Written by Terri Campbell with some content from an earlier edition by
Definition:
Written by Terri Campbell with some content from an earlier edition by
Definition:
by Elizabeth Williams
Biographical Highlights
by Alyson Landers
Definition
Biographical Highlights
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet was a trained minister whose future changed when he met Alice Cogswell, a young girl who was deaf. In 1817, Gallaudet opened the "Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons" in Hartford, Connecticut; it was the first U.S. deaf school. He had observed European educational methods and recruited a teacher of the deaf, Laurent Clerc, whose work helped develop American Sign Language (ASL).