The Deaf History Reader

2. Hearing with the Eye: The Rise of Deaf Education in the United States

2 Hearing with the Eye: The Rise of Deaf Education in the United States Barry A. Crouch and Brian H. Greenwald Editor’s Introduction Historians Barry A. Crouch and Brian H. Greenwald ask why the first organized school for deaf children in the United States, Cobbs School, founded in rural Virginia in 1815, failed in 1816, whereas the American School for the Deaf, established in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1817, succeeded spectacularly. They argue that profound cultural and economic differences between the Northern and Southern states, the inherent limitations of oralism, and the personal characteristics of the founders of the two schools resolve this mystery. Their article is notable for its heavy use of primary sources and its situating of deaf history within the broad sweep of American social history. Two schools for educating deaf people emerged in the United States between 1815 and 1817. The first began in Virginia as a private endeavor in 1815, financed by a Southern slaveholder named William Bolling. The second opened its doors in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1817, under the patronage of a prominent Northern eye doctor, Mason Fitch Cogswell, and became the first permanent school for educating deaf children in the United 24 Barry Crouch and I collaborated on this article before his death in 2002. Although we did not finish the manuscript together, I am indebted to Barry for taking the initiative on this research . I also thank John Van Cleve and Gallaudet University Press for their editorial work. Special thanks to Elizabeth Fenn for her incisive comments on the manuscript. States. The two schools contrasted sharply in their founders’ intentions, teaching methods, and longevity, despite being the first institutions established for this purpose and despite being founded at nearly the same time. The story of these two efforts demonstrates how individuals in the North and South envisioned deaf education and maintained their schools. Much historical debate has focused on whether the North and the South were vastly different in their social, economic, and political development in the nineteenth century. Most certainly, the primary subject of the dispute often is their respective labor and political systems. But it may have been in the educational sphere that the two sections varied the most. When it came to deaf and other disadvantaged individuals, the question at hand was what to do about their status in society, and the two entities approached this “problem” with contrasting philosophies. Northerners believed state cooperation was a necessity; Southerners, until much later, believed in individual undertakings. In the South, education was not a governmental prerogative.1 From perhaps the sixteenth century onward, a war of methods raged among those interested in educating deaf children over how those deaf children should be taught. One approach advocated the use of sign language , a method known as “manualism,” which created a unique deaf community. The other approach, known as “oralism,” called for teaching deaf children skills that facilitated social integration and impaired the creation of a distinct deaf culture. This debate raged across Europe before it took center stage in the United States about 1890. Germany and England largely cultivated oralism whereas Spain and France advocated manualism. Although oralism made an appearance in America, it was manualism that soon stole the show, becoming the established method for instructing deaf students in the first half of the nineteenth century.2 The Southern Endeavor In the eighteenth century, Martha’s Vineyard contained a small deaf community . But neither schools nor teachers for deaf children existed in the English mainland colonies during the colonial and revolutionary eras. The only option for families with deaf offspring was to send their children to Europe. A New Englander, Francis Green, a loyalist banished to Great Britain with the advent of war, was the first to follow this path. But the Bollings of Virginia were the most prominent colonials to dispatch their nonhearing youngsters overseas to become literate. In the colonies, Thomas Bolling (1735–1804), and his wife and first cousin, Elizabeth Gay, had three deaf children: John (1761–1783), Mary (1765–1826), and Thomas Hearing with the Eye 25 Jr. (1766–1836). They were sent to Scotland to be educated at the Braidwood Academy.3 The Bollings John Bolling, the second child of Thomas and Elizabeth, was the first to be sent abroad when he became old enough (the age of ten years). Among prominent and wealthy Americans with deaf children, the Braidwood Academy in Edinburgh, Scotland...