History of Sign Language in America: From 1817 to Today

The history of sign language in America stretches back centuries — long before the first formal deaf schools, Deaf communities across the continent were developing their own visual languages. From the indigenous signing traditions of Martha’s Vineyard to the founding of the American School for the Deaf, through the dark oralist era and the modern renaissance of ASL, this is the story of how a language was born, suppressed, and ultimately recognized as one of the most widely used languages in the United States.

Early Signing Communities

Long before formal deaf education arrived in America, signing was already a natural part of life in several communities. The most famous example is Martha’s Vineyard, a small island off the coast of Massachusetts where a high rate of hereditary deafness — as much as 1 in 25 residents in some towns — led to widespread bilingualism. Both hearing and Deaf residents used Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL), a unique local language with its own vocabulary and grammar. On the Vineyard, deafness was simply unremarkable. Hearing neighbors signed fluently, Deaf residents participated fully in civic and economic life, and there was no social distinction based on hearing status.

MVSL is significant to the history of sign language in America because it demonstrates that organized signing existed independently of European influence. When deaf students from Martha’s Vineyard and other New England communities later enrolled at the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, they brought their home sign systems with them. These local signing traditions — including MVSL — became ingredients in the formation of ASL.

Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL) is another important chapter. Used as a lingua franca among Indigenous nations of the Great Plains who spoke different languages, PISL was a fully developed sign language with its own grammar. Some scholars believe contact between Plains Indian Sign Language and early American deaf education may have influenced ASL development, though this connection is still debated.

These early signing communities remind us that sign language is not an invention but a natural human phenomenon. Wherever Deaf people gather, sign languages emerge spontaneously — a fact that underscores the deep biological basis for visual language.

The Founding of Deaf Education

The year 1817 marks a turning point in the history of sign language in America. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc opened the American School for the Deaf (ASD) in Hartford, Connecticut — the first permanent school for deaf students in the United States.

Gallaudet, a hearing minister, had traveled to Europe to learn deaf education methods. After British oral schools refused to share their techniques, he visited the Royal Institution for the Deaf in Paris, where education was conducted in French Sign Language (LSF). There he met Clerc, a Deaf educator of exceptional intelligence and eloquence. Clerc agreed to come to America, and the two founded ASD with the support of philanthropist Mason Fitch Cogswell, whose deaf daughter Alice was among the first students enrolled.

At ASD, Clerc taught in LSF, which quickly merged with the home sign systems students brought from across New England. This natural blending process — LSF providing grammatical structure and a large vocabulary base, local signs contributing regional variations — produced a distinctly American signed language. Within a generation, this new language had spread to deaf schools throughout the eastern United States as ASD alumni became teachers and founded new schools.

The success of ASD inspired rapid expansion. By 1863, there were 22 schools for the deaf across the country. Most used sign language as the primary medium of instruction and employed Deaf teachers alongside hearing staff. This was the golden age of Deaf education in America — a period of high academic achievement, cultural flourishing, and community building. Students graduated literate, skilled, and connected to a growing national Deaf community through shared language.

Oralism and the Suppression of Sign Language

The most painful chapter in the history of sign language in America began in the late 19th century. The oralist movement — championed most prominently by Alexander Graham Bell — argued that Deaf people should be taught to speak and lip-read English rather than use sign language. Bell, whose mother and wife were both deaf, believed sign language isolated Deaf people from mainstream society and advocated for oral-only education.

The 1880 Milan Congress (International Congress on Education of the Deaf) formalized oralism as international policy, passing a resolution declaring spoken language education superior to sign language. Deaf educators were largely excluded from the proceedings. In the decades that followed, American deaf schools progressively banned sign language from classrooms. Deaf teachers were dismissed. Students who signed were punished — forced to sit on their hands, rapped on the knuckles, or publicly shamed.

The consequences were devastating. By 1927, Deaf teachers comprised only 14.5% of faculty at deaf schools, down from 42.5% in 1870. Students struggled to access education through lip reading alone — research consistently shows that even the best lip readers can catch only 30-45% of spoken English visually. Academic achievement plummeted. Many Deaf adults from this era describe profound feelings of frustration and intellectual suppression.

Yet ASL survived. It persisted in dormitories, Deaf clubs, Deaf churches, and private homes — anywhere Deaf people gathered outside the surveillance of oralist educators. Residential schools inadvertently preserved the language by bringing Deaf students together, creating the very communities that sustained signing despite official prohibition. ASL’s survival through nearly a century of institutional suppression testifies to its importance as a natural human language.

Linguistic Recognition and Revival

The rehabilitation of ASL began in 1960 when William Stokoe, a hearing English professor at Gallaudet College, published Sign Language Structure — the first linguistic analysis to argue that ASL was a genuine language with its own phonological, morphological, and syntactic systems, not merely a collection of gestures or a broken version of English.

Stokoe’s work was initially met with skepticism from both hearing academics and some Deaf community members who had internalized the oralist dismissal of signing. But subsequent research by Stokoe and others — including Deaf linguists like MJ Bienvenu and Clayton Valli — confirmed and expanded his findings. ASL was shown to have all the complexity, expressiveness, and generative capacity of any spoken language.

This linguistic recognition triggered a cascade of changes. Universities began offering ASL courses for academic credit. Research into Deaf culture and sign language linguistics expanded dramatically. Bilingual-bicultural (Bi-Bi) education — using ASL as the language of instruction while teaching English as a second language through reading and writing — emerged as an alternative to oralism.

The legal landscape shifted as well. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 required qualified sign language interpreters in public accommodations, employment, and government services. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act mandated accessible communication in federally funded programs. These laws did not recognize ASL as an official language per se, but they guaranteed the right to use it and receive services through it — a practical recognition of enormous significance.

ASL in the Modern Era

Today, ASL is one of the most widely studied languages in American higher education. According to the Modern Language Association, ASL is the third most enrolled language at U.S. colleges and universities, behind only Spanish and French. More than 40 states accept ASL to fulfill foreign language requirements in high school and college.

The Deaf community has leveraged technology to expand ASL’s reach. Video calling and social media platforms enable Deaf people to communicate in sign language across vast distances — something impossible before the video age. ASL content thrives on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, bringing sign language visibility to millions of hearing viewers. Deaf creators like Nyle DiMarco and Chella Man have brought Deaf culture into mainstream media.

Video Relay Service (VRS) revolutionized phone access for ASL users, enabling real-time interpreted calls between Deaf and hearing parties. Automatic sign language recognition research — using AI and computer vision to translate ASL to text — is an active area of development, though the technology remains years from practical deployment due to ASL’s spatial and grammatical complexity.

Despite these advances, challenges remain. Deaf education quality varies dramatically across states and school districts. Many Deaf children, particularly in developing countries, still lack access to any sign language. The shortage of qualified ASL interpreters persists, especially in medical, legal, and educational settings. And debates about cochlear implants, language choice, and cultural identity continue within the Deaf community.

The history of sign language in America is ultimately a story of resilience. ASL endured suppression, ridicule, and institutional erasure to emerge as a thriving language used by hundreds of thousands of people. Its journey from the classrooms of Hartford to recognition as a legitimate American language mirrors the broader Deaf rights movement — a community’s determination to be seen, heard (on their own terms), and valued for who they are.

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