Alice Cogswell - Beginnings of a Language

My main goal for this blog is to tell stories that many may not know. In their own communities, these individuals are famous, but are not well-known beyond this. I decided to look up important figures in the history of deaf education in America and, lo and behold, I found a great story I hadn't heard before.

A quick note in terminology: capital-d "Deaf" refers to the culture and community of deaf (lower-case-d refers to the physical hearing impairment) people around the world. They use sign language and have a rich heritage, history, and literature. They may not be united by blood or geography, but they are joined together by their shared languages and experiences. Many in the Deaf community do not feel that they are disabled and have protested that the use of cochlear implants are creating a slow genocide of the Deaf culture. They argue that there is nothing about them to "cure." Because of this, most Deaf people prefer the medical terms "deaf" or "hard of hearing" instead of "hearing impaired" or "disabled." The worst of the enmity against cochlear implants has died down since they were first given FDA approval in 1984, however it is still an important issue to many in the Deaf community. Click here for an article that talks more about the cochlear implant debate from the Deaf perspective.

My bias as a speech-language pathologist (and not a member of the Deaf community) is that cochlear implants are an amazing technology that can provide access to sound for tens of thousands every year. I still find this debate interesting and learned about it many times during my schooling, even writing a paper on it in an undergrad history class. Deaf people have accomplished amazing things over the centuries and continue to - this should be celebrated and taught. One mother of a child who uses cochlear implants wrote an excellent article in 2014 articulating her conflict of helping her child medically while still giving him access to his Deaf community.

Back to our story today. The pioneer of Deaf education in America was Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. He, Laurent Clerc, and Dr. Mason Cogswell founded the first permanent institution for the education of the deaf in North America in 1817: "Connecticut Asylum (at Hartford) for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons" (now known as the American School for the Deaf). Gallaudet's inspiration for this school is credited to his neighbor, Alice Cogswell. She is our focus for this post.

Engraving of Alice from 1889

Alice Cogswell was born on August 31, 1805 in Hartford, Connecticut. She was the third child of Dr. Mason and Mary Cogswell, born just a few months after their fifth wedding anniversary. She had two older sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, and two younger siblings, Mason Jr. and Catherine. Alice was extremely close to her father, who was a highly respected and well-known surgical ophthalmologist - he had been the valedictorian of his 1780 Yale graduating class and performed the first successful cataract surgery.

Alice’s father, Dr. Mason Cogswell

At the age of two, Alice became very ill with what was reported as scarlet fever or "spotted fever." This is now thought to have been cerebral-spinal meningitis. It can be fatal and, even when not, can have severe complications, such as hearing loss or brain damage. Alice lost her hearing and, later, her speech. Her parents desperately took her to several doctors in hopes that someone could help her. Medicine in the early 1800s was...not great. Doctors tried treatments such as leeching and pouring saltwater or various oils in her ears. Unsurprisingly, these did not work. Eventually Alice's parents gave up and accepted that their little daughter could no longer hear or speak.

Alice was described as usually happy and the "darling" of her family. She was anxious to learn and picked up concepts quickly. Family friends described her as being "observant, lively, and possessing an ability to amuse others by mimicking the actions of their friends." She enjoyed dancing and music, just like her father, and would lean over the piano to feel its vibrations. She enjoyed handiwork, such as knitting lace. Alice was close to her sisters, but her most frequent playmate was her brother, Mason Jr.

The family developed a rudimentary system of signs at home to communicate with their daughter. Her parents, Mason and Mary, wanted more for her. They could see that their daughter was intelligent but did not know how best to educate her. It is believed that Alice's mother did teach her the British two-handed finger alphabet and the basics of how to read. 

In 1814, they enrolled their daughters in a private school run by Daniel Wadsworth. Their teacher, Lydia Huntley (later known for her poetry), noted that Alice's signs were "sophisticated enough for detailed narratives" and showed a grammar similar to that of a "genuine sign language." Alice did make progress in school, which only made her father more determined to provide education for other deaf children like her. Similar to other stories on this blog, the Cogswells' drive to educate and communicate with their deaf child was very progressive. At this time, deafness was considered a mental disorder, a punishment by God to wicked parents, or even that the person was possessed by evil spirits. 

At about this same time, the Cogswells' neighbor, Thomas Gallaudet, had become intrigued with Alice while home for weekends or vacations from the Yale seminary. Their family's children would play together frequently. The stories surrounding Gallaudet's early interactions with Alice are up for debate. His son (and biographer) claimed that she was "wholly uneducated" and in a "deplorable condition." He claimed that her siblings and friends ignored her. He told the story that Gallaudet taught her to communicate by drawing pictures and writing letters in the dirt. "Pointing to it, with a stick he wrote the letters H, A, and T in the dirt. He took his hat away, and wrote the letters again, and she pointed to his hat." Given other historical records and recollections, it seems likely that this interaction is apocryphal and that Alice was not a feral child ignored by everyone. The truth appears to be that Gallaudet was, at the very least, fascinated by his neighbor who was both deaf and intelligent and strove to provide her more education. He and her father agreed that they wanted to start a formal school for deaf children. They learned of at least 40 deaf children in Connecticut alone, all in need of formal education.

Thomas Gallaudet

Because there was no such school in America at this time, Gallaudet traveled to Europe for fifteen months to research schools for the deaf and bring his knowledge back home. He was funded by Cogswell and his wealthy friends. At this time in Europe, there was a debate as to the best way to teach the deaf, whether it was to teach them to verbally speak or to sign. America had no consensus or any standardized sign language at this point. (This debate eventually spread to post-Civil War America, leading to the suppression of sign language for most deaf students. Pure "oralism" was used almost exclusively until the late 1960s, when Roy Holcomb coined "Total Communication," meaning the use of voice, signs, pictures, and any other communication methods that best fit the person's needs.)

He began in London at the Braidwood Academy for the Deaf and Dumb. His meeting with Thomas Braidwood did not go well: Braidwood kept his school's methods, a combination of oral teaching and gestures, proprietary, saying that Gallaudet would have to pay him for each student taught this way. Thankfully, Gallaudet also met a French cleric, Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard, who was in the city giving a lecture. He was the head of a school for the deaf in Paris, which had been started in 1760 by Michel de l’Épée. L’Épée's educational methods were developed after he had met a pair of deaf sisters who used gestures and facial expressions to communicate. These sisters' methods of communication became the foundation for French Sign Language. 

Gallaudet traveled to L’Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris and reconnected with Sicard. There he met two deaf men who were former students and now teachers at the school: Laurent Clerc and Jean Massieu. He spent time learning about deaf education while in Paris and was eager to go home and formally instruct Alice and other deaf children. He convinced Clerc to accompany him back to America and help start a school. Their Atlantic voyage consisted of Gallaudet teaching Clerc basic English while Clerc continued to teach Gallaudet French Sign Language.

Statue honoring Clerc at the American School for the Deaf

While he was gone, Alice had written Gallaudet several letters. Her independent writing was difficult to decipher, but her teacher, Miss Huntley, helped. Alice signed her message while her teacher wrote it down as closely as possible. For example: an 1815 letter was transformed from Alice's independent attempt - I am very glad. few days. I you go long, ship to wave. God keep away. must. Forgot. I was not, Morning and Evening Pray is God keeps Alice yes. Hartford. - to a more understandable letter - I am very glad you write to me. You stay long on the ship on the waves. God loves and keeps you. I pray morning and evening, God to keep Alice and all men. He is sorry that we are wicked – I do not know so much as Mary and Elizabeth. But I am glad that, I understand. I hope. I shall learn to read well before you come back – I love my arithmetic and my school, Miss Huntley…says, “Yes, you are very good, Alice." 

Another letter that fall, in which Alice said she missed her lessons with him and explained a story told to her by Miss Huntley, was accompanied by a separate letter from her father to further explain the context. In a letter the following year when Gallaudet asked her questions about God, Alice expressed her desire to read the Bible and concern that God made her "deaf and dumb" because "perhaps me very bad." She then wrote, "I hope not. God, Jesus Christ know best...God made me deaf and dumb. I was a little Child 2 year old spotted fever..."

Gallaudet returned to America in 1816, bringing Clerc with him. Clerc signed, "HELLO," to Alice upon meeting her. Her eyes bright, she signed back, "DEAF YOU-ME-SAME." She asked him to teach her signs and what signs he would teach her. He responded, "I will teach you the sign for 'love.'"

The following April, America's first school for the deaf opened in Hartford. Alice was eleven years old at the time. The class consisted of seven pupils, though fourteen more would be added by June 1st and, by year's end, there were 33 students. The students' average age was eighteen. State and federal governments quickly recognized the accomplishments of the school and provided funding of $300,000 (~$6 million in 2021 US dollars). In just a few years, the school expanded and moved to a new building in town. Since its inception, the school has graduated approximately 6,000 students.

Drawing of the original school in Hartford

The day began with worship and breakfast, followed by classes that ran until evening. Clerc taught French Sign Language and, together with the students and their own signs from home, American Sign Language began to take shape. In several cases, students brought signs from their communities in which genetics had created a large number of deaf people. Students from the school often became teachers there or elsewhere. Alice thrived at school, learning to communicate fully by sign and eventually able to speak a few words out loud, including the word "pretty."

Panel from the original Gallaudet Monument (1854) at the American School for the Deaf showing Gallaudet teaching children the manual alphabet

Alice remained at the school until 1824, when she was eighteen years old. Her father, who loved her dearly, had not allowed her to live at school like Gallaudet and Clerc had desired for her. It is thought that she may have felt left behind when her classmates married or left Hartford for other jobs. Before leaving school, Clerc had written in her journal that she should expand her world by "walking outside often, visiting your friends, and reading at home." There is little known of her social life after leaving the school and almost none of her post-school writings have survived. It seems that Alice remained at home with her beloved parents and was perhaps a bit of a recluse. However, a few sources claim that she became an ambassador for the school, traveling the country extensively to tell deaf citizens about it.

Dr. Cogswell died of pneumonia on December 17, 1830. Alice experienced debilitating grief and "fell into a state of almost constant delirium." She was not able to attend her father's funeral. Less than two weeks later, on December 30, 1830, Alice died at the age of 25. 

Her former teacher, now Lydia Huntley Sigourney and a well-regarded poet, wrote two poems in honor of Alice: "Teacher's Excuse" and "Lines on the Death of Alice Cogswell." She wrote that Alice had a “thirst for knowledge, a loving heart and a fine intellect," remembering that she would carry a slate with her to communicate with the people around her. 

In the 1820s, the school was renamed to the American School for the Deaf. Gallaudet was its principal until 1830. 

The modern-day American School for the Deaf

His son followed in his footsteps and established the National College for the Deaf and Dumb, now Gallaudet University, in 1864. This school is officially bilingual, using both American Sign Language and written English.

Modern-day Gallaudet University

Today, Alice is still remembered in the Deaf community. In 1953, Frances L. Wadsworth sculpted "The Founder's Memorial Statue" for the American School for the Deaf, portraying Alice as lifted up by two large hands, symbolizing the ten benefactors of the school. The Gallaudet University Alumni Association gives out the Laurent Clerc Cultural Fund Alice Cogswell Award to people for valuable service to deaf citizens.

The most famous monument to Alice is from 1889, a bronze statue created by Daniel Chester French depicting Alice standing next to Gallaudet as he teaches her the sign for the letter "A." A replica is at the American School for the Deaf in Hartford and the original is now at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC. Campus tours begin and end at her statue. Edwin A. Hodgson, a former president of the National Association of the Deaf, later said, “The statue does not pay off a debt; it simply acknowledges an obligation so great that it can never be cancelled. It forms but the outward expression of a widespread reverence and love.”

Most sincerely,

Christina

Further Reading

• My Heart Glow: Alice Cogswell, Thomas Gallaudet, and the Birth of American Sign Language by Emily Arnold McCully (for readers ages 6-9)

• The Life and Times of T.H. Gallaudet by Edna Edith Sayers

Works Consulted

American School for the Deaf. (n.d.). Alice Cogswell. ASD Pioneers. http://asdpioneers.com/people/alice-cogswell/.

If My Hands Could Speak. (2009, May 27). Alice Cogswell: An Inspiration. If My Hands Could Speak... https://ifmyhandscouldspeak.wordpress.com/2009/05/27/alice-cogswell-an-inspiration/.

Jay, M. (2021, February 15). Alice Cogswell - The Beginning of American Deaf Education. Start ASL. https://www.startasl.com/alice-cogswell/.

Kelly, K. (2020, September 11). Alice Cogswell: Bright Child Who Inspired Education for Deaf in U.S. America Comes Alive. https://americacomesalive.com/alice-cogswell-bright-child-who-inspired-education-for-deaf-in-u-s/.

Lane, R. (2011, April 10). Remembering the Girl who Inspired Gallaudet. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/remembering-the-girl-who-inspired-gallaudet/2011/03/28/AFRjG4FD_story.html.

Martin, A. (2013, August 4). Alice Cogswell. ASLU. http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/alice-cogswell.htm.

New England Historical Society. (2020, August 6). Alice Cogswell Changed the World for Deaf People. New England Historical Society. https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/alice-cogswell-changed-world-deaf-people/.

Last Updated: 21 Sept. 2023