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Winning, losing, and learning through sports
Together in the dorms: Community life at boarding school
Trades and Training for Boys
State School in an Expanding Nation
Segregated Schools in the post-war South
Little Paper Family: Deaf students turn to newspapers and magazines
Lincoln signs act of congress to authorize Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind to confer degrees
Home away from home: Schools for the Deaf
Home Skills – Training in sewing, cooking, and hairstyling
From Asylum to School: Families pool their resources
Family ties: Deaf children away at school get creative for writing to parents
Classroom learning for Deaf students
After school: Extracurricular activities at Gallaudet
A place of our own: the first permanent school for deaf children
A solemn responsibility, a cup of consolation
GU
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National Deaf Life Museum
Exhibits
History Through Deaf Eyes
Formation of a Community
A language shared by hand and...
Laurent Clerc arrived in Hartford in 1816 and brought with him the sign language of Paris, a city with a large Deaf community. He taught this visually sophisticated language to Gallaudet and other teachers.
Students at the school brought other sign languages with them-from New York City, Philadelphia, and a tiny island off the coast of Massachusetts, Martha’s Vineyard, which had an unusually large population of deaf people at the time.
Out of this mix came what was called “the natural language of signs,” known today as American Sign Language.
“The heart claims as its peculiar and appropriate language that of the eye and countenance, of the attitudes, movements, and gestures of the body.” ~ Reverend Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet
~ Reverend Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet
The “Old Hartford School” is one of the early buildings of the American School for the Deaf, now in West Hartford, Connecticut.
American School of the Deaf
In this portrait by Charles Willson Peale, Laurent Clerc’s wife, Eliza Boardman Clerc, is showing her daughter Elizabeth’s name sign “E.”
Upon arrival at school, students were usually given a name sign that often incorporated the first letter of their name, or identified a distinguishing feature such as round cheeks, a sharp chin, or a dimple. Name signs were often students’ first introduction to signing.
Lithographs were used to teach prayers. Many prayers were signed in unison.
Gallaudet University Archives Gift in memory of Ellen Shepardson Gallaudet Fabian Barry, 1991. Artist: J.T. Randolph
Gift in memory of Ellen Shepardson Gallaudet Fabian Barry, 1991.
Artist: J.T. Randolph
Collection of Maryland School for the Deaf
Photograph by Richard J. Schoenberg
A language shared by hand and heart: Laurent Clerc brings sign language from Paris