Alice Cogswell

• Alice Cogswell From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Alice was the first pupil to enroll in the Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut in 1817, shortly after 6 more students were enrolled also. At this time there was no other school like this in the United States. She had a lively intelligence and spirited personality. She had quiet powers of mimicry and could easily amuse people when she impersonated their friends. She enjoyed reading, sewing and dancing. She especially enjoyed parties hosted by her parents. Music fascinated her. She was very inquisitive about how music worked. She usually carried her small slate to make conversation with people who could not speak through sign language. She was able to speak aloud a few words. One was "PRETTY." At the age of two years, she become ill with "spotted fever" (cerebra-spinal meningitis). This illness took her hearing and later she lost her speech as well. She was met, at age 9, by Gallaudet, who seized the opportunity to teach the deaf girl. He and Alice's father, Dr. Mason Cogswell, decided that a formal school would be best for her. She was the inspiration to Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet for the creation of the now American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. After she graduated in 1924, she did some traveling. In 1830, thirteen days after the death of her father from pneumonia, she died from a broken heart. The only known portrait of Alice{besides the statues} is a profile silhouette displayed in the museum at the American School for the Deaf, West Hartford. On the campus of the present American School for the Deaf at Hartford stands a beautiful statue of Gallaudet and Cogswell. Another statue of Gallaudet and Cogswell stands in front of Gallaudet University campus as Gallaudet sit on chair and Alice stood next to him to share their communication of "A" in fingerspelling. The Alice Cogswell statue (American School for the Deaf Founders Memorial), by Frances Laughlin Wadsworth, also represents her as a young girl.

Daughter of: Mason F. & Mary Austin Ledyard {parents married 4-13-1800}

Sister of: Mason F. Cogswell {1810-1865}

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WIKIPEDIA Inscription: The father, distinguished by his private virtues, his public spirit and professional worth: the daughter although deprived of hearing and speech, for her intellectual attainment and lovliness of character. The American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, which under PROVIDENCE owes it's origin to the father's tenderness towards his child, and his sympathy towards her fellow sufferers, will stand an enduring monument to their memory when this shall have perished

• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Jan 9 2016, 1:49:55 UTC