Harriet Burbank Rogers (1834-1919) by Margaret Ingraham and Alec Ingraham

Harriet Rogers, America’s pioneer teacher of the profoundly deaf, was born in North Billerica. Eventually she became Director of the Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton. She revolutionized methods of teaching which brought larger opportunities and greater blessings to deaf children. She retired to her home in Billerica with the knowledge that thousands of deaf children now speak because she led the crusade which enriched their lives.

This article was extracted from the Spring 2000 edition of The Yankee Doodle Times, newsletter of the Billerica Historical Society.