Description:
English Staffordshire octagonal pearlware platter decorated with a dark blue transfer print of the Hartford Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb marked "Beauties of America / Deaf & Dumb Asylum / Hartford, Con. / J&W Ridgway" in a blue scrolled-end rectangle on the base. The Ridgway family were in business in Hanley between 1814 and about 1840; other Staffordshire printers such as Ralph Stevenson also used this scene (see HD 93.021.1). The first school for the deaf and dumb in the United States, the American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb was established largely through the influence of the eminent surgeon Mason Fitch Cogswell, whose daughter Alice became deaf very young through illness. The American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb was founded in Hartford in 1815, and with the help of Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc, opened on April 29, 1817, the day that Polly (1792-1869) and Rowland (1794-1848) Stebbins, the children of Asa (1767-1844) and Emily Harvey Stebbins (1769-1841) of Deerfield, were enrolled in the first class as the eleventh and twelfth students. Congress donated land for a building that was erected in 1821, shown here as a four-story, classical-style building with pilasters and pediments, and seven chimneys along the roof line. The source for this transfer-printed view was a drawing and engraving by John Warner Barber published in "Connecticut Historical Collections" (1838). This platter is depicts the first school for the deaf and dumb in the United States. This institution was established largely through the influence of the eminent surgeon Mason Fitch Cogswell, whose daughter Alice became deaf very young through illness. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet was selected to go to Europe to learn their methods for teaching the deaf. When the school was begun in 1817 Gallaudet was its first principal and Alice Cogswell its first student. In 1821 the school moved to this building on Asylum Hill, where it remained for 100 years. Gallaudet's son Edward Miner Gallaudet founded the first college for the deaf, Gallaudet College (now University) in Washington, D.C. The image of the Asylum is after an engraving by Asaph Williard (1786-1880), who worked in Hartford in 1818. The engraved entitled "View of the Asylum for Deaf & Dumb Persons, Hartford, Con." This view was copied by John Warner Barber for his publication Connecticut Historical Collections in 1836. The Staffordshire firms of J. & W. Ridgway and Andrew Stevenson, and Ralph Stevenson produced ceramics with this pattern.
Subjects:
Pottery; Enamel and enameling; glaze (coating by location) Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+82.011 |
