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The Beginnings

 

           Gallaudet University's history is a record of dedicated people 
            and dynamic events that is unparalleled in terms of education, resources, 
            research, services, and leadership specifically designed to enhance 
            the lives of deaf people everywhere. It began with Amos Kendall, a 
            Dartmouth-educated journalist, whose political acumen and connections 
            led him in the late 1820s to Washington, D.C. Kendall held several 
            federal government positions, among them, postmaster general during 
            the administration of Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. 
            After leaving politics in his middle years, Kendall invested substantially 
            in the newly-invented telegraph and, as legal manager and business 
            partner of Samuel F.B. Morse, became quite wealthy. 
            

      

        
 
          In 1856, Kendall was one of many Washingtonians who 
            were approached by a man soliciting donations to found a school for 
            deaf and blind children in the area. This man had brought five deaf 
            children from New York and recruited several deaf and blind children 
            from among the local population. On learning that the children were 
            not provided proper care, Kendall successfully petitioned the court 
            to make them his wards. He donated two acres of his estate in northeast 
            Washington, D.C., named Kendall Green, to establish housing and a 
            school for them. The school opened with 12 deaf and six blind students. 
          
        
 
        

      



From such modest beginnings evolved the comprehensive University of 
international importance that exists today.  The following discussion 
highlights the Institution's progress in its early years.







An informal pose of the Gallaudet family on the porch of the President's Home






Abraham Lincoln signed the 
charter authorizing the conferring of college degrees by the Columbia 
Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind, which 
eventually became Gallaudet University.




          1857
           
            

           
            
Sophia Gallaudet
Sophia Fowler Gallaudet
Kendall
persuaded Congress to incorporate the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind and 
hired Dr. Edward Miner Gallaudet - son of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, 
founder of the first school for deaf students in the United States - as 
the school's first superintendent.  Gallaudet's deaf mother, Sophia 
Fowler Gallaudet, who was the widow of the Rev. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, 
became the school's matron.






          1858
           
            

           The First Annual Report on the Columbia Institution recorded 
            an enrollment of 17 students and a total operating budget of $6,437.66 
            for the year. 
            






          1860
           
            

           The Maryland state legislature provided funds for several 
            of its deaf and blind students to be educated at the Columbia Institution, 
            raising enrollment to 30. 
            






          1864
           
            

           Congress authorized the Institution to confer college degrees, 
            and President Abraham Lincoln signed the bill into law. Gallaudet 
            was made president of the entire corporation, and Kendall became chairman 
            of its Board of Directors. John Carlin, a deaf New York artist, received 
            the first conferred degree, an honorary M.A., for his aggressive advocacy 
            of education for deaf people. Eight students were enrolled in the 
            College, which at that time was known as the National College for 
            the Deaf and Dumb.  
            





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 Last revision date: November 7, 1997

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