Ashley Hernandez Essays - Deaf Culture In The United States

Ashley Hernandez 1 st period GALLAUDET UNIVERAITY His full name is Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet he was born in Philadelphia, PA, his family later than settled in Hartford, Conn, the home of his maternal grandparents. In his younger years he was a brilliant young man, he went to Yale University at the age of 14 and he graduated first in his class three years later. After he served a law apprenticeship and studying independently he returned to Yale as a graduate student in 1808. In 1810 he earned his master's degree and worked as a traveling salesman also that didn't feel right he enrolled in the Andover Theological Seminary in 1812 and graduated in 1814. During his service as an itinerant preacher he met a 9 year old girl named Alice Cogswell, she was deaf so her farther Mason Cogswell asked Gallaudet to travel to Europe to help study methods for teaching the deaf especially those of the Braidwood family in England. Gallaudet found out about the Braidwood's unwilling oral commination method and to share their knowledge. Stil l in Great Britain Gallaudet met the head of the Institute Royal des Sourds-Muets in Paris and two of its deaf faculty members Laurent Clerc and Jean Massieu . Sicard offered Gallaudet to Paris to study the school's method on how they teach the deaf. So while he was there he was studying a new language which would help the United States and that is sign language.