| Deafened at age twelve from meningitis, Joseph Schuyler Long, entered the Iowa School for the Deaf soon thereafter and graduated three years later in 1884 at the age of fifteen. He distinguished himself as the youngest student admitted to Gallaudet College receiving his Bachelors degree in 1889. While at Gallaudet, he played on the renowned football team that defeated the US Naval Academy under coach, John Hotchkiss. Following graduation, Long taught at the Wisconsin school for the deaf and served as its athletic director for twelve years before returning to his alma mater in 1901 as head teacher of the academic depart. In 1902, he became acting principal of the Iowa school and became full principal in 1908 and continued in that position until his death. He was honored with a conferred Doctor of Letters degree by Gallaudet College in 1914 in recognition to his extensive literary contributions in the form of a series of poems under the title, "Out of the Silence" published in various deaf newspapers in 1908; as well as the publication of his 1910 The Sign Language: A Manual of Signs. Actively involved in various aspects of Deaf life, among Long's many accomplishments he was editor of the Iowa school newspaper, The Hawkeye from 1901-1923; served as president and secretary of the Iowa Association of the Deaf a number of times; assisted deaf students and graduates in obtaining jobs; was appointed by President Hoover as a delegate to the White House Conference on Child Welfare; was a member of the National Research Council; and drafted a teacher certification plan that influenced the final plan adopted by the Conference of American Instructors of the Deaf. As A. L. Roberts, Grand President of the National Fraternal Society of the Deaf and president of the Gallaudet College Alumni Association stated in speaking of J. Schuyler Long, "he recognized, perhaps better than most, the beauty and rhythm of the sign language of the deaf." |
| (Sources: Fanwood Journal (vol. 5 no. 5, 1937); Silent Worker (vol. 9, no. 5, The Convention Weekly Bulletin (CAID)(vol.2, no. 4, November 10, 1933); The Iowa Hawkeye (vol. 49 no. 15, May 15, 1929);
The Silent Worker vol. 35 no. 10 (July 1923) |