ROGERS, HARRIET BURBANK

born April 12, 1834, North Billerica, Mass., U.S. died Dec. 12, 1919, North Billerica educator and pioneer in the oral method of instruction of the deaf in the United States. After graduating from Massachusetts State Normal School (now Framingham State College) in 1851, Rogers taught at several schools in Massachusetts. Her prominence as an American educator began in 1863, when she accepted a deaf girl for private instruction. Rogers had read about the use of oral teaching (a method involving the imitation of breathing patterns and larynx vibrations) in German schools for the deaf, anddespite the general acceptance of sign language as the preferred instructional mode in the United Statesshe quite successfully employed the oral method with her new student. In 1866 she cofounded a school for the deaf at Chelmsford, Mass., and the next year was selected to direct the Clarke School for the Deaf (originally Clarke Institution for Deaf Mutes) in Northampton, Mass., a position she held until she retired in 1886. She remained firmly committed to oral teaching and lipreading despite the disdain of the manualists, who used sign language and manual alphabets exclusively. The Rogers position, however, was endorsed in 1886 by the convention of the American Educators of the Deaf.