Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc found the American School for the Deaf (then called the Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons), the first American school for deaf students, in Hartford, Connecticut.

Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet was an American educator. Along with Laurent Clerc and Mason Cogswell, he co-founded the first permanent institution for the education of the deaf in North America, and he became its first principal. When opened on April 15, 1817, it was called the "Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons", but it is now known as the American School for the Deaf.

Louis Laurent Marie Clerc was a French teacher called "The Apostle of the Deaf in America" and was regarded as the most renowned deaf person in American deaf history. He was taught by Abbé Sicard and deaf educator Jean Massieu, at the Institution Nationale des Sourds-Muets in Paris. With Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, he founded the first school for the deaf in North America, the Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, on April 15, 1817, in the old Bennet's City Hotel, Hartford, Connecticut. The school was subsequently renamed the American School for the Deaf and in 1821 moved to 139 Main Street, West Hartford. The school remains the oldest existing school for the deaf in North America.

The American School for the Deaf (ASD), originally The American Asylum, At Hartford, For The Education And Instruction Of The Deaf, is the oldest permanent school for the deaf in the United States, and the first school for deaf children anywhere in the western hemisphere. It was founded April 15, 1817, in Hartford, Connecticut, by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, Mason Cogswell, and Laurent Clerc and became a state-supported school later that year.

Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The city, located in Hartford County, had a population of 121,054 at the 2020 census and was estimated at 122,129 in 2024. Hartford is the most populous city in the Capitol Planning Region and the core city of the Greater Hartford metropolitan area with 1.17 million residents.