Gallaudet University is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. for the education of the deaf and hard of hearing. It was founded in 1864 as a grammar school for both deaf and blind children. It was the first school for the advanced education of the deaf and hard of hearing in the world and remains the only higher education institution in which all programs and services are specifically designed to accommodate deaf and hard of hearing students. Hearing students are admitted to the graduate school and a small number are also admitted as undergraduates each year. The university was named after Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, a notable figure in the advancement of deaf education.
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Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Mabel Gardiner Hubbard was an American businesswoman, and the daughter of Boston lawyer Gardiner Green Hubbard. As the wife of Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the first practical telephone, she took the married name Mabel Bell.
Eliza Lanesford Cushing was an American-Canadian dramatist, short story writer, and editor. The daughter of Hannah Webster Foster and sister of Harriet Vaughan Cheney, both novelists, she wrote a number of plays including Esther and The Fatal Ring, and edited Literary Garland, Canada's main literary magazine at the time.
The history of deaf education in the United States began in the early 1800s when the Cobbs School of Virginia, an oral school, was established by William Bolling and John Braidwood, and the Connecticut Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, a manual school, was established by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc. When the Cobbs School closed in 1816, the manual method, which used American Sign Language, became commonplace in deaf schools for most of the remainder of the century. In the late 1800s, schools began to use the oral method, which only allowed the use of speech, as opposed to the manual method previously in place. Students caught using sign language in oral programs were often punished. The oral method was used for many years until sign language instruction gradually began to come back into deaf education.
Charlotte "Lotten" Louise von Kræmer was a Swedish baroness, writer, poet, philanthropist and women's rights activist. She was the founder of the literary society Samfundet De Nio and, alongside Martina Bergman-Österberg, the main financier of the National Association for Women's Suffrage.
Robert F. Panara was a poet, a professor and a co-founder of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) and the National Theater of the Deaf. Panara is considered to be a pioneer in deaf culture studies in the United States.
Betty Gloria Miller, also known as Bettigee was an American artist who became known as the "Mother of De'VIA".
Clara H. Mountcastle was a Canadian artist and author who published her early work under the pseudonym Caris Sima.
Black American Sign Language (BASL) or Black Sign Variation (BSV) is a dialect of American Sign Language (ASL) used most commonly by deaf African Americans in the United States. The divergence from ASL was influenced largely by the segregation of schools in the American South. Like other schools at the time, schools for the deaf were segregated based upon race, creating two language communities among deaf signers: white deaf signers at white schools and black deaf signers at black schools. As of the mid 2010s, BASL is still used by signers in the South despite public schools having been legally desegregated since 1954.
Regina Olson Hughes (1895–1993) was an American scientific illustrator in Botanical Art. Born February 1, 1895, in Herman, Nebraska, she became fascinated with the world of plants and flowers. Her parents were Gilbert and Johanna (Sullivan) Olson. At age 10, she contracted scarlet fever and her hearing slowly diminished until she became fully deaf at age 14. In order for her to communicate with her peers, she relied on lip reading and written notes for business work. Hughes retained her speech skills and continued to speak fluently throughout her adulthood. She became proficient in American Sign Language when she enrolled in Gallaudet University.
Edith Mansfield Fitzgerald (1877–1940) was a deaf American woman who invented a system for the deaf to learn proper placement of words in the construction of sentences. Her method, which was known as the 'Fitzgerald Key,' was used to teach those with hearing disabilities in three-quarters of the schools in the United States.
Emily Thornton Charles was a 19th-century American poet, journalist, editor, and newspaper founder. Married in 1861 and widowed in 1869, she was left with two children to support. In 1874, she began a successful career as a journalist, at first as correspondent and reporter for various newspapers, and later as editor. She was associate editor of the book entitled Eminent men of Indiana. In 1881, she became managing editor of the Washington World and was the founder, manager and editor of the National Veteran at Washington, D.C. She was actively identified with the National woman suffrage convention, the Woman's National Press Association, and the Society of American Authors. Her published writings, under the pseudonym "Emily Hawthorne," include Hawthorne Blossoms (1876); and Lyrical Poems, Songs, Pastorals, War Poems, and Madrigals (1886). Charles favored woman's suffrage. She died in 1895.
Kendall Demonstration Elementary School (KDES) is a private day school serving deaf and hard of hearing students from birth through grade 8 on the campus of Gallaudet University in the Trinidad neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Alongside Model Secondary School for the Deaf, it is a federally funded, tuition-free demonstration school administered by the Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center at Gallaudet University.
Clementina Laura Majocchi, also known by her pseudonym Bruna, was an Italian poet and writer.
Gertrude Scott Galloway was an American educator and administrator working with deaf children. She was the first female president of the National Association of the Deaf. She is among the first deaf women to head a school for the deaf in the United States. Galloway was an advocate for deaf women throughout her life.
Dorothy Stanton Wise was a British sculptor. Wise studied at the Royal College of Art under Édouard Lantéri and created sculptures and medallions that were sold to members of the British royal family. Deaf from an early age, she overcame significant challenges to earn an education unusual for a woman at the time and build a career based on her artistic talent.
NellieJane Norman was a deaf performer, director, professor, and curator, best known for her work on the faculty of Gallaudet University. She worked to promote deaf culture, language, and art through teaching, TV programs, and film festivals, and in 2007 she founded the National Deaf Life Museum at Gallaudet.
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