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History of the Blind in the US 1832 The Perkins School for the Blind in Boston admits its first two students, the sisters Sophia and Abbey Carter. 1860 Simon Pollak demonstrates the use of Braille at the Missouri School for the Blind. 1861 Helen Adams Keller is born In Tuscumbia, Alabama. 1864 The enabling act giving the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb and Blind the authority to confer college degrees is signed by President Abraham Lincoln, making it the first college in the world expressly established for people with disabilities. A year later, the institution's blind students are transferred to the Maryland Institution at Baltimore, leaving the Columbia Institution with a student body made up entirely of deaf students. The institution would eventually be renamed Gallaudet College, and then Gallaudet University. 1878 Joel W. Smith presents his Modified Braille to the American Association of Instructors of the Blind. The association rejects his system, continuing to endorse instead New York Point, which blind readers complain is more difficult to read and write. What follows is a "War of the Dots" in which blind advocates for the most part prefer Modified Braille, while sighted teachers and administrators, who control funds for transcribing, prefer New York Point. 1887 Anne Sullivan meets Helen Keller for the first time in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Anne suffered from Trachoma and attended the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston. After graduating from Perkins she became Helen Keller's teacher. 1902 Helen Keller, the first deaf-blind person to matriculate at college, publishes her autobiography, The Story of My Life, in a serial 1903 form in Ladies' Home journal in the latter part of 1902, as a book in 1903. 1907 The first issue of the Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind is published. 1909 The New York Public School System adopts Modified or American Braille for use in its classes for blind children, after public hearings in which blind advocates call for abandoning New York Point. 1921 The American Foundation for the Blind is founded. Helen Keller becomes its principal fund-raiser; (Robert Irwin becomes director of research, 1922 executive director in 1929.) 1929 Seeing Eye establishes the first dog guides school for blind people in the United States. 1932 The Treaty of London standardizes American and English Braille. 1936 Passage of the Randolph Sheppard Act establishes a federal program for employing blind vendors at stands in the lobbies of federal office buildings. 1938 Passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act leads to an enormous increase in the number of sheltered work- shop program for blind workers. Although intended to provide training and job opportunities for blind and visually disabled workers, it often leads to exploitation of workers at sub-minimum wages in poor conditions. 1940 The National Federation of the Blind is formed in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, by Jacobus Broek and other blind advocates. It advocates for "white cane laws" and input by blind people into programs for blind clients, among other reforms. 1945 The Blinded Veterans Association (BVA) is formed in Avon, Connecticut. 1961 The American Council of the Blind is formally organized. 1975 The first convention of American Association of the Deaf-Blind is held in Cleveland. 1980 The Women's Braille Press is founded in Minneapolis to make women's and feminist literature available in Braille and on tape. Also see History of Disability Rights |
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