Browse Items (16 total)

In this story, a Scottish shepherd named Sandie Leslie raises his daughter Elsie alone. The girl falls blind in an accident when the tree she was playing in is struck by lightning. Elsie gradually adjusts to her blindness and learns to speed away…

This book's frontispiece depicts smiling children guiding blind Leonard, taller than the rest and wearing a hat, to sit in their teacher's chair. Leonard then tells of how he became blind with great embellishment and a strangely adult attitude of…

Not unlike letterpress cases for the sighted, these cases for the blind were organized according to letter, case (upper or lower), signs, accented letters, figures, etc. They were set at a forty-five degree angle so that the letters would not move…

These engravings are from an 1819 essay by the director of Paris' institute for the blind. They depict the punches and matrices used to print a twenty-five letter alphabet that was discernible by touch—the two sides of the "u" were separated to…

Every Thursday, the children had cubes that could be arranged into simple sculptures. Inventively recreating spaces they knew, they would “see” the forms with their fingers and craft the furniture of the gymnasium and schoolroom. They also told…

In Kindergarten and Primary School for the Blind: A Second Appeal for Its Foundation and Endowment (1884), Michael Anagnos wrote about students’ tactile activities at a school for the blind in New England. These activities were deeply informed by the…

Illustrator Katharine Pyle (1863-1938) was the sister of lauded artist Howard Pyle. She studied at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women and the New York Art Students’ League. The Counterpane Fairy was the first success of her career, in which…

Frances Browne (1816-1879) was a writer and poet from Donegal, Ireland. At the age of 18 months, she contracted smallpox and became blind—which is striking given the amount of visual imagery she includes in her writing. Her brothers and sisters read…

This highlight of Merrymind’s broken fiddle is a curious thing to include at the chapter’s conclusion. After Merrymind meets the night-spinners and plays music which frees an entire community from slavish work, Browne writes that “man, woman, and…

The themes of sacrifice, perseverance, and finding worth in what is broken shine through in “The Story of Merrymind.” One of thirteen children, Merrymind is discouraged that the fiddle he spent his allowance on cannot be mended with ordinary…