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Deaf and Dumb Asylum, Hartford, Con. - Ridgway

Pattern Category: Places

Series: Beauties of America

Object Type: Dinner and Dessert Wares

Dimensions:

  • Length: 15 inches

Description:

Shown here on a platter as part of Ridgway's Beauties of America Series is the first school for the deaf and dumb in the United States.  This institution was established largely through the influence of the eminent surgeon Mason Fitch Cogswell, whose daughter Alice became deaf very young through illness. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet was selected to go to Europe to learn their methods for teaching the deaf. When the school was begun in 1817 Gallaudet was its first principal and Alice Cogswell its first student. In 1821 the school moved to this building on Asylum Hill, where it remained for 100 years. Gallaudet's son Edward Miner Gallaudet founded the first college for the deaf, Gallaudet College (now University) in Washington, D.C.  See the Stevenson version of this building.