A Mighty Change

An Anthology of Deaf American Writing, 1816 - 1864

Christopher Krentz, Christopher Krentz

• Publisher: Gallaudet University Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781563681530
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Sociologia

"I need not tell you that a mighty change has taken place within the last half century, a change for the better, " Alphonso Johnson, the president of the Empire State Association of Deaf-Mutes, signed to hundreds of assembled deaf people in 1869. Johnson pointed to an important truth: the first half of the 19th century was a period of transformation for deaf Americans, a time that saw the rise of deaf education and the coalescence of the nation's deaf community.

This volume contains original writing by deaf people that both directed and reflected this remarkable period of change. It begins with works by Laurent Clerc, the deaf Frenchman who came to the United Sates in 1816 to help found the first permanent school for deaf students in the nation. Partially through is writing, Clerc impressed hearing Americans–most of whom had never met an educated deaf person before–with his intelligence and humanity.

Other deaf writers shared their views with society through the democratic power of print. Included here are selections by James Nack, a deaf poet who surprised readers with his mellifluous verse; John Burnet, who published a book of original essays, fiction, and poetry; Edmund Booth, a frontiersman and journalist; John Carlin, who galvanized the drive for a national college for deaf people; Laura Redden, a high-achieving student who would go on to become an accomplished reporter; and Adele Jewel, a homeless deaf woman living in Michigan.

The final sections contain documents related to deaf events and issues at mid-century: the grand reunion of alumni of the American Asylum for the Deaf in 1850; the dedication of the Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet monument in Hartford; the debate over the viability of a deaf state; and the triumphant inauguration of the National Deaf-Mute College (now Gallaudet University) in 1864, which in many ways culminated this period of change. Taken together, the individual texts in this remarkable collection provide a valuable historical record and a direct glimpse of the experiences, attitudes, and rhetoric of deaf Americans during this time of change.

PART ONE

INDIVIDUAL
AUTHORS

1

LAURENT CLERC

(1785–1869)

The most influential deaf person in America during the first half of the nineteenth century was Laurent Clerc. With his intelligence, gentlemanly demeanor, sign language skills, and ability to read and write, Clerc gave living proof to the public that deaf individuals could be educated, and educated well. He came from France in 1816 to help found the first permanent school for deaf students in the United States, and taught there for over four decades. An excellent instructor and role model, Clerc had tremendous impact on his pupils, some of whom went on to become teachers, community leaders, and heads of other deaf schools. Deaf Americans linked Clerc with Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and revered them both as their benefactors.

Louis Laurent Marie Clerc was born December 26, 1785, in LaBalme, France. He came from a genteel family; his father was a notary public and the village mayor. As Clerc explains in his autobiographical sketch, when he was one year old, he fell into a fireplace and burned his right cheek, leaving a permanent scar. His parents attributed his deafness and loss of smell to the accident. Clerc had no formal education until he was twelve, when he entered the National Institute for the Deaf in Paris. His first teacher was Jean Massieu, an accomplished deaf man who became his close friend. He was also taught by the school’s director, Abbé Roch Ambroise Sicard. Clerc completed his studies in eight years and proved himself brilliant. He became a tutor at the school, and later began teaching the highest class.

In 1808, Clerc had the opportunity to go to St. Petersburg, Russia, to help run a new school for deaf students. The proposed director of the school, Jean-Baptiste Jauffret, knew little of deaf people or sign language, so Clerc urged Sicard to let him accompany Jauffret to Russia. To Clerc’s elation, Sicard agreed. However, the Russians provided funds for only one person, and Clerc reluctantly gave up the idea. Little did he know that he would get another chance to spread deaf education to a different land.

During the political upheaval in 1815 due to Napoleon’s return to France, Sicard took Massieu and Clerc to London, where they gave exhibitions to publicize the school’s teaching methods. On July 10, 1815, one of the audience members was Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, a hearing minister from Connecticut. Gallaudet had just arrived in England; a group of Hartford citizens had sent him to learn how to teach deaf students so he could establish a school. Gallaudet was impressed by the exhibition. In the spring of 1816, he visited the school in Paris and eventually invited Clerc to come back with him to the United States. The talented and ambitious Clerc saw that Gallaudet needed his assistance and was eager to help bring deaf education to the New World.

Clerc and Gallaudet sailed to America that summer. During the trip, Clerc tutored Gallaudet in sign language, while Gallaudet instructed Clerc in written English. Clerc studied assiduously, reading and keeping a journal. After drafting his daily entries, he would show them to Gallaudet, who made corrections. Clerc then wrote the amended text into his journal, which helps to explain why the version we have today is remarkably free of errors. After arriving in New York in August 1816, they spent the next seven months raising funds for their school. Using his newly-acquired English skills, Clerc wrote speeches for Gallaudet to read on his behalf to legislatures and civic groups. He also answered questions from the audiences; Gallaudet would sign the questions to him, and Clerc would write his answers on a chalkboard. Clerc’s wit and intelligence rarely failed to sway onlookers, and their efforts were successful. On April 15, 1817, they opened the “Connecticut Asylum, For the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons” (soon to become the American Asylum) in Hartford, with seven students.

Laurent Clerc (painting by Charles Wilson Peale), 1822

In January 1818, Clerc visited Congress with board member Henry Hudson to seek additional financial assistance for the school. Henry Clay, the speaker of the House, seated Clerc beside him, and during a recess Clerc conversed in writing with congressmen, in both French and English. The next day, Clerc visited President Monroe in the White House. His visits made an impression; in its 1819–20 session, Congress passed a bill granting land in Alabama to the school, and Monroe signed the bill into law. The land was subsequently sold for $300,000, enough to ensure the school’s long-term financial stability.

On May 3, 1818, Clerc married Eliza Boardman, one of his first students. The marriage was by all accounts happy, and it provided a new incentive for Clerc to stay in America. The couple had six children, all hearing; four survived infancy. One, Francis Joseph Clerc, later became well-known among deaf people as an advocate and Episcopal minister.

In 1821, Clerc went to Philadelphia for eight months to help the Pennsylvania Institution get underway. Otherwise, he continued teaching at the American Asylum. In 1830, Gallaudet resigned from his position as school principal, an event that saddened Clerc. In 1850, graduates of the Hartford school held a convocation to honor Clerc and Gallaudet (see chapter eight). After Gallaudet’s death in 1851, Clerc served as the president of an association to erect a monument in Gallaudet’s memory. This group led to the formation, in 1854, of the New England Gallaudet Association of the Deaf, the first of many such deaf organizations. At the association’s first meeting, a member introduced a resolution stating that “the memory of Professor Clerc is cherished with profound gratitude and affection by all American deaf-mutes.” It was adopted unanimously.

After teaching over half a century in France and America, Clerc retired in 1858 at age seventy-three. He spent his retirement quietly in Hartford. In 1864, he gave a presentation at the inauguration of the National Deaf-Mute College (see chapter ten). He received an honorary degree from Trinity College in Hartford, as well as citations from Dartmouth College and the University of Lyons. He died on July 18, 1869, shortly after celebrating his golden wedding anniversary with his wife. In 1874, grateful deaf Americans unveiled a monument to Clerc at the American Asylum. Its inscription calls him “The Apostle to the Deaf-Mutes of the New World … who left his native land to uplift them with his teachings and encourage them by his example.”

The selections here are mostly his early writings. His later speeches appear in part two.

Journal during Voyage from France to America

The following excerpts are from the journal Clerc kept during his fifty-two-day trip to the United States in 1816. In a brief notice at the beginning, Clerc writes that the work is “a Recital of all that I have done and seen, since my departure from Havre till my arrival in New York. I warn the Reader who may read this relation, that I have not written it for him, but for myself, and particularly to exercise and perfect myself in the English Language.”

[Tuesday, June the 18th.] The ship named Mary-Augusta, the provisions all being ready in the morning of Tuesday the 18th of June 1816, we waited for nothing but the high water to take our departure. In fine, at three o’clock in the afternoon, the tide having risen, we left Havre, a pretty little City of France, surrounded by a crowd of spectators. The persons who knew us wished us a happy voyage and good health. We were in number six passengers without counting the Captain, whose name was Mr. Hall, and twelve strong and skillful sailors.

Friday, June the 21st. After breakfast, M. Gallaudet desiring to encourage me to learn good English, suggested to me the thought of writing this journal, and it is in consequence of his advice that I do it. I began it therefore on the spot and I wrote my diary of the 18th of June, which busied me all the day. It was a long time for so small a matter, but if you deign to consider that I was obliged, every moment, to seek in my dictionary the words which I did not understand, you would say of it, I am sure, that I could not do it more quickly. When I finished my first day, I presented it to Mr. Gallaudet, praying him to correct it. He did it with his ordinary kindness. Afterwards I wrote my work fair in my stitched book.

Saturday, June the 22nd. I passed all the morning up on deck to write my diary of the preceding days, and all the evening to talk with M. Gallaudet, who, at my request, gave me the description of an American dinner, of a marriage, and of the manners and customs of the inhabitants of that country; so that in arriving thither I may be familiar with them, and that the people may take me for a true American citizen and not for a stranger. This long conversation all amusing and interesting as it was, did not fail to fatigue us a little.

Wednesday, June the 26th. The whole day was bad, the weather always windy, the sea always agitated, the wind always contrary, so that we made but little way. My friend M. Gallaudet always indisposed, and all my companions melancholy. Indeed, all that were well were wearisome. Moreover, how much we wished to be in New York, but we ought to have patience. …

I talked a little with M. Wilder. We spoke at first of Proctor1 and afterwards of marriage. He asked me if I should like to marry a deaf and dumb lady, handsome, young, virtuous, pious and amiable. I answered him that it would give me much pleasure but that a deaf and dumb gentleman and a lady suffering the same misfortune could not be companions for each other, and that consequently a lady endowed with the sense of hearing and with the gift of speech was and ought to be preferable and indispensable to a deaf and dumb person.2 Mr. Wilder replied nothing, but I am sure that he found my argument just.

Thursday, June the 27th. Conversation Between M. Gallaudet and Myself

M.Gallaudet: At what age do you think it will be best to admit the deaf and dumb into our institution?

I:You can admit at all ages those who will pay their board, because they will be able to remain there as long as they may wish. For those who may be at the expense of the Government, I think that it will be best not to admit them, except at ten years of age.

I:How long a time do you think that the Government will grant to the deaf and dumb persons who may be at its expense?

[Gallaudet]: I shall endeavor to have them continue 7 or 8 years. The children of the rich can stay longer. I shall write some few directions for parents who have deaf and dumb children, that they may teach them the alphabet and the names of material things before they come to us. What do you think of this? I mean for such as cannot be sent to us when young.

I:But if the children are ten years of age, the parents can send them immediately. If, on the contrary, the children are too young, that is, if they are 6 or 7 or 8 or 9 years of age, what you have just said will produce a good effect.

Saturday, June 29th. I presented my blotted paper to him with the same fearfulness which a scholar feels when he shows his lesson to his master. In correcting my English, M. Gallaudet told me that I began to make fewer faults than formerly, and that if I continued to apply myself faithfully, in a short time I should not make any more.

Tuesday, July the 2nd. I have forgotten to say in the beginning of my journal that we have in our ship different species of living animals for our daily nourishment, among which are six hogs, several ducks and several cocks and hens. We have also some canary birds to tickle the ears of the passengers by the agreeable sound of their singing. Ah well!! After dinner I was told that one was now going to kill a hog. In truth, I saw two strong sailors seize the poor animal by his feet, throw him down and thrust a large knife in his neck. The blood flew and gushed—such a spectacle caused too much pain.

Wednesday, July the 3rd. I … relaxed my mind in talking a moment with M. Cowperthwaite:

M. Cowperthwaite: How long do you expect to stay in America, should you be so fortunate as to arrive there safely?

Answer: I hope to stay there three years. Then I shall return to France.3 The time hangs heavy upon me here. I wish much to arrive at New York.

M. Cowperthwaite: How long have you been studying the English language?

Answer: I knew almost nothing before my departure from Havre. I had neglected to learn English when I went to London.

M. Cowperthwaite: I have seen your journal and I think that you make great progress. You have a very good instructor in M. Gallaudet.

Friday, July the 19th. Fair weather, a calm and peaceful sea, but not a breath of wind and consequently not the least progress. …

Thursday, August the 8th. Oh, great joy among us all! We are told that we are approaching America that if the wind continues we shall be in sight of New York in two days at latest. May God grant that this hope may be realized! But whatsoever He may please to command, we are all disposed to resign ourselves to His orders, and whatsoever may happen, I shall mention it tomorrow.

The end.

First Speech in America

In early September 1816, Clerc, Gallaudet, and Mason Cogswell (Alice’s father) traveled to Boston to seek financial support for the proposed school. Clerc wrote the following address,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part One: Individual Authors
• Part Two: Events and Issues
• Sources
• Index