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The history of the deaf is the history of the Education of the deaf. It's a long history. There is
evidence of sign language going back a long way, but the most original figure of recent times has
been Jean Massieau, the "first" deaf teacher of the deaf who taught Laurent Clerc who went from France
to the States to found Gallaudet University which kept the flame of Sign Lanugauage based education alive
even after the infamous Milan Congress all but outlawed it in Europe.
Deaf history, as with arts by nature higly "oral" (manual to be precise..!) and there are widely varying interpretations of it according
to politcal thought. The British Deaf History society has been founded with the aim of recording and
rediscovering some of these lost fragments. Many interesting snippets can be found on it's web pages.
The standard work on Deaf History and the events of the French Revolutionary period that eventually lead to
Gallaudet University is "When The Mind Hears". It does not pretend to be an impartial history and is sometimes
firecly polemical in favour of sign lanuage over spoken language in the education of the Deaf. This ruffles some
feathers, but feathers are made to be ruffled. For the hearie needing insight into "what it is like to be
Deaf" I can much more wholeheartedly reccomend David Hare's "Deafness - A Personal Account". | 
