Alexander Graham Bell, who developed one of the first telephones and eventually became a millionaire, was one of the strongest and most well-known advocates of Oralism. With a deaf wife and mother, Bell became very involved in working to eliminate hereditary deafness.

In America, Bell advocated sterilization of the deaf to prevent them from reproducing and passing on their deafness. He tried to prevent deaf people from becoming teachers in deaf schools. He fought for outlawing marriages between two deaf people. He wanted to eliminate sign language and deaf culture and force deaf people to assimilate into American hearing society. (This was a popular view in its time.)