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 Fitch Cogswell, Mason Cogswell, he co-founded the first permanent institution for the Education of the Deaf, educatio ...

. As the founding matron of the school that became

Gallaudet University Gallaudet University ( ) is a private federally chartered university in Washington, D.C., for the education of the deaf and hard of hearing. It was founded in 1864 as a grammar school for both deaf and blind children. It was the first school ...

, she played an important role in deaf history, even playing a key role in lobbying

US congress The United States Congress is the legislature, legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, including a Lower house, lower body, the United States House of Representatives, ...

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, Connecticut, Madison, Branford, Connecticut, Branford, North Branford, Connecticut, North Branford and Durham, Connecticut, Durham, and is situated on Inter ...

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. While she was a student there she became engaged to the principal of the school,

. She married Thomas 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 List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The city, located in Hartford County, Connecticut, Hartford County, had a population of 121,054 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 ce ...

. 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 American activists with disabilities Deaf culture in the United States American deaf people Gallaudet University people People from Guilford, Connecticut