Welcome to the 150th Anniversary Celebration
of Kendall Demonstration Elementary School
Welcome to our celebration of Kendall Demonstration Elementary School and its 150th anniversary. For 150 years, deaf and hard of hearing students have come to Kendall School to learn to read, write, and pursue a well rounded education.
Sometimes people say that one person cannot make a difference, but Amos Kendall, the founder of Kendall school, proved them wrong. In the late 1800s, Kendall met a man who used deaf and blind children to beg for money. Kendall adopted the deaf children--and decided to start a school for them and other deaf children in Washington, D.C.
The school opened in a building on his summer estate in an area that would form the nucleus of what is now Gallaudet University.
Kendall had a good friend named Samuel Morse. Morse is the famous man who invented the telepgraph. He asked Kendall for money to help him with the invention. The telegraph was enormously successful and Kendall became a rich man.
Kendall brought Edward Minor Gallaudet, the son of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, the man who helped establish the first schools for deaf children in the United States, to administer the new school. Edward Gallaudet was only 20 years old, and at Kendall's request, Gallaudet brought his mother, Sophia Fowler Gallaudet, with him. Sophia Fowler, was a student of Edward's famous father before she married him. She was the matron of the new school. James Denison, deaf graduate of the school became its first teacher and principal.
In the late 1800's, there schools for children who were deaf and hard of hearing were being set up throughout the United States. Kendall and Gallaudet realized that an elementary school was not enough. Deaf and hard of hearing students were becoming educated. They needed a college. Kendall and Gallaudet petitioned the United States government.
In 1864, a law to establish a college for deaf students was signed by President Abraham Lincoln. The college would become Gallaudet University.
Kendall? KDES? Whatever You Call Our School, It's Great
Let's show signs for Kendall...all different hands making the Kendall School sign...
The name of Kendall School was originally the Columbia Institution for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind.
When the school separated its program and a college was established, it became Kendall School in honor of its founder. In 1970, the U.S. government expanded the role of Kendall School. Not only would Kendall teachers work with their own students--birth through grade 8--but they would help teachers and administrators throughout the country learn effective ways to teach deaf and hard of hearing students.
Today Kendall's teachers bring the best in deaf education into their own classrooms and help bring the best to schools and programs of deaf and hard of hearing students throughout the country.
