On April 15, 1817, what is now called the American School for the Deaf opened its doors in Hartford, Connecticut. Inspired by his young, deaf neighbor, theologian Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet teamed up with French sign language instructor Laurent Clerc to open a residential school where deaf children would have the opportunity to be educated. The opening of the American School for the Deaf instigated the creation of a deaf culture in America that thrives to this day.
In 1814, Thomas Gallaudet met his nine-year-old neighbor, Alice Cogswell, who was deaf. He watched her struggle to communicate with her family and as a theology school graduate, saw Alice as part of a community that had not yet been proselytized to due to a lack of language skills. Alice’s father, Dr. Mason Cogswell, sponsored Gallaudet’s trip abroad, urging him to learn more about the teaching methods of the Braidwood Academy, a school for the deaf, in England. Gallaudet was not satisfied by Braidwood’s method of teaching, which focused on speaking and lip reading. While in London, Gallaudet chanced upon a group of teachers from the National Institute of the Deaf in Paris. Intrigued by their sign language, he followed them back to their school to learn with them. At the end of his own instruction, Gallaudet persuaded the distinguished instructor, Laurent Clerc to return to Connecticut and aid Gallaudet in opening the first school for the deaf in America. Alice was their first student.
At their school in Hartford, Gallaudet and Clerc joined deaf students from around the country together. Clerc’s French sign language mixed with the signs used by students from around the U.S. evolved to form American Sign Language. Of it, Thomas Gallaudet said, “The heart claims as its particular and appropriate language that of the eye and countenance, of the attitudes, movements, and gestures of the body.” With a shared language, as it often does, developed a culture. Gallaudet and Clerc traveled the country, training teachers and advising additional schools for the deaf.
In 1857, Thomas Gallaudet’s wife, Sofia Gallaudet, and their son, Edward Gallaudet, moved to Washington D.C. to run the School for the Deaf in Washington D.C. This school eventually became Gallaudet University, the premiere school for the education of deaf individuals in the U.S, and is the legacy of Thomas Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc.
Learn more here:
- https://onlineexhibits.library.yale.edu/s/deaf-culture/page/asd
- https://gallaudet.edu/museum/exhibits/history-through-deaf-eyes/formation-of-a-community/a-language-shared-by-hand-and-heart-laurent-clerc-brings-sign-language-from-paris/
- https://gallaudet.edu/museum/celebrating-150-years/gallaudets-150-year-history-all-began-with-a-chance-encounter/
- https://www.asd-1817.org/about/history–cogswell-heritage-house
