Perkins School for the Blind


Perkins School for the Blind,

at Watertown, Mass.; chartered 1829, opened 1832 in South Boston as the New England Asylum for the Blind, with Samuel G. HoweHowe, Samuel Gridley,
1801–76, American reformer and philanthropist, b. Boston, Mass., grad. Brown, 1821, M.D. Harvard, 1824. He began his life-long service to others by going to Greece to aid in its war for independence and spent six years there.
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 as its director; moved 1912. From 1877 to 1955 it was called the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind. It was the first chartered school for blind children in the United States. Among the school's pupils were Laura BridgmanBridgman, Laura,
1829–89, the first blind and deaf person to be successfully educated, b. Hanover, N.H. Under the guidance of Dr. S. G. Howe, of the Perkins School for the Blind, she learned to read and write and to sew, eventually becoming a sewing teacher at the school,
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 and Anne Sullivan MacyMacy, Anne Sullivan,
1866–1936, American educator, friend and teacher of Helen Keller, b. Feeding Hills, Mass. Placed in Tewksbury almshouse (1876), she was later admitted (1880) to Perkins Institution for the Blind, since her eyes had been seriously weakened by a
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. Since 1982 it has also educated individuals with other than visual handicaps.