The History of Gallaudet University: 150 Years of a Deaf American Institution

Prologue

ix April 8,1864,was a momentous day for the American Deaf community.On that day President Abraham Lincoln signed the federal legislation,passed unanimously by the United States Congress, authorizing the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind to grant collegiate degrees.As a result,deaf people gained access to higher education for the first time in history,in an environment free of communication barriers.This was at a time of great turmoil for the United States,which was in the third year of what Lincoln would later characterize as “this terrible war.”Nine months earlier,in July 1863,a Southern army led by Robert E.Lee had entered the state of Pennsylvania.Although Lee was defeated in a bloody battle at Gettysburg,many in the North feared that the Civil War was not winnable.In November of that year,Lincoln gave the best known of his many celebrated speeches.His brief but memorable remarks commemorated that battle and all the loss of life that the nation had suffered. Lincoln knew full well that he faced possible defeat in the election,but events during the summer and fall of 1864 set the stage for eventual Union victory and ensured Lincoln’s reelection.However,when he signed the authorizing legislation for what would become Gallaudet University,Lincoln knew that things were still very much in doubt.What would have led him to take this step at such a time of crisis? James McPherson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and dean of American Civil War historians, writes that Lincoln signed Gallaudet’s collegiate charter without comment, but he speculates about Lincoln’s possible motivation. McPherson notes that, on July 4, 1861, in Lincoln’s first presidential message to Congress, he explained what the North was fighting for in the Civil War: “This is essentially a People’s contest. On the side of the Union, it is a struggle for maintaining in the world, that form and substance of government, whose leading object is, to elevate the condition of men—to lift artificial weights from all shoulders—to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all—to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life.”McPherson then suggests that, had Lincoln commented when he signed Gallaudet’s collegiate charter, he most “likely would have included some words about lifting weights from shoulders and providing a fair chance in the race of life for students in this first institution for higher learning for deaf students in the world.”1 The creation of the collegiate program at Gallaudet, as McPherson points out, thus fits into the context of progressive federal legislation designed to unify the nation during a time of PROLOGUE Abraham Lincoln and the Founding of the College for the Deaf x  Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth president of the United States, signed the legislation granting authority to the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb to confer college degrees. Photograph taken February 5, 1865.  The charter authorizing the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind to grant collegiate degrees was signed on April 8, 1864, by President Abraham Lincoln, Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, and Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax. The date, now known as “Charter Day,” is celebrated annually at Gallaudet University. Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration. xi prologue disunity and crisis.The year 1862 had seen the passage of the Morrill Act that led to the establishment of the system of state land grant colleges,opening the way to mass higher education in the United States.Edward Miner Gallaudet,superintendent of the Columbia Institution,in fact,used the passage of the land grant or Agricultural Colleges Act as the basis of his argument for obtaining federal funding for a national college for deaf students:“I felt justified in asking such action of Congress in view of the liberal grants of land to the states under the Agricultural Colleges Act,from the benefits of which the deaf youth of the country were shut out.”2 It is likely that the existence of a large network of public higher education institutions influenced the provision of nearly universal access to secondary education to prepare students for college and university studies,and it also allowed for a strong influence on the secondary school curriculum,away from almost total devotion to...