Laurent Clerc (born Louis Laurent Marie Clerc) was born December 26, 1785 in La Balme les Grottes, department of Isere, France, a village on the northeaster edge of Lyon. Clerc has been called "The Apostle of the Deaf in American" and "The Father of the Deaf" by every generation of American deaf people since he co-founded the first school for the deaf in North America in Hartford, Connecticut. Along with co-founder Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, he opened Hartford Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb on April 15, 1817 in the old Bennet's City Hotel. The school was subsequently re-named The American School for the Deaf and in 1821 moved to it's present sited. The school remains the oldest existing school for the deaf in the United States.

Early Years

Born to Joseph Francois Clerc and Marie Elizabeth Candy in the small village of La Balme where his father was the mayor, Laurent Clerc's home was a typical bourgeois household. When he was a year old, Clerc, while momentarily unattended, fell from a chair into the hearth. He suffered a blow to the head and sustained a permanent scar on the right side of his face. Clerc's family believed his deafness and inability to smell was caused in this accident but Clerc later wrote that he was not certain and that he may have been born deaf and without the ability to smell. The facial scar was later to form the basis for his name sign, the "U" hand shape stroked twice downward on the right cheek. Clerc's name sign would become the best known and most recognizable name sign in American deaf history and Clerc, himself, would literally rise from the ashes of of a French hearth to became the most renowned deaf person in American history. (more coming)

Royal Institution for the Deaf, Paris

(working on it.)

Hartford, Connecticut

(working on it)

Laurent, South Dakota

Efforts are underway to build world's first fully integrated town for sign language users in McCook County, South Dakota. The town will be named Laurent, S.D. in honor of this pioneering educator of the Deaf, Laurent Clerc. See Laurent, South Dakota

See also

• Models of deafness for a comparison of the medical, disability and cultural models of deafness.
• Deaf history
• Deaf education
• Deaf culture
• American Sign Language

External links

• Laurent Clerc Stamp Project
• Laurent Clerc Association
• Diary of Laurent Clerc's Voyage From France to America in 1816
• Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center
• Laurent Clerc Elementary School, Tucson, Arizona
• Laurent Clerc Education Fund

References

• When The Mind Hears: A History of the Deaf, by Harlan Lane. ISBN 0679720235