09/03/2026
Happy Deaf Awareness Month!!
September is Deaf Awareness Month. Worth starting with the man who got deaf people written into the Declaration of the Rights of Man. 🤟
Charles-Michel de l'Épée was a Paris priest who had been denied ordination, then denied a license to officiate. Working among the poor instead, he met two deaf sisters who signed fluently to each other.
He did the thing almost nobody did: he learned their signs first, then built a teaching method on top of them rather than replacing them. In 1760 he opened a school in his own house on the rue des Moulins — free, and open to the public.
That last part is why it spread. He let other educators watch. Nine of his foreign students went home and founded schools of their own.
He died in 1789, as the Revolution began. Two years later the National Assembly named him a Benefactor of Humanity and declared that deaf people held rights under the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris
[Image description: A black-and-white engraved portrait. An older white man in dark clerical robes with white preaching bands at his throat and wavy shoulder-length hair faces the viewer. A crucifix and a lectern appear behind him at left. Small text at the top reads "Deaf Connection" above a white pill reading "WORTH KNOWING." A serif headline reads "He learned their signs, then opened the first school." Centered lower text reads "Abbé de l'Épée," "Priest • First free Deaf school, 1760," "Why it mattered: Deaf people written into the Rights of Man." The Tive logo sits at the bottom center.]
