For the header of my Deaf History Page, I drew another original cartoon of the three catalysts to Deaf education in American and American Sign Language. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, Alice Cogswell, and Laurent Marie Clerc. The story goes that Gallaudet, with no way to talk to his neighbour’s deaf daughter Alice, started communicating with her by pointing to his hat and writing down the word hat. With other tests to follow it became clear Alice was both bright and intelligent, something not believed in the 1800s to exist in the deaf. It was agreed all she required was a new form of schooling and communication. Gallaudet leaving to travel Europe in the search for Deaf Education ran into Sicard and his best instructor Clerc. Studying Langues de Signes francais in Paris, Gallaudet told his teacher and good friend Clerc about Alice, and touched by her story and the needs of other deaf children, Clerc joined Gallaudet to return to the United States to start the first school for the deaf. The school, through language contact between French Sign Language, English, and home signs grew and evolved the visual communication of American Sign Language. All this was accomplished with what began with a pastor, a deaf girl, and a hat. I drew Gallaudet with his hat, Alice with her smile, and Clerc signing Hat in Langues des Signes Francais, the first sign language of the school.
