Contact: Dr. Karen Dilka Eastern Kentucky University

1. Contact: Dr. Karen DilkaEastern Kentucky University • Date submitted to deafed.net – February 27, 2006 • To contact the author for permission to use this PowerPoint, please e-mail: Karen.Dilka@EKU.EDU • To use this PowerPoint presentation in its entirety, please give credit to the author.

2. Mason Fitch Cogswell and His Beloved Daughter, Alice Cogswell Family Crest

3. Mason Fitch CogswellSeptember 28, 1761 - December 10, 1830 • Born in Canterbury, CT. • Age 11: Mother dies. • Yale, 1776 - 1780: youngest member of his class. Graduated with highest honors, Valedictorian. • April 13, 1800 married Mary Austin Ledyard. • Church Choir Director. • Five children

4. Army surgeon during Revolutionary War. Hartford 1789: began practice. A prominent physician and surgeon. He introduced cataract and carotid artery surgery. First Chairman of Yale Medical School’s Dept. of Anatomy & Surgery. School of education for deaf people. The days before his death crowds gather outside home. Died of pneumonia typhodes His wife, Mary Austin, lived many years after him. Mason Fitch Cogswell (Con’t)

5. Alice CogswellAugust 31, 1805 - December 30, 1830 • Third daughter; four siblings. • 2 years old - contracted cerebrospinal meningitis (spotted fever) causing her deafness. • Her development fell behind despite her family’s efforts. Father wanted her to have same opportunities as hearing children. • 1814, Thomas Gallaudet taught first two words, “hat” and “Alice.”

6. Alice Cogswell • An eager student, Alice ask Lydia Huntley Sigourney, teacher, “Please teach Alice something.” • First student of Connecticut Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb. • Graduated 1823. • Father dies. “My heart is so grown to my father that I cannot live without him.” • Thirteen days later, she dies.

7. WORKS CITED “Alice Cogswell. ” Gallaudet Encyclopedia of DEAF PEOPLE AND DEAFNESS. Ed. John V. Van Cleve. 3 vols. 1987. Bacon, Rev. Leonard. Postscript. “Old Times in Connecticut.” The New Englander New ser. Vol. 5. Jan. 1882: 1-31. American Periodical Series 1800 - 1850 19 (1971) : Reel 910 Carroll, Cathryn. “A Father, A Son, and a University: Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet.” National Information Center on Deafness File 751. Written: 1993. Updated: 28 April 1998. Gallaudet University. <http://www.gallaudet.edu/~nicd/751.html>

8. Works Cited (Con’t) Cogswell, Pat. March 1999 - Prominent Cogswells in History. Cogswell Family Association. Updated 17 May 2000 <http://www.cogswell.org/Prom_399.htm> Gannon, Jack. Prologue. Deaf Heritage: A Narrative History of Deaf America. By Gannon. Ed. Jane Butler and Laura-Jean Gilbert. Silver Spring: National Association of the Deaf, 1981. Herringshaw, T.W. Herringshaw’s national library of American biography. 5v. (1909-14): 110-127. American Biographical Index 2 (1998): I 324. “History of Alice Cogswell.” Location 28 on Map Page. 18 July 2000. <http://www.gallaudet.edu/~webadmin/map/loc28.html>

9. Mason Fitch Cogswell and His Beloved Daughter, Alice Presented by: Gloriael Charles & Elandra Moran-Eigel July 24, 2000