When the first women students entered the National College, the college had been in existence for twenty-three years, and its rigorous academic program was well-established. Traditions had begun and were evolving. College graduates were hired as faculty on campus. The president and some of the faculty and their families lived on campus. The culture and politics of Washington, DC, were integral facets of the college experience and enrichment. Students had full participation in every aspect of college life, where they could interact, converse, and debate using their language of signs. Such an enriching and intellectually stimulating environment for deaf people could only be found at the National College.
Women and their supporters at the college fought a long, hard battle to gain the same and equal rights long afforded to their male counterparts, albeit temporarily, and life on the campus as men knew it was thereafter changed. Agatha and the college’s first deaf women encountered more advantages, as well as more restrictions, in comparison to their male classmates. The female students, Agatha in particular, were not passive bystanders watching the ebbs and flows and some of the severest restrictions placed on women; instead, they took active roles in shaping the college and its future deaf female students.
The journey of the college’s first women would have, in most cases, started with a long train ride from their respective states. During that era, passengers arriving at the Washington, DC, train station were greeted outside of the depot by streetcars and horse-drawn carriages. The National College’s first women arrived on campus through a twelve-foot-wide iron gate, carried by horse-drawn carriages bringing their trunks, packed with the heavier and more elaborate clothing representative of the era, such as bodices with long puffed sleeves, long draped skirts, nightgowns, and clothes for various seasons and occasions. This journey represented their transition from the known and familiar to the new and uncertain, a terrifying yet exciting path. The college’s inaugural women were treading into uncharted territory, where they would be challenged academically—more so for being women.
For better or for worse, the women of this experiment set out to encounter their new experiences. This yielded a far better outcome than the limited prospects previously available to deaf women. As Agatha put it:
in the institutions, as elsewhere, that spirit of ferment was working which causes the progress of the world, and there were girls who could not bear to consider the narrow bounds of a course in an institution as the limit of their education. And so when the time was ripe they took their places by the sides of their brothers and prepared to enter a life of better endeavor and higher thought.1
Upon arrival on the campus, the pioneering women in the experimental program were awestruck. Agatha recalled, “when I entered the gates of Kendall Green, I thought it was quite the most beautiful place I had ever seen.”2 There was no housing for women on campus. President Gallaudet resolved this issue for the experiment by making room in his on-campus residence, now known as “House One.” This was quite an adjustment because it necessitated the temporary move of his family to their home in Hartford, Connecticut. This was no small adjustment, as Agatha pointed out, with Gallaudet’s family consisting of his “lovely and charming wife,” their four young children, and his daughters from his first marriage.3 Agatha further noted: “These six children were full of life and intelligence and a source of the utmost pleasure and pleasant companionship to their great father. Yet he deprived himself of a home with them and his wife for two years.”4 Agatha went on, “what a sacrifice he made for us. . . . Few men would be equal to it.”5
Meeting the College President
Ella Black Long (formerly Ella Florence Black), one of the first six women to attend the National College, recounted a “vivid picture” of the “venturesome girls who started the roll of co-ed students” meeting President Edward Miner Gallaudet for the first time, saying: “On the day of their arrival . . . those six girls gathered in the library, or parlor, of the Kendall School.”6 She went on: “None of them had ever met” the president and “many were the guesses made about how he might look.”7 Then, there appeared “a handsome and unassuming gentleman of courtly manners” who “cordially shook hands after asking the name of each girl.”8 None of them had “guessed that he was the President of the College until he smilingly announced the fact.”9
After the introductions, President Gallaudet inquired about the schools they had attended and then “with charming hospitality” shared that his family had moved to their home in Hartford, Connecticut, to accommodate the women in the president’s house on campus.10 Ella noted: “His graceful use of the sign language in conversing with the girls and his ready understanding of their signs fascinated them, and later they learned that his mother was deaf like themselves, and so he had grown up with the sign-language as his ‘mother tongue.’”11
The president also informed them that he “had expected more than six girls to take advantage of the opportunity to enter College, but affably remarked that the half dozen were sufficient evidence of the fair sex desiring a higher education.”12 Ella reported: “In the kindness of his heart, he began making the social life of the young co-eds as pleasant as possible. There were a series of parties all around on Kendall Green after a reception was given in the parlors of the Gallaudet mansion.”13
The Language of Signs
Sign language was not formally recognized as a language on par with other languages until Gallaudet professor William C. Stokoe’s, along with his deaf colleagues Dorothy Casterline and Carl Croneberg, groundbreaking research presenting evidence supporting this premise, resulting in the publication of Sign Language Structure in 1960. Although deaf people at the time did not have this research at their disposal, they exalted the value of the language of signs. Ella Black Long, for one, commended President Gallaudet’s “graceful” use of sign language and called it his “mother-tongue.” J. Schuyler Long, for another, published The Sign Language: A Manual of Signs in 1918, in which he described sign language as a “most beautiful and expressive language.”14
The president’s house also had to be converted to accommodate the new residents. The music parlor was converted to a living room, and the women resided on the third floor, where there were four large rooms. As Agatha described it, that floor “had a wide central hall, with four rooms of good size opening on it, so that two in a room, we were comfortably lodged.”15 From their bedroom windows, the women had a magnificent view of the US Capitol. President Gallaudet and Ellen Gordon, their matron, resided in apartments with guest rooms on the second floor.
The elegantly decorated dining room was used for meals, where the women dined with the president and matron “presiding at the table three times a day.”16 Only the drawing room and the study were reserved for the president’s private use. This temporary situation was a boon for the women as their new living quarters afforded them more elegant and intimate surroundings than a standard dorm, and they had the benefit of the close association with the president of the college as well as dining with such an esteemed figure in fine style. Agatha found the opportunity to socialize with the president a positive experience: “Often, when we girls were in the sitting room, perhaps entertaining a few callers, Dr. Gallaudet would come in and talk to us in his friendly and inspiring way, then say good night.”17
Promoting Literacy
An instance of President Gallaudet encouraging the women to cultivate reading passions was related by Ella Black Long, remembering her days as one of the inaugural female students. “When he discovered that the little yellow-haired . . . girl was the only one who had read his favorite book, ‘Lorna Doone’ he started an enthusiastic talk with her about it and showed his delight in finding she fully appreciated the beauty and sadness of the quaint story.”18 Ella told of another occasion when the president learned she had begun to read Ben-Hur but had put it down after the first two chapters because she had found it “as dry as the desert dust.”19 At that, President Gallaudet immediately tried to convince her to give it another try. She did so and was subsequently able to discuss the merits of the book with him. The president “beamed when he saw she had the right attitude and felt the spirit and beauty of the story.”20 Ella fondly recalled that President Gallaudet thereafter dubbed her “the little ‘book worm’.”21
When Gallaudet was there, the ritual was for each woman to sit in assigned seats for a week before shifting clockwise around the table to ensure each woman had equitable time to sit on either side of the president and matron Ellen Gordon.22 Regardless of where they sat, the president was sure to include all of the women in conversations, drawing them out with thoughtful questions about their activities and, in particular, their reading pursuits.
Ellen Gordon noticed that the women ate less when Gallaudet joined their meals because they were more intrigued with the entertaining conversations and his fluent and eloquent signing than with their food. They also found themselves laughing so much that they frequently couldn’t finish their meals. This was especially true when the president’s older brother, the Rev. Thomas Gallaudet, visited from New York City. The brothers joked, told funny stories, and playfully bantered, often to the point that the women and Ellen Gordon rocked with laughter.23 The brothers also created a level playing field in a show of respect for everyone at the table by always signing, and if anyone did not do so, they would “put it into signs for the Co-eds to share.”24 The women took note of this, and their level of respect for the Gallaudet brothers further increased. So revered was their privileged status in having daily meals with the president that the women were not above rubbing this in the faces of their male classmates. Ella Black Long recalled how the “girls delighted in teasing them by telling about the lovely meals at the Doctor’s table and how he treated them as honored guests.”25
Agatha, who also revered this opportunity, said: “I feel that we were rarely blessed. This great and beloved educator was then in the prime of life, and we could observe his rare conversational talents, his ready wit and humor, and could in a degree realize the greatness of the man. He had a thorough and graceful command of the sign language, so loved by us all, and of this language he was the outstanding authority and exponent. We were often favored with his wise and sane opinions.”26 Engaging in daily conversations with Gallaudet was one of the biggest perks the women enjoyed during their trial period. The women also appreciated and respected their matron. As Agatha noted, although their matron was not a skilled signer and often did not understand them, she possessed “a gentle dignity and kindly heart,” and that was all they needed.27
Although the lack of separate housing for the women turned to their advantage, the women encountered numerous challenges, including the persecution they faced from their male classmates. Many of their male classmates remained skeptical, even hostile, about having female students at the prestigious college. As one of the first female students, Ella Black Long related, “most of the boys were resentful of the invasion of the girls on their lordly preserves.”28 The women could feel the intense scrutiny of male eyes on them as they walked together to classes. Some male students welcomed the women and treated them with courtesy, but others rejected the women and were openly hostile. The women were regarded by many of them as “freaks,” and when the women passed by on a daily basis, male students “would line up in rows” and gaze at them with open “masculine curiosity.”29 One male student would “stand around in prominent places and grin derisively as the girls passed along.”30 If women wore aprons that appeared to be a nod to their domesticity as opposed to being scholars at a college, they encountered a “mocking crowd of boys in the halls” causing “fear and trembling” among them.31
After some time, many of the male students came to accept female students as classmates. By the time Agatha arrived at the National College, the novelty of women at the college had started to wear off, creating a more stable environment. Yet, hostility and skepticism remained among some male students.