The American School for The Deaf

By James P. Walsh

The most successful example of organized humanitarian endeavor in nineteenth-century Connecticut grew out of the tragic affliction of one little girl. In 1807, at two years of age Alice Cogswell suffered a form of meningitis that destroyed her hearing. Since she had just begun to talk when she became ill, her loss of hearing rendered her mute. Her father, Mason Cogswell, a Hartford physician, was determined that his daughter would overcome her handicap, and he had the intelligence, love, and wealth needed to assist her. From childhood, Alice was instructed by tutors, who taught her to speak to some degree and to write. These tutors, the most notable of whom was Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (1787-1851), a young man studying for the ministry, devised a sign language in which each word was spelled out letter by letter. Needless to say, progress was painfully slow. Mason Cogswell, knowing that the French led the world in the education of the deaf, persuaded Gallaudet to go to Paris. There, Gallaudet observed the work of the Abbe Sicard, head of a noted school for the deaf who was inventing a sign language far more appropriate than any yet in use.

In the meantime, Cogswell was creating a school in Hartford that would serve his daughter and those like her. He received support from other prominent men and obtained a charter for the school in 1816 from the Connecticut General Assembly. The school formally opened on April 15, 1817, with seven pupils in attendance. The school flourished from the start. There were forty-one students by 1818, more than 100 by 1822, and more than 200 by 1824. Gallaudet served as principal from 1817 to 1830 and trained a number of men who founded similar schools.

From the outset, the school became a national rather than just a local institution. Students from outside Connecticut were enrolled in the very first class. The most important gift received in the first decade was from Congress, which granted the school 23,000 acres of public land. The land was sold and the proceeds invested, thus insuring a steady income.

At present, the school is located in West Hartford, is known as the American School for the Deaf, and is justly honored as the first free American school for the deaf.

For Further Reading

The American School for the Deaf. Hartford, 1947.

* Entry under revision.