Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (born December 10, 1787 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , † September 9, 1851 in Hartford , Connecticut ) was an American clergyman who started schooling for deaf children in Hartford, Connecticut in 1816 with the deaf Laurent Clerc from France. USA established.
life and work
At the age of 14, Gallaudet attended Yale University , which he graduated with a diploma in 1805. Then he returned to Yale after free studies and work in the legal field, which he left in 1808 with a Master of Arts and two more years (until 1810) as a "tutor". He then worked as a traveling salesman.
Coming from a Huguenot family, Gallaudet was deeply rooted in Protestantism. He felt called to preach and enrolled in Newton (Massachusetts) in 1812 to study at Andover Theological Seminary , which he left in 1814 as the Reverend . He also wrote children's books. His life took a turn when he met Alice Cogswell , the nine-year-old deaf daughter of his neighbor, Dr. Mason Cogswell. He asked Gallaudet to research teaching methods for deaf children in Europe , especially those of Thomas Braidwood's family in Edinburgh .
Gallaudet found the Braidwoods reluctant to share their knowledge, and the results of the oral ( spoken language ) method used there were unsatisfactory. While he was still in Great Britain, he met the Abbé Sicard , head of the French institution Nationale des Sourds-Muets in Paris and two deaf teachers from that school, Laurent Clerc and Jean Massieu , at a demonstration event . Sicard invited Gallaudet to Paris to study the methods there. Impressed by the sign language method studied Gallaudet "manual" teaching methods under Sicard and learned sign language from Massieu and Clerc, both graduates highly educated were at school.
Gallaudet persuaded Clerc to escort him back to America. The two men toured New England and collected private and public funds with which they could set up a school for deaf children in Hartford in 1817 (today's name: American School for the Deaf ). Alice Cogswell was one of the first seven students in it. Gallaudet worked as the school director until 1830, when he retired to write children's books again and to take up his position as a preacher .
Gallaudet married his former student Sophia Fowler (1798–1877). She bore him four sons and four daughters.
His youngest son, Edward Miner Gallaudet , founded the "Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind" in Washington, DC in 1857 with the philanthropist and US Postal Secretary Amos Kendall, which was later renamed Gallaudet University after his father . His mother Sophia became the first matron (home manager) of the deaf students.
His eldest son Thomas also became a clergyman and was mainly involved in mission and founding a church for deaf people. Together with Edward Miner Gallaudet, he took part in the Milan Congress of 1880 in 1880 and pleaded and voted against the resolution in which sign language was banned from schoolrooms.
Literary works
- Sermons Preached to an English Congregation in Paris (London, 1818)
- Bible Stories for the Young (London, 1838)
- Child's Book of the Soul (London, 1832; 3d ed., 1850)
- The Youth's Book of Natural Theology (New York, 1832)
- Annals of the Deaf and Dumb (Hartford), 6 volumes.
See also
literature
- Harlan Lane: Hear with the soul. The life story of the deaf and mute Laurent Clerc and his struggle for the recognition of sign language . Unabridged edition. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-423-11314-6 , ( dtv 11314), (Original edition: When the mind hears. A history of the deaf.Random House, New York 1984, ISBN 978-0-394- 50878-8 ).
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gallaudet, Thomas Hopkins |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American clergyman, founder of education for deaf children in Hartford, USA |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 10, 1787 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Philadelphia , Pennsylvania |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 9, 1851 |
| Place of death | Hartford , Connecticut |