American School for the Deaf

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The American School for the Deaf (ASD) was the first institution for the education of the deaf in America. It was founded April 15, 1817 in West Hartford, Connecticut by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc and became a state-supported school in 1819.

In 1819 or 1820, the American School for the Deaf became the first school of primary and secondary education to receive aid from the federal government when it was granted a tract of land in the Alabama territory. As a result of its pivotal role in American deaf history, it also hosts a museum containing numerous rare and old items. While it is situated on a 54-acre campus, the ASD has a small enrollment — in its history, the ASD has graduated approximately 4000 graduates.

The impetus behind its founding was the fact that Alice Cogswell, the daughter of a wealthy local surgeon (Mason Fitch Cogswell), was deafened in childhood by fever at a time when the British schools were an unacceptable substitute for a local school. Dr. Cogswell prevailed upon the young Gallaudet (who had recently graduated from Yale University's School of Divinity and had begun studying at Andover). Gallaudet met young Alice in Hartford, where he was recovering from a chronic illness.

Cogswell and nine other citizens decided that the known 84 deaf children in New England needed appropriate facilities. However, competent teachers could not be found, so they sent Gallaudet in 1815 on a tour of Europe, where deaf education was a much more developed art. After being rebuffed by the Braidwoods, Gallaudet turned to the Parisian French schoolteachers of the French Institute for the Deaf, where he successfully recruited Laurent Clerc.

On the strength of Clerc's reputation, the ASD was incorporated as the "American Asylum for Deaf-mutes" in May, 1816. When it opened in 1817, Alice and six other students enrolled. Also in that first class was 51-year-old John Brewster Jr., who had become an itinerant portrait painter despite being both deaf and mute.

Gallaudet would be principal until 1830. His grandson would follow in his legacy, establishing Gallaudet University, which followed the ASD's lead and taught students primarily in American Sign Language (derived from the methodical signs and Parisian sign language of the French Institute for the Deaf).