Agatha Tiegel Hanson

Agatha Tiegel Hanson was an American educator and advocate for deaf communities, remembered as the first woman to earn a Bachelor of Arts from the National Deaf Mute College, now Gallaudet University, when she graduated in 1893 as only the school's second female graduate. Born in 1873, she went on to teach at the Minnesota School for the Deaf, building a career centered on educating deaf students at a time when few women held such academic credentials. Alongside her teaching, Hanson wrote poetry and prose for national deaf publications including The Silent Worker and edited The Seattle Observer, a newspaper serving Seattle's deaf community. She remained active for decades in deaf organizations in the Seattle area, using both her writing and her advocacy to support deaf education and community life. She died in 1959.