Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet

Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet
Painting by George F. Wright in 1851.
Born	December 10, 1787(1787-12-10) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died	September 10, 1851 (aged 63) Hartford, Connecticut
Occupation	Minister, educator, co-founder of the first permanent school for the Deaf in North America.
Religious beliefs	Christianity
Spouse(s)	Sophia Fowler

Reverend Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, LL.D., (December 10, 1787 – September 10, 1851) was a renowned American pioneer in the education of the deaf. He helped found and was for many years the principal of the first institution for the education of the deaf in North America. When opened in 1817, it was called the "American Asylum for Deaf-Mutes" in Connecticut, but it is now known as the American School for the Deaf.^[1]

Gallaudet was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended Yale University, earning his bachelor's degree in 1805,^[2] graduating at the age of seventeen, ^[3] and then earned a master's degree at Yale in 1808.^[4] He wanted to do many things such as study law, engage in trade, or study divinity. In 1814 Gallaudet became a preacher, having graduated from Andover Theological Seminary after a two-year course of study.^[5]

Gallaudet's wish to become a professional minister was put aside when he met Alice Cogswell, the nine-year-old deaf daughter of a neighbor, Dr. Mason Cogswell.^[6] He taught her words by writing them with a stick in the dirt. Then Cogswell asked Gallaudet to travel to Europe to study methods for teaching deaf students, especially those of the Braidwood family in Edinburgh, Scotland. Gallaudet found the Braidwoods unwilling to share knowledge of their oral communication method and himself financially limited. At the same time, he was not satisfied that the oral method produced desirable results.

While still in Great Britain, he met Abbé Sicard, head of 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.

Having persuaded Clerc to accompany him, Gallaudet sailed back to America. The two men toured New England and successfully raised private and public funds to found a school for deaf students in Hartford, which later became known as the American School for the Deaf. Young Alice was one of the first seven students in the United States. This is where his school began. Even some hearing students came to this school to learn.

In 1821 he married one of his former students, Sophia Fowler.

His son Edward Miner Gallaudet (1837-1917) founded in 1864 the first college for the deaf which in 1986 became Gallaudet University. The university also offers education for those in elementary, middle, and high school. The elementary school on the Gallaudet University Campus is named Kendall Demonstration Elementary School (KDES), the middle and high school is Model Secondary School for the Deaf (MSSD).

Gallaudet had another son, Thomas Gallaudet, who became an Episcopal priest and also worked for the deaf.

Just days before his death, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the Western Reserve College of Ohio.^[7]

Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet died at his home in Hartford on September 10, 1851, aged 63, and was buried in Hartford's Cedar Hill Cemetery. There is a residence hall named in his honor at nearby Central Connecticut State University in New Britain.

Statue of Alice Cogswell and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet

Posthumous legacy

• Gallaudet University took the Gallaudet name in honor of him in 1893.
• A statue of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Alice Cogswell created by Daniel Chester French sits at the front of Gallaudet University.
• A Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet stamp was issued by the Postal Service in 1981.

Sources

• Booth, Edwin. “Booth's reminiscences of Gallaudet,” American Annals of the Deaf, Volume 26, Number 3, July 1881, pages 200-202, http://library.gallaudet.edu/pdf/BoothsThomasR.pdf
• Peet, Isaac Lewis. “Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet,” American Annals of the Deaf, Volume 33, Number 1, October 1888, pages 43-54, http://library.gallaudet.edu/pdf/peetsTHG-R.pdf
• "Recent Deaths"; New York Daily Times; September 18, 1851; page 2. (Accessed from The New York Times (1851–2003), ProQuest Historical Newspapers, September 19, 2006).
• "Tribute to Gallaudet--A Discourse in Commemoration of the Life, Character and Services, of the Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet, LL.D.--Delivered Before the Citizens of Hartford, Jan. 7th, 1852. With an Appendix, Containing History of Deaf-Mute Instruction and Institutions, and other Documents." By Henry Barnard, 1852. (Download book: http://www.saveourdeafschools.org/tribute_to_gallaudet.pdf)
• "Life of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet--Founder of Deaf-Mute Instruction in America" by Edward Miner Gallaudet, 1888. (Download book: http://saveourdeafschools.org/life_of_thomas_hopkins_gallaudet.pdf)
• "The Life and Labors of the Rev. T.H. Gallaudet, LL.D." by Heman Humphrey, 1857. (Download book: http://gallyprotest.org/life_and_labors.pdf)

External links

• A Statement with Regard to the Moorish Prince, Abduhl Rahhahman. New York: D. Fanshaw, 1828.
• Photographs of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet statue at Gallaudet University
• An Address on Female Education, November 21, 1827.

References