Transcript Deaf American - American Sign language

Deaf American
History
Thomas Hopkins
Gallaudet
Born in Pennsylvanian
in 1787
He graduated from
Yale at age 17 then
earned his Master 3
years later
He became a minister
following his masters
Gallaudet and Alice
While being a minister
Gallaudet met Alice
Cogswell (a 9 year old
Deaf girl)
He observed her
playing and taught her
names of objects by
writing in the dirt
The Journey
Dr. Mason Cogswell, Alice
father, asked Gallaudet to
travel to Europe to see
how they teach the deaf
First Galladet tried to go to
Braidwood in Scotland
Braidwood had many
stipulations which
Gallaudet could not agree
upon and left
Gallaudet and the
French
Gallaudet heard of another method taught
in Paris
Gallaudet met Abbe Sicard, head of the 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.
American School for the
Deaf
Gallaudet ask Clerc to accomany
him to America
On the ship to America Gallaudet
taught Clerc English and Clerc
taught Gallaudet signs
Upon arriving in America Gallaudet
and Clerc began raising money to
start the first school for the Deaf in
America in 1817 then called the
The Connecticut Asylum (at
Hartford) for the Education and
Instruction of Deaf and Dumb
Persons
Alice Cogswell was one of the first
graduates
Martha's Vineyard
Martha's Vineyard is an
island off of Massachusetts
Martha's Vineyard was
home to a large growing
deaf population as well as
hearing in the early 1800's
and on
This where Martha's
Vineyard Sign Language
was started
The Numbers
The language was able to thrive on Martha's Vineyard because
of the unusually high percentage of deaf islanders and because
deafness was a recessive hereditary trait, which meant that
almost anyone might have both deaf and hearing siblings.
In 1854, when the island's deaf population peaked, the United
States national average was one deaf person in 5728, while on
Martha's Vineyard it was one in 155.
In the town of Chilmark, which had the highest concentration of
deaf people on the island, the average was 1 in 25
In a section of Chilmark called Squibnocket, as much as a
quarter of the population of 60 was deaf.
Everyday in Martha's
Vineyard
Hearing people sometimes
signed even when there
were no deaf people
present: children signed
behind a schoolteacher's
back; adults signed to one
another during church
sermons; and farmers
signed to their children
across a wide field, where
the spoken word would not
carry.
Martha's Vineyard and
School for the Deaf
In 1817 in Hartford, Connecticut the The
Connecticut Asylum (at Hartford) for the
Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb
Persons (now American School for the Deaf)
Many of the deaf children of Martha's Vineyard
enrolled there, taking their sign language with
them.
The language of the teachers was French Sign
Language, and many of the other deaf students
used their own home sign systems.
This school became known as the birthplace of
the deaf community in the U.S., and the different
sign systems used there, including MVSL,
merged to become American Sign Language