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Agatha Tiegel Hanson was a first deaf woman to graduate with a four year degree Bachelor of Arts on Presentation Day at Gallaudet College (now University) in 1893. She was Valedictorian and delivered her address, "The Intellect of Women" at the graduation commencement.

Agatha was born in Pittsburgh, PA on September 14, 1878. She became deaf due to spinal meningitis and at the same time, she had blindness with one eye at the age of 7.

After she had private school and private tutoring, she attended Western Pennsylvania Institute for the Deaf and Dumb (now Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf) at the age of 13 in 1886.

At the age of 15, she was admitted to the Prep School, Gallaudet College in 1888. During her college years, she founded O.W.L.S. (now Phi Kappa Zeta) and became a first president of this sorority.

Until her graduation in 1893, she was only one woman in her graduate class as senior.

She moved to Minnesota to teach deaf children at the Minnesota School for the Deaf for six years. As she left her teaching job she was married to a deaf man, Olof Hanson, architect and also 8th NAD President. Her husband designed several schools for the deaf, hotels, churches and public buildings in several cities, plus a first clubhouse for Deaf people in St Paul, Minnesota.

They had three daughters. Since being a widow of her husband passing away in 1933, she died on October 17, 1959 at the age of 86 in Portland, Oregon.

She had published poems including one book, "Overflow Verses". Her best known poems were "Inner Music", "Semi Mates" and "T.H. Gallaudet". The Gallaudet Archive has the Agatha Tiegel Hanson collection that consists of 4,000 pages dated from 1958 to 1972, plus her letters to her daughter, Alice Hanson Jones from 1936 to 1958. Alice, her daughter was a 1982 Delta Zeta Woman of the Year. One plaza was named in her honor at Gallaudet University in 1980s.

Note:
It is possible that we may have difficulty to access to the Gallaudet Archives for viewing Agatha T. Hanson collection. Her collection is not displayed on the web at this time but their policy states that it is open to public but requires us to place our requests through a local library.