Deaf AmericanHistory

Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet

Born in Pennsylvanian in 1787

He graduated from Yale at age 17 then earned his Master 3 years later

He became a minister following his masters

Gallaudet and AliceWhile being a minister Gallaudet met Alice Cogswell (a 9 year old Deaf girl)

He observed her playing and taught her names of objects by writing in the dirt

The JourneyDr. Mason Cogswell, Alice father, asked Gallaudet to travel to Europe to see how they teach the deaf

First Galladet tried to go to Braidwood in Scotland

Braidwood had many stipulations which Gallaudet could not agree upon and left

Gallaudet and the French

Gallaudet heard of another method taught in Paris

Gallaudet met Abbe Sicard, head of the the Institution Nationale des Sourds-Muets à Paris, and two of its deaf faculty members, Laurent Clerc and Jean Massieu.

Sicard invited Gallaudet to Paris to study the school's method of teaching the deaf using manual communication.

Impressed with the manual method, Gallaudet studied teaching methodology under Sicard, learning sign language from Massieu and Clerc, who were both highly educated graduates of the school.

American School for the Deaf

Gallaudet ask Clerc to accomany him to America

On the ship to America Gallaudet taught Clerc English and Clerc taught Gallaudet signs

Upon arriving in America Gallaudet and Clerc began raising money to start the first school for the Deaf in America in 1817 then called the The Connecticut Asylum (at Hartford) for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons

Alice Cogswell was one of the first graduates

Martha's Vineyard

Martha's Vineyard is an island off of Massachusetts

Martha's Vineyard was home to a large growing deaf population as well as hearing in the early 1800's and on

This where Martha's Vineyard Sign Language was started

The NumbersThe language was able to thrive on Martha's Vineyard because of the unusually high percentage of deaf islanders and because deafness was a recessive hereditary trait, which meant that almost anyone might have both deaf and hearing siblings.

In 1854, when the island's deaf population peaked, the United States national average was one deaf person in 5728, while on Martha's Vineyard it was one in 155.

In the town of Chilmark, which had the highest concentration of deaf people on the island, the average was 1 in 25

In a section of Chilmark called Squibnocket, as much as a quarter of the population of 60 was deaf.

Everyday in Martha's Vineyard

Hearing people sometimes signed even when there were no deaf people present: children signed behind a schoolteacher's back; adults signed to one another during church sermons; and farmers signed to their children across a wide field, where the spoken word would not carry.

Martha's Vineyard and School for the

DeafIn 1817 in Hartford, Connecticut the The Connecticut Asylum (at Hartford) for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons (now American School for the Deaf)

Many of the deaf children of Martha's Vineyard enrolled there, taking their sign language with them.

The language of the teachers was French Sign Language, and many of the other deaf students used their own home sign systems.

This school became known as the birthplace of the deaf community in the U.S., and the different sign systems used there, including MVSL, merged to become American Sign Language