island is of paramount importance. Due to its many high profile residents, movie stars, politicians, writers and artists also band together in fundraisers and benefits to raise awareness for the fragile ecosystem of the Vineyard. As part of local custom, residents treat visiting celebrities as ordinary tourists; paparazzi are prohibited, and celebrity shoots and public interviews are severely restricted. TOURISM The Vineyard grew as a tourist destination primarily because of its very pleasant summer weather — during many summers the temperature never breaks 90°F — and many beautiful beaches. Wealthy Boston sea captains and merchant traders formerly created estates on Martha's Vineyard with their trading profits, and today, the Vineyard has become one of the Northeast 's most prominent summering havens, attracting celebrities like the Clintons , Warren Buffett , Bill Gates , Ted Danson and Mary Steenbergen , Carly Simon , James Taylor , Peter Simon , Alfred Eisenstadt , Dan Aykroyd and Donna Dixon , Spike Lee , Michael J. Fox , William F. Buckley , Alan Dershowitz , former US Senator Bill Bradley , Diana Ross , Beverly Sills , Art Buchwald , Walter Cronkite , Mike Wallace , David Letterman , David McCullough , the late Katherine Graham , Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Princess Diana . The Vineyard is home to Troubled Shores , a theater company that teaches and performs comedy improv along with other types of theater. During the summers the Vineyard Playhouse in Vineyard Haven features Equity Actors from around the country. Martha's Vineyard is one of the traditional resorts of U.S.'s African-American upper class. Due to a long history of racial harmony on the island, many black families started vacationing there a century ago. The center of black culture on Martha's Vineyard is the town of Oak Bluffs , where many African American celebrities own houses. Its main beach has been dubbed " The Inkwell " by African-American residents. It now has a year-round population of about 15,000 people in six towns, but in summer the population swells to 100,000 residents, with more than 25,000 additional visitors coming and going on Ferries every day. The most crowded weekend is July 4 . In general, the summer season runs from June to the end of August, correlating with the months most American children are not in school. The island has been designated an official American Viticultural Area and is home to the winemaker Chicama Vineyards in West Tisbury. GENETIC DEAFNESS AND SIGN LANGUAGE A high rate of genetic deafness was documented in Martha's Vineyard for almost two centuries. The island's deaf heritage cannot be traced to one common ancestor and is thought to have originated in the Weald, a region in the English county of Kent , prior to immigration. Researcher Nora Groce estimates that by the late 1800s, every 155 people on the Vineyard was born deaf (0.7 percent), almost 20 times the estimate for the nation at large (1 in 2,730, or 0.04 percent)Groce, Nora Ellen (1985). Everyone here spoke sign language: Hereditary deafness on Martha's Vineyard, Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674270401.. Mixed marriages between deaf and hearing spouses comprised 65% of all deaf marriages in the late nineteenth century, (higher than the US average of 20%) Lane, Harlan L., Richard C. Pillard and Mary French. ''Origins of the American Deaf-World: Assimilating and Differentiating Societies and Their Relation to Genetic Patterning.'' Sign Language Studies 1.1 (2000) 17-44. Online. Accessed via Project Muse on April 23, 2006., and Martha's Vineyard Sign Language was commonly used by hearing residents as well as deaf ones until the middle of the twentieth century. Bahan, B., and J. Poole-Nash. "The Signing Community on Martha’s Vineyard." Unpublished address to the Conference on Deaf Studies IV. Haverhill, Mass. 1995. Quoted in Lane 28. This allowed deaf residents to smoothly integrate into society. In the twentieth century, tourism became a mainstay in the island economy. Jobs in tourism were not as deaf-friendly as fishing and farming had been, and as intermarriage and further migration further joined the people of Martha's Vineyard to the mainland, the island community came more and more to resemble the wider community there. The last deaf person born into the island's sign language tradition, Katie West, died in 1952, but a few elderly residents were able to recall MVSL as recently as the 1980s when research into the language began. The linguist William Labov wrote his MA essay on changes in the Martha's Vineyard dialect of English. The 1963 study is widely recognised as a seminal work in the foundation of Sociolinguistics . SEE ALSO
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