‘A Young Virgin of Great Hopes’: Agency, Belonging, and the Display of Deaf Hester Koolaart (1683-1737) and her Speaking in the Republic of Letters and Beyond

Abstract

This article seeks to reconstruct the life and agency of prelingually deaf Hester Koolaart (1683-1737) of Haarlem. In the literature, she is chiefly remembered as the star pupil of the early deaf educator Johann Conrad Ammann (1669-1724), leading to her objectification as a destination for scientific tourism. Beyond this, we know little about her life. By reading eyewitness accounts of scientists ‘against the grain’ and examining poems, letters, and archival records, we piece together an understanding of Koolaart’s agency and lived experience as a deaf woman in the early modern Dutch Republic and Hessen-Kassel (in present-day Germany). Koolaart’s lived experience turns out to be influenced heavily by her speaking abilities, but not necessarily in the positive way it is framed in the ‘miraculous healing’ discourse of contemporary scientists and family members. As we argue, it must have been not because of her fame, but rather due to her class, that she had opportunities to feel a sense of belonging within hearing contexts.