Perkins School for the Blind

History

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 (24,000 m²) 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.

Perkins today

In the 21st century, Perkins has expanded its mission online to include resources for families with blind and visually impaired children, and teachers of the visually impaired (TVIs). Perkins has also worked with its local partners in Asian countries to host an online community where educators, caregivers and families can network strategies on how to transition their students through life.

In 2011, Perkins completed construction of the Grousbeck Center for Students and Technology on its 38-acre campus in Watertown, Massachusetts. This facility houses accessible technology for people who are blind or visually impaired.

Perkins International

Perkins partners with local groups in 67 countries—schools, universities, NGOs, nonprofits, government agencies, and parent networks—to educate and empower people who are blind, deafblind or visually impaired, who may have additional disabilities. The organization does this through disseminating resources, such as Perkins Braillers, funding and expertise on the ground in these countries. One such example of this work in the African countries of Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya is Perkins role in the Kilimanjaro Blind Trust, Inc. (KBT).

Special educators from other countries are also invited to the Watertown campus every year, for an intensive study of blindness and multiple-disability education, which they then bring back to their respective regions.

Perkins Solutions

Perkins Solutions concentrates on a broad array of assistive technology and accessibility assessment, training, and consulting. The range of Perkins Braillers ship to 175 countries and includes the Classic Brailler, the Next Generation Brailler and the Smart Brailler launched in 2012 with text-to-speech output, visual display, and applications for teaching braille. This subsidiary of Perkins also partners with associations for the blind and partially sighted, education ministers and resellers around the globe in an effort to provide accessible equipment—including Perkins Braillers, brailler repair and assistive technology—to all who need it.

#BlindNewWorld

On May 5, 2016, Perkins launched BlindNewWorld a social change campaign aimed at helping the sighted population to be more inclusive of people who are blind and to make the world more accessible to them.

National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program

On June 8, 2012, in conjunction with the Helen Keller National Center (HKNC) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Perkins School for the Blind was selected to conduct nationwide outreach for the National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program (NDBEDP).

Mandated by the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) and established by the FCC, the NDBEDP will aid individuals with combined vision and hearing loss connect with family, friends and their community by distributing accessible communications technology. Perkins and partners' outreach campaign to educate people on this program is called iCanConnect, which will aim to inform the nearly one million people in the United States with some sort of combined hearing and vision loss on the types of equipment—e.g. screen-enlargement software, video phones and electronic refreshable braille displays—available to them free of charge.

Affiliations

Perkins Braille and Talking Book Library works in conjunction with the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) at its Watertown chapter.

Perkins has collaborated with the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired on a Web resource called PathsToLiteracy.org, an online hub for information related to literacy for students who are blind or visually impaired, including those with additional disabilities or deafblindness.

The international nonprofit has also worked in conjunction with the American Foundation for the Blind to ensure that Expanded Core Curriculum (ECC) be taught in mainstream schools.

Perkins is a member Council of Schools for the Blind.