The Beginnings
Gallaudet University's history is a record of dedicated people and dynamic events that is unparalleled in terms of education, resources, research, services, and leadership specifically designed to enhance the lives of deaf people everywhere. It began with Amos Kendall, a Dartmouth-educated journalist, whose political acumen and connections led him in the late 1820s to Washington, D.C. Kendall held several federal government positions, among them, postmaster general during the administration of Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. After leaving politics in his middle years, Kendall invested substantially in the newly-invented telegraph and, as legal manager and business partner of Samuel F.B. Morse, became quite wealthy.
In 1856, Kendall was one of many Washingtonians who were approached by a man soliciting donations to found a school for deaf and blind children in the area. This man had brought five deaf children from New York and recruited several deaf and blind children from among the local population. On learning that the children were not provided proper care, Kendall successfully petitioned the court to make them his wards. He donated two acres of his estate in northeast Washington, D.C., named Kendall Green, to establish housing and a school for them. The school opened with 12 deaf and six blind students.
From such modest beginnings evolved the comprehensive University of international importance that exists today. The following discussion highlights the Institution's progress in its early years.
Abraham Lincoln signed the charter authorizing the conferring of college degrees by the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind, which eventually became Gallaudet University.
Kendall persuaded Congress to incorporate the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind and hired Dr. Edward Miner Gallaudet - son of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, founder of the first school for deaf students in the United States - as the school's first superintendent. Gallaudet's deaf mother, Sophia Fowler Gallaudet, who was the widow of the Rev. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, became the school's matron.
The First Annual Report on the Columbia Institution recorded an enrollment of 17 students and a total operating budget of $6,437.66 for the year.
The Maryland state legislature provided funds for several of its deaf and blind students to be educated at the Columbia Institution, raising enrollment to 30.
Congress authorized the Institution to confer college degrees, and President Abraham Lincoln signed the bill into law. Gallaudet was made president of the entire corporation, and Kendall became chairman of its Board of Directors. John Carlin, a deaf New York artist, received the first conferred degree, an honorary M.A., for his aggressive advocacy of education for deaf people. Eight students were enrolled in the College, which at that time was known as the National College for the Deaf and Dumb.
