A famous New Ipswich family has an intimate tie to the formalization of American Sign Language and the American School for the Deaf.
Alissa Butler, the director of the Study Center for Historic New England, explained the connection in a talk on Tuesday night. The talk was part of New Ipswich’s 275th anniversary events, planned throughout the year. It covered the formation of the British, French and American sign languages – and the close connection one of New Ipswich’s most-prominent families, the Barretts, had to the formation of ASL. The talk included sign language interpreters.
The talk was in the Millbrick House at 99 River Road, which was built as a wedding present for Charles Barrett III and his wife Abigail in 1830. Charles Barrett III was one of the first attendees of the American School for the Deaf, where ASL was codified into an official language. Charles was born with hearing, but became deaf due to illness by the time he was 5.
Butler framed her talk around one of the artifacts belonging to the Barrett family – a cup, printed with a sign language alphabet, but not American Sign Language, the form Charles spoke – but British Sign Language.
This is particularly curious, Butler said, because American Sign Language is much more closely related to French Sign Language than British. That schism is a matter of the timing of when the languages were codified, and a division of thought on how deaf children should be taught among the various major schools being established at the time.
Butler explained that British, French and American sign languages were all officially developed and documented for the first time at early schools for the deaf. She said that is in part because in the 1800s, there were very few communities for deaf people, and so they may have gone their entire lives never meeting another deaf person.
“Interaction couldn’t happen. Language couldn’t develop,” Butler said.
It was when deaf and mute schools – specifically boarding schools – were implemented that communities began forming, and those students often brought the signs they had developed to communicate with their families, or “home signs,” and shared them with other deaf students that language began to develo. Those signs were published by teachers at the schools to be picked up by a broader base that it was codified.
Butler spoke of some of the earliest examples of deaf schools – Braidwood’s Academy for the Deaf in Britain, the French National Institute for the Deaf Children of Paris in France and the American School for the Deaf. She said that Braidwood’s, while being a highly prestigious, exclusive and expensive school, was focused on teaching oralism – speaking and reading lips — and discouraged signing, trying to have students fit into a hearing world.
The French institute, founded by Charles-Michel de l’Eppe, took a different approach, with a free education, open to the public, where sign language was developed and taught in as the natural language.
In 1817, Thomas Gallaudet, one of the founders of the American School for the Deaf, met a deaf child, Alice Cogswell and her father, Mason Cogswell, and became interested in the education of deaf children. He visited Braidwood’s to learn about their teaching methods, but fundamentally disagreed with their approach. However, while there, he also met representatives from the French institute, who were touring with their students to display their academic achievements and abilities. He met Laurent Clerc, and Gallaudet offered him a job at the new American school he was intending to start, and Clerc accepted.
The school was founded in Hartford, Conn., and thus, French sign language, combined with home signs from the original students and a significant deaf community that existed in Martha’s Vineyard, became the foundation for American Sign Language.
Charles Barrett III was not one of the original seven students of the school, but did join about three months into the school’s founding, and was on the forefront of that development, Butler said.
So why, if British Sign Language and American Sign Language are fundamentally different from each other, did the Barretts own a cup in a language Charles – and indeed, most other signing Americans — didn’t speak?
It’s unknown, exactly, Butler said, but it’s likely the cup was produced as a part of a boom of illustrated educational materials for children, cheaply made in England, and sold door-to-door both across the pond and in America. While officially a mystery, Butler said it’s likely it was bought as it was what was available.
New Ipswich will continue to hold events throughout the summer for its 275th anniversary. The next event is a town picnic at the Barrett Mansion lawn July 27 at 11 a.m. People should bring their own picnic blanket and lunch.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on X @AshleySaariMLT.