Gallaudet, Edward (1837–1917)

Edward Miner Gallaudet was a scholar, businessman, teacher, principal, college president, and an advocate for the deaf and for deaf education. He was responsible for establishing the first institute for higher education for the deaf, and he advocated a combined approach (i.e., oral and manual) for teaching the deaf. Born on February 5, 1837, Edward Miner Gallaudet was the youngest of eight children born to the Reverend Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Sophia Fowler Gallaudet. His mother was deaf and his father had founded the first school for the deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. Edward Gallaudet was instrumental in promoting the manual approach (i.e., the use of sign language) in teaching students who were deaf, and it was widely used during the first half of the 19th century. The trend later was reversed to the oral approach, and while both are used today, the question of which is the better method to teach students who are deaf remains controversial.

Before his involvement in deaf education, Edward Gallaudet pursued a career in banking. After 3 years, he became bored with business and enrolled in Trinity College in Hartford. While at college he taught part-time at the school his father had founded. He graduated from Trinity College with a Bachelor of Science degree in only 2 years and continued teaching at the American School for the Deaf. In 1857, he was invited to Washington, D.C., by Amos Kendall to run a school that Kendall had started for deaf and blind children. At 20 years old, Gallaudet became the first principal of Kendall's school, the Columbia Institution for the Deaf, Dumb and the Blind. Kendall had invited Gallaudet's mother to come to Washington, D.C., with him, and she became the school's matron.

In 1864, Gallaudet sought college status for the school. He drafted a bill and took it to the U.S. Congress. Although many senators doubted that deaf people could go to college, the bill finally passed, and President Abraham Lincoln signed it into law. At age 27, Edward Miner Gallaudet became the first president of what would later be named Gallaudet University, the first college in the world for deaf students. He presided over the first commencement in June 1869, when three young men received diplomas for completing a 4-year course of studies. Their diplomas were signed by President Ulysses S. Grant; this tradition holds to this day, as all the diplomas of Gallaudet graduates are signed by the current president of the United States. Gallaudet remained president of the university for 46 years.

Gallaudet had two daughters with his first wife, Jane Fessenden, who died in 1866, 10 years after their marriage. He married his second wife, Susan Denison, in 1868 and had five more children. Susan was the younger sister of James Denison, Gallaudet's friend and colleague. Denison had taught at the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, and Gallaudet invited him to teach at the school in Washington, D.C. Denison, who was deaf, became the principal of the primary department of the school.

In 1880, Gallaudet traveled to Milan, Italy, for an international convention of instructors of the deaf with James Denison, who was the only deaf person in attendance. Whereas the popular view at the convention suggested that the only way to teach the deaf was through speech and lip reading, Gallaudet and Denison disagreed with them. As a result of this reform debate in education of the deaf, support for the oral method grew rapidly. This reform changed the course of teaching history for the next 80 years. The debate continued, however, and Gallaudet emerged as the spokesperson for those who supported the use of sign language and a combined method of communication. He believed that deaf people should have the choice of learning speech, lip reading, and sign language. Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, was his rival; Bell fought for the oral method of speech and lip reading. It is likely that both men's attitudes toward teaching deaf students were shaped by their parents. Both men were raised by mothers who were hearing impaired, and while Sophia Gallaudet had no usable hearing, Eliza Bell had lost her hearing after she had developed speech. Bell's father was a speech therapist who developed a theory of articulation known as Visible Speech. It is not difficult to see the influence his parents had on Bell and his views of oralism. On the other hand, Gallaudet's father pioneered the use of sign language in the first school in America for deaf students, and his mother used only sign language. Thus, Gallaudet's family experiences certainly influenced his philosophy of using sign language in deaf education.

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