Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, one of the many people who made it possible for deaf Americans to learn, as co-founder of the American School for the Deaf. Thomas was born in 1787 and was the eldest of the Gallaudet children. He went on to study at Yale, and then became a minister. While visiting his family in Hartford, Connecticut, he noticed that his siblings weren 't playing with one girl. He went outside and discovered that she was deaf, he then pointed to his hat and wrote out H.A.T. in the dirt. When he realized that she understood, he wanted to learn more so he could teach her. Her father assisted in paying for him to go study in France and learn more about the hand shapes they used to communicate with the deaf there. After learning some in