Sophia Fowler Gallaudet
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Sophia Fowler Gallaudet (March 20, 1798 – May 13, 1877) was the wife of
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (December 10, 1787 – September 10, 1851) was an American educator. Along with Laurent Clerc and Mason Cogswell, he co-founded the first permanent institution for the education of the deaf in North America, and he bec ...
. As the founding matron of the school that became
Gallaudet University Gallaudet University ( ) is a private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. for the education of the Hearing loss, deaf and hard of hearing. It was founded in 1864 as a gramma ...
, she played an important role in deaf history, even playing a key role in lobbying
US congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washin ...
men in the effort to establish Gallaudet (then the "National Deaf-Mute College"). She was appointed to be the first matron of the Columbia Institution on May 30, 1857, and held the position for nine years, until August 1, 1866.


Biography

She was born as Sophia Fowler near the town of
Guilford, Connecticut Guilford is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, that borders Madison, Branford, North Branford and Durham, and is situated on I-95 and the Connecticut seacoast. The population was 22,073 at the 2020 census. History Gui ...
on March 20, 1798, to Miner Fowler and Rachel Hall. Born deaf, she first attended school at age 19, starting (along with her sister Parnel) at the new school for the Deaf in Hartford in 1817 and continued her studies until the Spring of 1821. She married
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (December 10, 1787 – September 10, 1851) was an American educator. Along with Laurent Clerc and Mason Cogswell, he co-founded the first permanent institution for the education of the deaf in North America, and he bec ...
on August 29, 1821, and had eight children:
Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...
(1822–1902), Sophia (1824–1865), Peter Wallace (1827–1903), Jane Hall (1827–1853), William Lewis (1829–1887), Catherine "Kate" Fowler (1831–1917), and Edward Miner (1837–1917). She died on May 13, 1877, in Washington, District of Columbia and was interred in Cedar Hill Cemetery in
Hartford, Connecticut Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since t ...
. Sophia Fowler Gallaudet, named as the "Mother of the American Deaf," was honored and memorialized in Angeline Fuller Fischer's ''The Silent Worker'', in 1915, to remind young deaf people of her influences that has pervaded Gallaudet College for so many years, and of her contributions to its early growth as an institution of higher education. A bronze memorial tablet, sculpted by Eugene Hannan, was unveiled Guilford, Connecticut in 1917. The tablet was to recognize her important role in contributing to the America School for the Deaf, which her husband, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, is a co-founder of and helping to establish Gallaudet College, which her son, Edward Miner Gallaudet is a founder of.


References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gallaudet, Sophia Fowler 1798 births 1877 deaths Burials at Cedar Hill Cemetery (Hartford, Connecticut) Deaf activists Deaf culture in the United States Deaf people from the United States Gallaudet University People from Guilford, Connecticut