History of the College for the Deaf, 1857-1907

Washington, DC: Gallaudet College Press, 1983. First Edition. First Printing. Hardcover. very good. 24 cm, 265 pages. Illustrations. Name on second front flyleaf. Edward Miner Gallaudet, son of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Sophia Fowler Gallaudet, was a famous early educator of the deaf in Washington, DC. As a youth, he enjoyed working with tools and also built an "electrical machine." He kept birds, fowl, and rabbits, spending most of his time in the city, but also occasionally venturing into the country. He had a fond memory of climbing a hill with his father, and another fond memory of his father introducing the subject of geometry to him. His father died when he was 14, just after he graduated from Hartford High School in Hartford, Connecticut. He then went to work at a bank for three years. He didn't like the "narrowing effect" of the mental monotony of the work, and he quit to go to work as a teacher at the school his father founded. He worked there two years, from 1855 to 1857. While he was teaching, he continued his education at Trinity College in Hartford, completing his studies for a bachelor of science degree two years later. The first 100 years--In 1856, Amos Kendall, a postmaster general during two presidential administrations, donated two acres of his estate in northeast Washington, D.C. to establish a school and housing for 12 deaf and six blind students. The following year, Kendall persuaded Congress to incorporate the new school, which was called the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and Blind. Edward Miner Gallaudet, the son of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, founder of the first school for deaf students in the United States, became the new school's superintendent. Congress authorized the institution to confer college degrees in 1864, and under President Abraham Lincoln the bill became law. Gallaudet was made president of the institution, including the college, which that year had eight students enrolled. He presided over the first commencement in June 1869 when three young men received diplomas. Their diplomas were autographed by President Ulysses S. Grant, and to this day the diplomas of all Gallaudet graduates are autographed by the presiding U.S. president. In 1894 the name of the college portion of the institution was changed to Gallaudet College in honor of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and through an act of Congress in 1954, the entire institution became known as Gallaudet College.