Gallaudet was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended Yale University, earning his bachelor’s degree in 1805 and master’s degree in 1810. He wanted to do many things such as study law, engage in trade, or study divinity. In 1814 Gallaudet became a preacher; he later became interested in writing children’s books.

Gallaudet’s wish to become a preacher was put aside when he met Alice Cogswell, the nine-year-old deaf daughter of a neighbor, Dr. Mason Cogswell. He taught her many words by writing them with a stick in the dirt. Then Cogswell asked Gallaudet to travel to Europe to study methods for teaching deaf students, especially those of the Braidwood family in Edinburgh, Scotland. Gallaudet found the Braidwoods unwilling to share knowledge of their oral communication method. At the same time, he was not satisfied that the oral method produced desirable results.

While still in Great Britain, he met Abbé Sicard, head of the Institution Nationale des Sourds-Muets in 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.

Having persuaded Clerc to accompany him, Gallaudet sailed back to America. The two men toured New England and successfully raised private and public funds to found a school for deaf students in Hartford, which later became known as the American School for the Deaf. Young Alice was one of the first seven students in the United States. This is where his school began. Even some hearing students came to this school to learn.

His son Edward Miner Gallaudet (1837-1917) founded in 1857 the first college for the deaf which in 1864 became Gallaudet University. The university also offers education for those in elementary, middle, and high school. The elementary school on the Gallaudet University Campus is named Kendall Demonstration School for the Deaf, the middle and high school is Model Secondary School for the Deaf (MSSD).

The primary language used on the Gallaudet University Campus is American Sign Language (ASL), which many believe Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet was the father of. ASL was actually a combination of the signs used on Martha’s Vineyard[citation needed], an island off of New England, and French Sign Language. Martha’s Vineyard was inhabited almost completely by the deaf. Alternatively, Dr. William C. Stokoe, Jr., Professor Emeritus at Gallaudet University, proposed to linguists that American Sign Language was indeed a language, and not a signed code for English. He was the author of Sign Language Structure, published in 1960.

Many people within the deaf community believe Dr. Stokoe to be the real father of American Sign Language as opposed to Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet.[citation needed] The residual effect of Dr. Stokoe’s studies has resulted in American Sign Language becoming a federally protected and recognized language in the academic world.[citation needed]

Gallaudet had another son, Thomas Gallaudet, who became an Episcopal priest and also worked for the deaf.

Thomas H. Gallaudet saw a barrier between the hearing world and the deaf and spent his adult life bridging the communication gap. He died at his home in Hartford on September 10, 1851, aged 63. There is a residence hall named in his honor at nearby Central Connecticut State University in New Britain

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Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet

(12/10/1787—9/10/1851)

Co-founder of the American School for the Deaf

Thomas H. Gallaudet’s early ambition was to become a traveling preacher, but after he met 9-year-old Alice Cogswell, the deaf and languageless daughter of his neighbor, Dr. Mason Fitch Cogswell, he agreed to go to Europe to study deaf-education methodologies. In London, he met the Abbé Sicard, Jean Massieu, and Laurent Clerc, and at the Institut Royal des Sourds-Muets in Paris, observed, learned, and practiced—then brought Clerc back with him to found the nation’s first successful school for the deaf. When it opened in Hartford on April 15, 1817, Alice Cogswell was the first enrollee. Gallaudet served as principal until 1830. His youngest son, Edward Miner Gallaudet, would found Gallaudet University, naming it in T. H.’s honor.