Research at
Gallaudet University
2005 - 2006

Audism or Advocacy: Lydia Sigourny

Status: Completed Begin date: June, 2006 End date: July, 2006

Description

Investigators traveled to Hartford, Connecticut to spend 4-10 June 2006 engaged in research on Lydia Sigourney. They spent one day each at the Connecticut Historical Society, the ASD archives, Trinity College's rare books and manuscripts, Yale's Beinecke Library, and the Harriet Beecher Stowe Library, on which day they also visited Sigourney's grave site.
 
The information they collected, both from rare editions of Sigourney's work and from letters to and from her, was invaluable and quite overwhelming. While on the ground in Hartford, it was decided to focus on Sigourney's life after her marriage and her association with the American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb after its founding because virtually all of the documents perused immediately came from those years. The investigators consequently focused their Deaf History International paper on her later years and were able to show Sigourney's continuing interaction with Deaf people in Hartford, and around the country, through her long life.
 
While in Hartford, the investigators realized that documents and letters pertaining to Sigourney's earlier years, when she was Alice Cogswell's teacher, would be found in the Cogswell and Wadsworth papers, but they could not possibly have covered these in the time allotted. Thus, they will be applying for a second small grant for a second trip. They now know that these papers are in the Connecticut Historical Society and they will not have to use any other archives on their second trip.

Investigators