Deaf Girl in Safe Hands - Fulton, MO
Posted by: 
YoSam.
N 38° 50.892 W 091° 56.413
15S E 591965 N 4300464
Gallaudet's own hands guides and holds safe Alice who represents all deaf students.
Waymark Code: WM4MHE
Location: Missouri, United States
Date Posted: 09/07/2008
Views: 11
Description:
A portrait of a young Alice Cogswell emerging from a huge pair of open hands. She stands with her proper right hand resting on the finger tip of one of the hands and her proper left hand clasping a book to her chest. At the foot of the sculpture is an open book and a quill pen. The sculpture rests on a square base.
Some history and remarks:
Sculpture cost $5,391.37 and was funded through donations from alumni, staff, students, and friends of the Missouri School for the Deaf. It honors Rev. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, considered the Father of education of the deaf in America. The young girl portrayed, Alice Cogswell (1805-1831), was the daughter of Dr. Mason Fitch Cogswell of Hartford, Connecticut, and her deafness motivated Gallaudet to push for a special school for the deaf. He and ten other men in Hartford raised enough money to send Gallaudet to Europe to learn how to start a school. Alice was the first pupil enrolled in the American Asylum for the Deaf (later the American School for the Deaf) which opened in 1817 in Hartford. The sculpture is commonly referred to as "Little Alice."
The large pair of hands depicted in the sculpture are those of Rev. Gallaudet. The sculpture is a copy of a nine-foot high sculpture by Frances Wadsworth erected at the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut in 1953. The artist worked from the original two-foot model, but changed the hair design. The inspiration for duplicating the sculpture came from Lloyd A. Harrison, a former teacher at the American School for the Deaf who later became superintendent for the Missouri School for the Deaf.