Well, actually, what was founded on that date was the "Columbia
Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind", in
Washington, D.C. Its first director was Edward Miner Gallaudet.

The institution struggled on, under various names, expanding its student
numbers and its breadth of curriculum. In 1894 it was finally named
Gallaudet College (not University until 1986) -- not in honour of
E.M.Gallaudet, but of his father, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, who founded
the first American school for the deaf, in Hartford, Connecticut, in
1816. Gallaudet Sr. had travelled to France, observed the use of sign
language in the education of the deaf, and returned with a skilled
teacher, Laurent Clerc, who introduced these methods to the new school.
Which is why the closest relative of American Sign Language (ASL) is
Langue des Signes Française (LSF). ASL remains the working language of
Gallaudet University.

William C.Stokoe, who joined the English department at Gallaudet in
1955, began to apply structural linguistic methods to the analysis of
ASL, and thus launched an entire field -- sign language studies -- which
resulted in an awareness (among linguists at least) that signed
languages are structured, autonomous systems like spoken languages.

Ar an séú lá déag de mí Feabhra, scríobh Ross Clark:

> [...] William C.Stokoe, who joined the English department at Gallaudet in
> 1955, began to apply structural linguistic methods to the analysis of ASL,
> and thus launched an entire field -- sign language studies -- which resulted
> in an awareness (among linguists at least) that signed languages are
> structured, autonomous systems like spoken languages.

Does anyone recommend an introductory text to the linguistics of sign
languages? I’ve never looked into it.

--
‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
(C. Moore)