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Alice goes deaf at the age of 2 due to illness.
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Rev. Thomas Gallaudet meets Alice Cogswell. Her father, is wealthy physician. The Cogswell's and Gallaudet were next door neighbors. Dr. Cogswell asks Gallaudet to travel to Europe in order try to find a better way to help his daughter become educated.
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Dr. Cogswell helps finance Gallaudet's trip to Europe. Little did he know he was on a journey that would change the course of American history forever!
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Braidwood school in England was a successful oral school established by the Braidwood family. This family was resistant to giving away their secrets to Gallaudet. Gallaudet was denied access to the school and was turned away.
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Abbe Sicard was in England presenting some of his students in order to attract more potential parents to send their children to the Institut Royal des Sourds-Muets a Manual communication (signing) school in France. Sicard invited Gallaudet to Paris to study at his school.
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Laurent Clerc is a deaf teacher at Sicard's school. Gallaudet meets this talented teacher and studies for a time with him and another deaf teacher.
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Gallaudet convinces Laurent Clerc to come with him back to America in order to learn more manual communication and help him establish a school for the deaf. Laurent agrees to go to America.
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Even though Manual Communication (aka sign language) was taught by Laurent Clerc and was brought by France, deaf students would modify the signs and the language would evolve into modern day American Sign Language.
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The first American School for the Deaf founded by Gallaudet, Mason Cogswell, and Laurent Clerc.
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The Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and Blind became a college thanks to Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln signed into Law that the school would become an university.
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This time period is when there was a decline in sign language schools and an increase of oral schools that banned sign language use in their schools.
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The name was changed from Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and Blind to Gallaudet College in honor of Thomas Gallaudet.
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William Stokoe, a Linguist at Gallaudet publishes the first sign language dictionary. This was a pivotal point when sign language started to have some legitimacy as a language. image: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41ny9xpNSdL._SR600%2C315_PIWhiteStrip%2CBottomLeft%2C0%2C35_PIStarRatingFIVE%2CBottomLeft%2C360%2C-6_SR600%2C315_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
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Gallaudet gains University status and becomes the world's first and only deaf University!
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Protests/movement at Gallaudet by the student body leads to the university's first deaf president. image: https://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/amit/books/img/sacks-voices-dpn-rally.jpg
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This law was passed a few short years after DPN, this law made it illegal to discriminate against Americans with disabilities. It also mandated that accommodations be made to help persons with disabilities.
