Despite its contemporary popularity, Braille did not become universal in Louis’ lifetime-he died in 1852 and it was only adopted in France and England in the late 1800s and later worldwide.īy developing writing systems that relied on touch and combining them with technological developments like typewriters, communication was made easier and quicker for everyone, while providing greater autonomy and potential employment opportunities for blind and partially sighted people.ĭuring the 19th century, blind and partially sighted people were largely educated in specific schools that specialised in teaching disabled children. Braille is a system in which raised dots in a six-dot cell represent each letter of the alphabet, as well as equivalents for punctuation marks and symbols to show letter groupings, Braille is read by moving your hands from left to right along each line. Louis Braille developed his own method aged 15, having lost his sight at a young age. The Braille system was inspired by the ‘Night-Writing’ method developed by Charles Barbier, a soldier in Napoleon Bonaparte’s army, which allowed soldiers to communicate safely during the night without a light by using a raised twelve-dot system. Louis Braille is best known for the hugely influential tactile writing system named after him. Children from poor backgrounds were often taught to read and write using the bible, and it follows that education for blind and partially sighted people would also use this method. Many of these books are religious texts, illustrating the importance of religion in education in the 19th century. There are a number of books written in the Frere system in our collection. Early assistive technologies were important to these efforts. Various schools began to spring up throughout Europe, America and other places, where blind and Deaf people were taught to engage in established or traditional ways of learning such as reading, writing and speaking, so they could communicate more easily with hearing people. However, it was around this time when attitudes began to change-in line with Enlightenment values of improved and increased access to education. Opportunities for blind and partially sighted people would have been limited in the early 1800s, when tools for communication and education were mostly available to the wealthy, who could afford personalised technology or private tutors.
No drawings of this machine have survived, but in the state archives of Reggio Emilia in Italy there are letters which were written on the device by the Countess.Īlthough the evidence around this device is sparse and sometimes conflicting, it’s notable that a device which may be considered the first typewriter was actually designed for a blind person to communicate with. The next (controversial) contender for the title of first inventor of the typewriter was Italian Pellegrino Turri (1808), who allegedly built a device for his blind lover Countess Fantoni da Fivizzano in order for them to communicate.
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