American School for the Deaf receives ‘priceless’ gift of items belonging to school’s founder

The American School for the Deaf was founded in 1817 by Laurent Clerc, and recently received “priceless” gifts that belonged to him, from members of his family, which add some depth and breadth to his legacy, the school’s history and it’s mission.

On July 6, the school held a short ceremony, in which Executive Jeff Bravin received several items, including a writing desk used by Clerc, from Kathy Harms, who is Clerc’s fourth-great-grandaughter and Clerc’s fourth great-grandson Laurent Holt, Harms’s cousin. Other items in the donation are early family photos, letters to Clerc’s family, the announcement of Clerc’s marriage to Eliza Boardman, and a letter to his granddaughter Charlotte from November 1864 in which he writes that he is glad Lincoln was re-elected, exclaiming “Down with Slavery!”

Bravin said the gifts are incredible, and he appreciated those who attended the reception and saw the literal unveiling of the items that had been stored away for decades.

“We had a really nice turnout to see all of the donations,” Bravin said, via an ASL interpreter. “Up to this point, no one has ever seen these, except for the family themselves. We’ve had so many researchers, so many people who have written stories about Laurent Clerc and his life, but no one has actually seen all of these artifacts – letters between Laurent Clerc and his daughter. He was also a U.S. Citizen [which some people questioned]. There were so many items in those items in those donations, and I know that it is going to open the flood gates for researchers who want to know more about his life and about his contributions, not just to our school, but to deaf education.”

Harms said her family became aware of the items in the 1950’s, after her grandfather passed away, and they were found in his attic. They’ve had something of a tour of the U.S. in the interim between then and their arrival in West Hartford, landing for a while at the Oklahoma School for the Deaf, where Harms’ sister, Sue Galloway, was a librarian.

“They’ve been in the family since the late 50’s….they were passed down to my mother, who lived in Illinois and moved to North Carolina in 1970. When my dad passed away, I moved her to Springfield Missouri and the papers came with her. When she passed away in 2008, my sister took the papers to Sulphur, Oklahoma, where she worked on trying to archive them.”

Harms took up her sister’s task of archiving the papers, after Galloway’s passing in 2017, preparing them to come to the American School for the Deaf, where she said “they belong.”

Harms was a little choked up when she said how meaningful the donation is to her.

“It means the world to me to be able to present to the people who deserve to have these papers, the papers that have been in my family, from my famous relative, my triple-great grandfather, for all of these years,” she said. “I’m happy to get them here in decent shape, so they can be shared with the deaf all over the world.”

Holt added that this one donation, which includes tons of documents, drastically increases the school’s archive.

“There are so many of them and they are so extensive. I believe Kathy has increased the collection of valuable documents by three times with this donation,” he said.

Collectively, the documents fill in much of the detail of Clerc’s life, in addition to chronicling his foundation of the school.

“There are so many details that are getting filled in about his relationships with his children,” Harms said, “how he felt about things like the Revolution, slavery, his travels back to France to solidify his knowledge of American Sign Language.”

“This really expands knowledge of Laurent Clerc and his family life,” Holt added. “It brings more of a focus on his wife, Eliza, and she, along with Sophia Fowler, who became Galludet’s wife. These were women who were teachers – educators in their own right, at the school, briefly. It tells us more about womens’ life in Hartford in the 1800’s.”

Bravin said that Clerc also had a hand in founding 17 other schools for the deaf across the country.

“His impact in this field was tremendous,” Bravin said. “So, to understand more about that impact and all that he did is going to be critical.”

Bravin said the artifacts are so valuable, that he plans to find a “very good safe” in which to keep them, and that precise ways of keeping them on display are being considered.

Originally from France, Clerc lost his hearing at age one after being badly burned in a fire. At age 12 he began his studies at what is now known as L’Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris (National Institute for Deaf Youth of Paris), and stayed on as a teacher after graduating. Clerc’s work as an educator brought him to England where he met Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet who was there researching deaf education. The two men became close friends and Clerc returned to America with Gallaudet to open the first permanent school for the deaf in the United States – American School for the Deaf.

The donations also include correspondence between Clerc and Gallaudet. It also includes notes about Alice Cogswell, the deaf daughter of Dr. Mason Cogswell , a prominent and popular doctor in Hartford, who sought Gallaudet’s help to educate his daughter. Gallaudet, in turn, sought out Clerc’s help, tracking him down in France and bringing him to Connecticut. It was Clerc, Gallaudet and Cogswell who co-founded the school.

“If Mason had not thought to seek out Thomas Galludet, and fortunately he did,…who could have imagined that deaf education would have even started?” Bravin said. “Prior to 1817, there were no educational opportunities for deaf individuals, other than a small school that opened for a short time, then did close.”

For more information, please visit www.asd-1817.org