About

History & Cogswell Heritage House

 
In 1814, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, a recent Yale graduate and ordained clergyman, met the Dr. Mason Fitch Cogswell family and their deaf daughter, Alice. The following year, Gallaudet embarked on a voyage to Europe to learn the art of educating deaf children, and encountered the exciting work of l'Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris (school for the deaf in Paris, France). He then enlisted Laurent Clerc, a talented, young, deaf teacher to join him in a historic journey back home to establish the first permanent school for the deaf in the United States.

Over the years, this school has served as the "Mother School" in providing an exemplary model educational program; a site for teacher training and practicum; and as a springboard from which trained and experienced educators of the deaf went forth to educate and to start other schools for the deaf all over the country and to help found a college in Washington, D.C.

We are proud of our alumni who are engaged in the world as educated, self-supporting and productive citizens. We take pride in our tradition of excellence and innovative educational programming. As we address the ever-present challenge of serving infants, children, youth and adults who are deaf and hard of hearing, we are always seeking ways to apply new knowledge, approaches and technology in our work.

As you learn more about ASD, you will discover a community that shares a passion for the school, demonstrates great accomplishments, and has a rich base of support. I encourage you to visit the campus, attend a workshop, sign up for a community sign class, or use this website to contact a member of our faculty, staff, or administration. Whether you are a prospective student, alumnus, friend, or fellow educator, we invite you to explore and learn more about us.
    • Connecticut Historical Society

      Connecticut Historical Society: Language, Culture, and Communities— 200 Years of impact the American School for the Deaf has had on the Greater Hartford Community.

About the Exhibition – A Partnership Between the American School for the Deaf and the Connecticut Historical Society

Language, Culture, Communities: 200 Years of Impact by the American School for the Deaf

April 27 - October 21, 2017
Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, CT
 
The American School for the Deaf established the first permanent school for the deaf in the United States.  It created a new standardized language- American Sign Language- resulting in a deaf community and culture that continues to advance equality.  As a leader in developing educational methods and embracing technology for people who are deaf, ASD has impacted personal lives and American culture, and has formed local, national, and global connections between deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing communities.

During its six-month run, visitors to this exhibit came away with the understanding that ASD has and continues to transform and enrich the lives of deaf and hard of hearing individuals while forming connections between the deaf and hearing communities.  They learned of the role that ASD played in shaping American culture through its influence on racial integration, special education, technological innovation, and through its establishment of American Sign Language as a major world language.  The exhibit allowed visitors to gain a greater understanding of the challenges and successes of people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Due to the efforts of one of the exhibit’s Premier Sponsors, ZVRS, portions of the exhibition have been captured on film with explanations provided in ASL by ASD Executive Director, Jeffrey S. Bravin, and ASD alumna and Board Member, Barbara Cassin. 
Dr. Cogswell was excited about the prospects for educating his daughter and all deaf children in the country. The Congregational Churches of New England, probably the most reliable source of census data of that day, reported 80 deaf children in New England and approximately 800 deaf children in the United States. Gallaudet, Cogswell, and ten prominent citizens decided an American school for the deaf was sorely needed. In just one afternoon, sufficient funds were raised to send Gallaudet to Europe to study the methods of teaching the deaf.

The Braidwood family, formerly of Edinburgh, Scotland, operated a school for the deaf in London as a family business. They did not wish to share their knowledge to train prospective teachers of the deaf, unless terms could be negotiated to pay the Braidwood family, on a per capita basis, for each deaf child who would be subsequently educated using the Braidwood methods. Gallaudet would not sign such an agreement or embrace the doctrinal tenets of the Braidwood system. He remained in London for 13 months, but gave up hope of bringing the Braidwood system back to Hartford.

The Abbe Sicard, Director of the French Institute for the Deaf in Paris, was in London at that time with his two deaf assistants, Jean Massieu and Laurent Clerc, giving lectures and demonstrations on the methods used to educate deaf children in France. Gallaudet was familiar with the work of the French School, and had even met with the abbe at the beginning of his visit to England, but it was not until he had despaired of reaching his goal with the English that he turned to the French. Gallaudet attended one of the lectures, met with the abbe and his assistants, and accepted their invitation to enter the teacher preparation program at the French school.
Laurent Clerc worked closely with Gallaudet, but there was not sufficient time for Gallaudet to master all of the techniques and manual communication skills before his diminishing funds forced him to book return passage to America. Gallaudet prevailed on Sicard to allow Laurent Clerc to accompany him on the return trip to America to establish an American School. In the fifty-five days of the return voyage, Gallaudet learned the language of signs from Clerc, and Clerc learned English from Gallaudet.

The new school for the deaf in America opened in Bennett's City Hotel (pictured above) on April 15, 1817. The school became the first recipient of state aid to education in America when the Connecticut General Assembly awarded its first annual grant to the school in 1819. When the United States Congress awarded the school a land grant in the Alabama Territory in 1820, it was the first instance of federal aid to elementary and secondary special education in the United States. More than 6,000 alumni have claimed this historic school as their alma mater.

A Turning Point in American History

The founding of the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1817 was a crucial milestone in the way society related to people with disabilities. The time and place are significant because it was a unique conjunction of different currents which led to the school's establishment.

Many threads in developing U.S. society coalesced in Hartford in the early nineteenth century. The importance attached to universal literacy (by no means common in the world at the time) and the particular missionary religious doctrines of the prevalent Protestant sects provided both means and motive for the attempt to educate deaf people. The concept of self-reliance and the belief that religious salvation is possible through understanding the Bible determined the methods and purposes of the founders. Literacy, salvation and the skills needed to earn a living were the goals. Achieving these required clarity and fluidity of communication, which is why the school was based on sign language from the start.

The experiment aroused great interest. Governor Oliver Wolcott, in an 1818 proclamation, asked the public, "to aid . . . in elevating the condition of a class of mankind, who have been heretofore considered as incapable of mental improvement, but who are now found to be susceptible of instruction in the various arts and sciences, and of extensive attainments in moral and religious truth." His words express the great change in attitude toward deaf people which had only just occurred.

History of Deaf Education in America

The first half century of the school's existence was a time of flowering and growth for deaf education in America. ASD served as a model institution and a training ground for numerous schools for the deaf which opened elsewhere during this period. Instruction was in sign language, with the goals of imparting literacy, training for productive labor, and religious salvation. ASD was a Congregationalist school in its early years, which was consistent with the civil government of Connecticut at the time the school was established.

An important feature of manual communication as a teaching language is that it allows deaf people to be teachers. Many alumni did go on to become teachers and principals at schools for the deaf throughout the United States, which spread sign language throughout the country. A deaf culture developed during this period, with periodicals, organizations, social relations and all the other features to be expected of a minority culture dispersed through the general population. So rapid and positive was the spread of this language and culture that the period is today referred to as a golden age.

The culminating achievement of that time was the establishment of the Columbia Institution for the Deaf at Washington, D.C. in 1864. Now called Gallaudet University, it is still the only liberal arts college for the deaf in the world, although there are now many other institutions offering college and post graduate degrees to the deaf.
The later half of the nineteenth century witnessed the rise of oral theories of deaf education. Although there are a variety of these theories, they have in common an emphasis on the importance of oral skills (speech-reading and speech) in the education of deaf children. A leading proponent of oral methods was Alexander Graham Bell, whose mother and wife were both hard of hearing. The first major oral school in the U.S., Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, Massachusetts, opened in 1867.

This difference in philosophy between the proponents of traditional sign language and supporters of the oral method was a crucial division throughout the second half of the nineteenth and well into the twentieth century. The dispute was often bitter, leading to deep divisions within the deaf education community. It is beyond the scope of this history to go into the merits of the argument, but a few points are worth noting.

The ability to learn oral skills depends in large part on the degree of hearing loss, the age at which the student became deaf (especially whether it was before or after acquiring spoken language), and other factors. There is therefore a wide range of success and failure dependent, not on intelligence, but on these factors. Oral skills are not usually very useful for communication among deaf persons, and the use of the oral method practically bars the deaf from careers as teachers. The American School for the Deaf, during this period, tried out students in oral classes first, and if they did not succeed, put them in manual classes instead, under a philosophy called the Combined System. Many other schools for the deaf embraced the oral method to a greater extent.

The twentieth century has seen a loosening of the grip of the oral method, as sign language has regained legitimacy. The school's current educational and commnication philosophy, Total Communication, is described in the last paragraph.

As the oral/manual dispute has waned, a new philosophical division has appeared; the mainstreaming debate. Public Act 94-142 mandates that each child be taught in the "least restrictive environment" possible, and this has been widely interpreted to mean the local public school. The mainstreaming, or "inclusionist", movement has led to a decline in the proportion of deaf and hard of hearing students attending center schools such as the American School for the Deaf.

Without going into detail, it is fair to say that this debate shares some features with the oral/manual debate of 100 years ago. Success in a mainstream setting is very dependent upon degree of hearing loss and degree of oral skill. Deafness is a very low-incidence condition, and very few public schools have more than one or two deaf students within their districts. Since it is uneconomic to hire a teacher exclusively for the education of those few children, once again, deaf people are prevented from obtaining teaching positions, and deaf children in the mainstream setting are prevented from having deaf adult role models in the school setting.

It can also be very restrictive to be blocked from easily communicating with classmates and teachers, from participating in sports or from normal social interaction without the need for an interpreter. The philosophy of the American School for the Deaf is that there is no one easy answer that applies to all situations, but that each child's education should be based on the specifics of that child's needs. There is a place for mainstreaming and center schools both.

Cogswell Heritage House

ASD maintains an archival collection containing many items from the history of deaf education.
ASD’s founders were well aware of the groundbreaking importance of their new endeavor, and they and their successors saved a great many letters, teaching aids, illustrations, books, and other objects. These items remained in the school’s possession and now form a rich collection that has become a credible base for research among graduates, historians, genealogists, authors, editors, and scholars.

The school’s first museum was organized in the Historical Room of the Gallaudet Building in 1967, and expanded in 1977. When renovations to the Gallaudet Building were planned in 2008, the archives were relocated to the former Principal’s House on campus. Since that time, ASD’s archival inventory has been significantly enriched by generous donations from friends and alumni. Collaboration with other historical societies, research, and new discoveries have also broadened the school’s collection. 
 
This carefully organized collection includes the histories of deaf education, religion, Hartford, and the United States. It also links ASD’s heritage and regional impact with its contributions to the Deaf Community as a whole.

Among the thousands of items in the archives are:

  • Over 3,000 letters, including original correspondence from the Abbe Sicard, Laurent Clerc, Thomas Gallaudet, Alice Cogswell, and Hartford notables.
  • ASD’s Act of Incorporation dated 1816.
  • ASD Board of Directors Reports, beginning 1816.
  • Documents relating to the first state aid and first federal aid to special education in the history of the U.S.
  • Treasurer’s records and account books, beginning 1817.
  • Original Books of Student Admissions, beginning with Alice Cogswell.
  • Periodicals including American Annals, Volta Review, Silent Worker, Deaf American, Christian Observer.
  • Furnishings that include Thomas Gallaudet’s office chair and steamer trunk, pieces made by students in early cabinet classes, Civil War parlor pieces, print shop type cases, Victorian drawing board, and many items from the E. M. Gallaudet home on Woodland Street in Hartford.
  • Rare volumes that include the oldest book on sign language “Chirologia” dated 1644, Sicards’s “Theorie des Signes” dated 1808, Sibscota’s “Discourse Concerning Those that are Deaf & Dumb,” dated 1670, Mattson’s “Adventures of an Enthusiast” 1835, Collection of published books for Deaf children by Thomas Gallaudet, Collection of textbooks written by ASD teachers and published at the school.
  • An extensive library of textbooks, fiction, biographies, reference, schools, as well as local/state/U.S./foreign histories.
  • Portrait paintings of Thomas Gallaudet, Laurent Clerc, Eliza Clerc, Lewis Weld, Henry Camp, Henry Perkins, Frank Wheeler, Walter Rockwell, and others.
  • Works by 19th and 20th century deaf artists:  John Carlin, Augustus Fuller, James Whitcomb, Cadwallader Washburn, John Brewster, Albert Newsam, Charles Parker, Algot Anderson, Harry Moore.
  • Personal belongings of Thomas Gallaudet, Laurent Clerc, and Alice Cogswell.
  • Early educational tools used in ASD’s classrooms, including vocabulary charts, broadsides, printing press, lantern slide projector, electricity generating machine, chemical balance scale, and slates.
  • Items made by students in early shop and trade classes.
  • Letters and essays by the school’s earliest pupils.
  • A substantial photo archive of over 35,000 original photographs.
    • Sofia's Wedding dress

      Sofia's Wedding dress

 
 
 

The Archives Today

Additions to the archives over the years have been most welcome, but it has become a challenge to showcase objects in the museum’s current location without physical barriers. Understanding the importance of spatial elements, ASD is currently exploring on-site options to, once again, expand its museum with an eye towards improved design, layout, access, circulation routes, and atmosphere.
 
ASD knows that the best way to meet the challenge of engaging visitors and teaching its history is through careful planning. With added space, look for upgrades that will include better graphic panels and object labels, additional displays of photos/maps/drawings/art (currently in storage), handout leaflets, seating, model objects, and expanded library, research, and storage facilities. Also planned are interactive exhibits, events, audio (narratives, music, etc.), video (ASL interpretations, archival film, interviews), and activity stations.

How You Can Help

The ASD community is proud of its historic collection and will continue to preserve its past and cultivate its future. All those who share this interest are encouraged to consider a gift to ASD’s Archive Fund, or recommend the names of others who may have an interest, or assist in building the archive collection. Call 860-570-2300 or email Jean Linderman at jean.linderman@asd-1817.org for more information.

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