James Smedley Brown (September 10, 1819 – 1863) was a nineteenth-century American

educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

of the deaf who is credited with the publication of the first

dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies ...

American Sign Language American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canadians, Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual lang ...

. He attended

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...

, and died in 1863.

Career

From 1842 to 1845, Brown taught at the

Ohio School for the Deaf Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. He was superintendent at the

Indiana School for the Deaf Indiana School for the Deaf (ISD) is a fully accredited school for the deaf and hard of hearing, located in Indianapolis, Indiana. It won the best deaf school in America in 2011 and 2014. History When the first school for the Deaf was establi ...

(1845–1852) and the

Louisiana School for the Deaf The Louisiana School for the Deaf is a state school for deaf and hard-of-hearing students in Louisiana, located in Baton Rouge, the state capital. It was established in 1852 as a joint school for blind students. In 1860, its first purpose-built ...

(1853–1860).

Sign-language dictionaries

Brown published ''A Vocabulary of Mute Signs'' in 1856, as well as ''A'' ''Dictionary of Signs and of the Language of Action, for the Use of Deaf-Mutes, their Instructors and Friends; and, also, designed to facilitate to members of the

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, Clergymen, Political Speakers, Lecturers, and to the Pupils of Schools, Academies, and Colleges, The Acquisition of a Natural, Graceful, Distinctive and Life-Like Gesticulation'' in 1860. Brown's works would be the only reference works on American Sign Language for decades.

References

* A Language of Action: James Smedley Brown and his 1860 Cartesian-based Dictionary of American Sign Language * 1819 births Deaf culture in the United States Oberlin College alumni Special education in the United States Educators of the deaf 1863 deaths {{US-edu-bio-stub