A Fair Chance in the Race of Life: The Role of Gallaudet University in Deaf History

3. A Legacy of Leadership: Edward Miner Gallaudet and the Columbia Institution, 1857–1864

3 A Legacy of Leadership: Edward Miner Gallaudet and the Columbia Institution, 1857–1864 David de Lorenzo Editors’ Introduction A consistent theme in the history of Gallaudet University is the quality of the institution’s presidential leadership from Edward Miner Gallaudet, its first president, through I. King Jordan, its first deaf president. The article below and the ones that follow show that historians can look at the same president and reach very different conclusions. Here David de Lorenzo projects a very positive portrait of Gallaudet, arguing that his leadership was commendable in nearly all respects. Later articles, especially those by Michael J. Olson and Lindsey M. Parker, suggest a sharply contrasting interpretation of Gallaudet’s legacy. IT IS SAID THAT any new business will either succeed or fail in its first three years of existence. This seems relevant to the Columbia Institution, whose start-up was indeed a bumpy road filled with financial challenges , operating ordeals, and political machinations. Edward Miner Gallaudet was a young man, only twenty years old, when he began his new job in Washington, D.C. This paper will focus on the years from 1857, when Gallaudet moved to Washington, to the passage of the Congressional act that established the college in 1864. More than a simple narrative or snapshot of those early years, this study also reviews Gallaudet’s leadership; he, more than any other individual , ensured the permanence of the institution. To understand his story, we must also understand the qualities of leadership itself. However , we must first examine the forces that influenced Gallaudet’s life. 22 A Legacy of Leadership 23 Gallaudet was born in 1837, the youngest of eight children. His father, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, held a position of great prominence in the Deaf community, as well as being a renowned citizen in their hometown of Hartford, Connecticut. Gallaudet received intensive homeschooling by his father and entered high school at the age of eleven. When his father died he was only fourteen, but Gallaudet immediately acquired a clerical position in the Phoenix Bank of Hartford, with help from family friends. He remained in that position until the age of seventeen, at which point he entered the junior class at Trinity College in Hartford, located a few blocks from his home. He did not stop working though, because his family still needed his financial support. He began teaching at the American School for the Deaf (ASD), the school his father had co-founded with Laurent Clerc and Mason Fitch Cogswell.1 Gallaudet’s mother, Sophia Fowler Gallaudet, was forty years old when her youngest son was born. She had been a pupil at ASD, was profoundly deaf, and did not speak. As the youngest boy, Gallaudet was pampered by his sisters and was especially close to Sophia (Hunter), whom he hired when she became a widow, and Alice (Trumbull), who was married to one of his closest, lifelong friends. In the family, only his mother was deaf, but he had native fluency in sign language nonetheless .2 Hartford was a small city with a population of about ten thousand people during Gallaudet’s youth. Because of its proximity to the Connecticut River, which runs through town, business interests, particularly banking and insurance, prospered there.3 With so few neighbors, his family knew almost everyone in town. His father, an active minister and leader of a school that depended on the kindness of the well-to-do and politically powerful, often socialized with that group. Gallaudet was exposed to the intellectuals, movers, and shakers of Hartford, people like the Beechers and the Morgans. With this upbringing, it is easy to understand why education was so important to Gallaudet. Although eventually an administrator by day, throughout his life he maintained an active involvement with the arts, writing poetry and two plays. He understood his own energy and potential but at the same time was always driven by a fear of failure.4 These factors provided the framework for Gallaudet’s leadership style. Leadership Defined Leadership is offered today as a panacea for almost any social problem, and it was so even in the mid-nineteenth century.5 Middle managers 24 David de Lorenzo Edward Miner Gallaudet have been known to say their enterprise would thrive if only senior management showed “real leadership.” A widely accepted belief is that leadership is a very good thing that we need more of. Leadership is not tangible...