About Perkins School for the Blind
175 North Beacon Street Watertown, MA
Perkins School for the Blind, in Watertown, Massachusetts, is the oldest school for the blind in the United States. It has also been known as the Perkins Institution for the Blind.
Perkins manufactures its own Perkins Brailler, which is used to print embossed, tactile books for the blind; and the Perkins SMART Brailler, a braille teaching tool, at the Perkins Solutions division housed within the Watertown campus's former Howe Press.
Founded in 1829, Perkins was the first school for the blind established in the United States. The school was originally named the New England Asylum for the Blind and was incorporated on March 2, 1829. The name was eventually changed to Perkins School For the Blind. John Dix Fisher first considered the idea of a school for blind children based upon his visits to Paris at the National Institute for the Blind and was inspired to create such a school in Boston.
The school is named in honor of Thomas Handasyd Perkins, one of the organization's incorporators and a Boston shipping merchant who began losing his sight at the time of establishment. In 1833, the school outgrew the Pleasant Street house of the father of its founder Samuel Gridley Howe, and Perkins donated his Pearl Street mansion as the school's second home. In 1839, Perkins sold the mansion and donated the proceeds. This gift allowed the purchase of a more spacious building in South Boston. In 1885, 6 acres were purchased in the Hyde Square section of Jamaica Plain, a residential district of Boston, to build a kindergarten. This property was home to both Laura Bridgman and Helen Keller. The school moved to its present campus, in Watertown, Massachusetts, in the autumn of 1912.
Charles Dickens visited Perkins in 1842 during a lecture tour of America and was amazed at the work Howe was doing with Laura Bridgman, a deaf-blind girl who had come to the school in 1837 from New Hampshire. He wrote about his visit in his book, American Notes.
In 1887, Perkins director Michael Anagnos sent graduate Anne Sullivan to teach Helen Keller in Alabama. After working with her pupil at the Keller home, Sullivan returned to Perkins with Keller in 1888 and resided there intermittently until 1893.
In 1931, Perkins Braille and Talking Book Library (BTBL) was created.
In 1951, David Abraham successfully produced the first Perkins Brailler. By 1977, about 100,000 Perkins Braillers had been produced and distributed worldwide.
