Lincoln’s 1864 charter marked a turning point. It granted the Columbia Institution the authority to confer college degrees, effectively transforming it into the world’s first higher education institution specifically for deaf students, with instruction in both sign language and English. (The school's visually impaired students later transferred to a Maryland school.) The first class of college students graduated in 1869, receiving diplomas signed by President Ulysses S. Grant. The institution was renamed Gallaudet College in 1894 and became Gallaudet University in 1986.
This development built on decades of earlier work. Formal deaf education in the United States dated back to 1817, when Reverend Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet—Edward’s father—founded the first permanent American school for the deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. Drawing on methods he studied in France and incorporating the signing systems used by his students—including those from Martha’s Vineyard, where a longstanding sign language tradition already existed—the school helped shape what would become American Sign Language (ASL).
Lincoln did not attend the school’s 1864 inauguration, but the charter reflected his broader belief in expanding opportunity. As he had expressed to Congress, government should give all people “a fair chance in the race of life.” His support for the institution aligned with a longer record of advocating for people with disabilities, from his time in the Illinois legislature to Civil War-era policies aiding disabled veterans.
The charter also represents an early example of federal support for higher education. Beginning with the Columbia Institution’s incorporation in 1857, such efforts helped pave the way for broader federal investment in education during the Civil War and Reconstruction, including land-grant colleges and historically Black colleges and universities.
