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Biographies

This collection includes the life stories of a range of musicians from the 19^th and 20^th centuries. They represent a wide range of disabilities including people who are blind, deafblind, congenital amputees, who have intellectual disability and/or autism, are short statured or conjoined twins. They also represent a wide range of performance traditions, from church organists to freak show performers to blues musicians.

It is a particular privilege to have access to the autobiographies listed below, as they give us a chance to hear in the musicians’ own words about the way they balance people’s expectations of disabled performers, with their own aspirations as artists. Armless violinist Carl Unthan longs to be taken seriously as a performer on the concert platform, but includes “tricks” like shooting a gun or writing a letter with his feet to please the audience. In contrast short-statured performer Charles S. Stratton, who worked under the stage name “General Tom Thumb” in P.T. Barnum’s travelling show, embraced his role in freakshows and managed to maintain financial control over his career, quickly out-earning his famous producer. For conjoined twins Millie and Christine McCoy, however, the decision about whether to perform in freak shows was not theirs to make. As African Americans living in the South in the mid-19^th century, decisions about their lives were made by their slave owners, and at one point in their childhood, by their kidnappers. As we read the words of the McCoy sisters we must also be aware that everything they wrote had to be approved by their slave owners prior to being published.

Not every disabled musician has the privilege of being able to write even a censored version of their own story. “Blind Tom” Wiggins, for example, was another enslaved disabled musician. As an enslaved black blind man who was also autistic and/or intellectual disabled, he did not have access to literacy support or education. As a result, the biographies on Wiggins featured here had to be written by others.

Finally, it should be noted that not all of the biographies in this collection are directly about musicians, or even about people with disability. Helen Keller’s biography outlines how she used music to improve her speech as a deafblind woman, and Preacher in Song tells of the life of Josh White, a sighted man who did his musical apprenticeship working as a guide for blind musicians.

• Denham, Avery S. “Preacher in Song,” Collier’s 118, no. 20 (Nov. 16, 1946). Autobiography of Josh White who did is musical apprenticeship as a sighted guide for blind musicians.
• Harris, Sheldon. Blues Who’s Who: A Biographical Dictionary of Blues Singers. New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House Publishers, 1979. Features biographies of a number of performers with disability, including Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Willie McTell and Joshua Barnes “Peg Leg” Howell.
• History and Medical Description of the Two-Headed Girl: Sold by Her Agents for Her Special Benefit, at 25 Cents. Buffalo: Warren, Johnson & Co., 1869. Autobiography of conjoined twins Millie and Christine McCoy.
• Hollins, Alfred. A Blind Musician Looks Back: An Autobiography. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood & Sons, 1936. The autobiography of blind organist Alfred Hollins.
• Kling, Alice. “The Most Amazing Achievement in the History of Music Study: The Remarkable Story of a Student Who Has Been Blind and Deaf from Babyhood, yet Plays the Piano Fluently,” The Etude Magazine 46, no. 9, (September, 1928): 667-668. An interview with deafblind pianist Helen May Martin and her parents.
• Lady Campbell. “English, French and American Organists, Blind,” Outlook for the Blind 18, no. 1 (June 1924): 19-37. Focuses on biographies and training for blind organists.
• Longbottom, Eva H. Silver Bells of Memory: A Brief Account of My Life, Views and Interests. Bristol: Rankin Bros. Ltd., 1933. Autobiography of blind poet, singer and pianist Eva H. Longbottom. 
• Macdonald, Colin. Notable Blind Musicians, Being the Story of Musicians Educated at the Royal Dundee Institution for the Blind. Dundee: Royal Dundee Institution for the Blind, 1920. Includes Henry Marshall, Joshua S Brand, Duncan McPherson and others.
• Mallinson, George and Jacqueline V. Mallison. “…And the Blind Man on the corner who sang the Beale St Blues,” Blindness: AAWB Annual (1972): 71-93. An article on the contribution of blind performers to the Blues.
• McCloud, Barry. Definitive Country: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Country Music and Its Performers, First Edition. New York: Perigee, 1994. Features biographies of a number of disabled performers including Alfred Reed, Hank Williams and G.B. Grayson.
• Nicholson, Lois P. Helen Keller: Humanitarian. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1996. Biography of the famous deafblind author and activist.
• Sawyer, C. M. History of the Blind Vocalists. New York: J. W. Harrison, 1853. Includes biographies of Charles Rossiter Coe, Anna Smith, Mary Brush and others. 
• Thumb, Tom. An Account of the Life … of Charles S. Stratton: The American in Miniature, Known as General Tom Thumb, 25 Years Old, 25 Inches High, and Weighing Only 15 Pounds. With Some Account of … Dwarfs. London: T. Brettell, 1845. A playbill featuring a (somewhat fictional) biography of Charles S. Stratton also known as General Tom Thumb.
• Unthan, Carl Herrmann. The Armless Fiddler, a Pediscript: Being the Life Story of a Vaudeville Man. London: G. Allen & Unwin ltd, 1935. The autobiography of armless violinist Carl Unthan.
• Wilson, James. Biography of the Blind: Or, Lives of Such as Have Distinguished Themselves as Poets, Philosophers, Artists, Etc. Birmingham: Printed by J.W. Showell, 1835. This collection features a number of blind musicians including Turlagh Carolan, Denis Hampson, William Talbot and a description of how Handel coped with blindness in old age.

Music in Institutions

Hospitals, asylums and other medical institutions have often historically included music as part of their services. Music can be used in many therapeutic contexts, including to improve physical dexterity, for relaxation, to improve mobility and communication and to provide leisure and career options. Prior to the invention of recorded music, the only way to provide this music was through live performance and as a result, many institutions featured their own bands, orchestras or choirs made up of staff and/or residents. These ensembles not only provided music within the institution but they also provided important outreach services by performing at special events like hospital open days, and for celebrations in their local communities. For community members, seeing disabled hospital and asylum patients gainfully employed in music making also served to integrate them into society, and in some cases even provided patients with future avenues of employment after discharge.

Within this resource set, the most detailed description of the varied uses of music in hospitals and institutions is Willem van der Wall’s 1935 Music in Institutions which claims to be the first book with the “systematic representations of aims, methods and cautions to be observed in this field of music in welfare work.” It covers a range of institutions, including residential schools and correctional institutions as well as hospitals and asylums. Of particular interest is Chapter X “Music for the Physically Infirm and Mentally Deficient,” outlining specific techniques and technologies for music therapy and education for people with disability. As can be seen by the title of the chapter, the language used is confronting for modern readers, as are many of the assumptions behind it. For example, teachers of the blind are told to support and encourage their pupils to seek careers as musicians, instrument makers or piano tuners, but the assumption is that “crippled” (physically disabled) and “mentally deficient” (intellectually disabled) pupils will be incapable of reaching such heights, stating “No mentally deficient person can be artistic in the technical sense of the term, because he lacks the intellectual discrimination essential for aesthetic understanding and artistic action.” 

It is not just attitudes towards people with disability that have changed since this book was published in 1935, objects now considered commonplace, everyday items are discussed as the latest in adaptive technology. This is made evident in the section on convalescent wards which discusses the therapeutic benefits of employing newly available headphone technology. This meant that for the first-time patients could listen to the radio without disturbing those in the beds around them. As with all new technologies, they were far from perfect, and involved all listeners having their headphones attached by a cord to a radio at the front of the room. This meant that listeners could not choose their own volume or change channels, but it still allowed patients who did not wish to listen to remain undisturbed. The section on Music Room and Equipment also provides an interesting example of the kind of equipment used in music education and therapy at the time. Although there is little information on adaptive equipment specifically, it does outline the way sound proofing, music playback equipment and instruments were managed in the 1930s.

The Lantern was the regular newsletter of the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind. Founded in 1829 it was the first school for the blind in the United States and continues to operate today under the name Perkins School for the Blind.⁵ The Medical Heritage Library’s collection includes an anthology of issues of The Lantern published between 1935 and 1951. Braille editions of these issues were also produced. Although The Lantern is not about music specifically, but about the school’s activities more broadly, the many articles about music highlight the central part that music played in its curricula and in the lives of its students and teachers. There are many references to concerts and other musical activities and achievements by both current and former students and staff. Highlights include the March 1936 edition which contains the results on a survey on blind music education, the December 1938 issue with an obituary for the school’s long-time music teacher Edwin L Gardner and a description of a new service to create copies of braille music on demand (until that point, blind musicians had been limited to specialist braille collections). The same edition also reports on the installation of headphones in the deafblind department (just three years after their use was suggested in Music in Institutions above), allowing students with residual hearing to better take part in chapel services. The December 1940 edition outlines scholarships, including music scholarships, available to students, and describes the fact that some senior students are also employed by the school to teach music parttime to younger pupils, while the December 1943 edition gives an overview of the wide range of musical activities held at Perkins in the preceding year.

The final two entries in this section refer to a cultural and medical phenomenon which fortunately no longer exists, that of the leper band. Prior to the introduction of successful treatments for leprosy in the 1940s, people living with the illness were often segregated into ‘leper colonies’ in an attempt to avoid the illness spreading into surrounding communities. Segregation meant that such colonies were forced to provide their own entertainment and many formed their own bands. As with hospital and asylum bands, these ensembles could also be used for public outreach and fundraising – as long as they performed at a safe distance from able-bodied audiences. Indian poet Arun Kolatkar (1932-2004)⁶, who was well-known for writing about social outcasts, describes witnessing one such ensemble.

This collection includes descriptions of two 19^th-century leper bands, one in Hawaiian, and the famous Culion Colony Leper Band from India. While these references describe the bands, they also give us an insight into the lives of the residents of these remote colonies, and the way they were seen by the few people brave enough to visit them. 

• Bird, Isabella L. The Hawaiian Archipelago: Six Months among the Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, & Volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands. London: John Murray, 1890. Includes descriptions of a local leper band.
• The Lantern. A collection of newsletters from the Perkins School for the Blind between 1935 and 1951. Contains many references to musical activities by the schools current and former students and teachers.
• Van de Wall, Willem. Music in Institutions. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1936. A detailed description of the way music was used therapeutically in hospitals, prisons, asylums and residential schools in the 1930s
• Woolley, Monroe. “Curing the Dean of Diseases,” in The Trained Nurse and Hospital Review 56, no. 1 (January 1916): 9-13 Includes a description of the famous Culion Colony Leper Band.

Accessibility

As has already been demonstrated, musicians with disabilities have always taken their place on the concert platform, but in order for them to do so, their access requirements need to be met. These requirements can include a wide range of adaptations, including making stages and venues physically accessible, appropriate sound and lighting systems, adaptive musical instruments and access to alternate forms of music literacy such as braille and various computer programs.

As with Music in Institutions (1936) described above, Arts and the Handicapped (1975) provides a snapshot in time, of the availability music technology and its accessibility. Concentrating on the American context, it outlines current best-practice standards for patron accessibility to artistic events and buildings, long before the introduction of the Americans with Disability Act (1990). It then provides profiles of major arts community and education programs around the country, with a focus on their accessibility. Although this book covers all artforms, a number of the profiles discuss music programs and technologies they use that are specifically designed to be accessible for people with a range of disabilities.

The report of the Technology-Related Assistance for Individuals with Disabilities Act of 1988 is notable for the testimony of Teddy Pendergrass, a singer who returned to his professional career after becoming quadriplegic. Pendergrass’ manager, John Hartman also attended the hearing. Pendergrass testified that, with the use of adaptive technology, he is “able to compete on an equal basis with any musician… When it comes to my music, my disability is not important,” however he also noted that technology was useless without training and support to learn how to use and maintain it. The report does not outline the exact nature of the devices that Pendergrass was using, but they do note that he was only making “simple modifications’ to allow him to use ‘sophisticated electronic musical technology.” Key to making these modifications work, according to Pendergrass, was the personal involvement of the disabled person in the design of the technology they would use.

Art for Humanity’s Sake (1976) tells the story of the development and exhibitions of the Mary Duke Biddle Gallery for the Blind. The Mary Duke Biddle Gallery was conceived as a place that would make fine arts accessible for people who are blind or have low vision. Although the main focus of the gallery is on tactile art, a number of aural sculptures and displays are mentioned. Blind visitors are shown playing traditional drums in one museum display, while the gallery also featured a range of listening rooms, headphones and loudspeaker devices to ensure communication with blind patrons throughout the premises. There is also a profile on a sound-sculpture created by Francois and Bernard Baschet which allowed patrons to interact with it to create their own music. Blind jazz pianist George Shearing is pictured playing the sculpture.

Hobbies of Blind Adults (1953) contains two sections relevant to this resource set. The section on music discusses the availability of braille music, as well as another tactile music notation method then being developed for popular music, as well as hints and tips for performers, like ways to navigate to correct seating positions in a choir, and printing braille music on black paper to match choir robes. The section on sound recording or the “camera for the blind” as it is referred to, outlines the various advantages and disadvantages of the three main methods available at the time: tape recording (reel to reel), wire recording and disc (record) recording.

New Outlook for the Blind (1973) contains all the issues of the journal aimed at professionals working with blind people released in that year. These issues contain a range of references to music for the blind, including in education, employment and leisure as well as in rehabilitation and mobility training. A highlight is a discussion of music education and the suitability of various musical instruments in the October edition, however, the journal’s paid advertisements and classified sections also provide a wealth of information on technologies available to blind people and those who worked with them in the early 1970s.

• Educational Facilities Laboratories. Arts and the Handicapped: an Issue of Access: a Report from Educational Facilities Laboratories and the National Endowment for the Arts. New York: Educational Facilities Laboratories, 1975. Outlines the accessibility of various arts programs and services available in the USA in 1975.
• New Outlook for the Blind, 1973. Has numerous articles and advertisements on music education, career and leisure options and technologies for blind people.
• Ritter, Charles G. Hobbies of Blind Adults. New York: American Foundation for the Blind, 1953. Includes chapters on music and sound recording.
• Stanford, Charles W. Art for Humanity’s Sake: The Story of the Mary Duke Biddle Gallery for the Blind. Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1976. Includes descriptions and images of sound sculptures as well as discussion of audio description and other services for the blind in a gallery setting.
• United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Labor and Human Resources. Technology-Related Assistance for Individuals with Disabilities Act of 1988: Report (to Accompany S. 2561). [Washington, D.C.]: [U.S. G.P.O.], 1988. Includes testimony from quadriplegic singer Teddy Pendergrass on the technology he uses to support his career.

Education and Literacy

This section is the largest in this resource guide. It is also the most focused on musicians who are blind or have low vision, demonstrating the central place that music education has in educational and vocational support for that community, as well as the extra educational resources required to make music literacy accessible for people unable to read print music. Indeed, there is only one resource on this list that is not solely or predominantly devoted to music education for people who are blind or have low vision, and that is John Kitto’s book titled The Lost Senses (1845). The book contains two volumes, the first about deafness and the second about blindness. In volume one Kitto who was deaf himself, includes a chapter titled “Percussions” that outlines the methods that deaf people can utilize vibrations to understand the sounds around them. There is also a short section starting on page 196 about music appreciation for deaf listeners. Volume two contains a chapter on blind musicians.

A Music Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped outlines the collections of the Library of Congress’s Music Section of the Division for the Blind and Physically Handicapped available in 1976. The collection was available by mail order and included scores, instruction manuals, and books about music in Braille and large print and on cassette, record and magnetic tape. The available scores demonstrate the expectations of suitable instruments for blind people, with an extensive piano and organ section, smaller collections for violin and voice and ‘considerably less’ for other instruments. The book also details learning methods for blind musicians, describing packs containing sheet music (for sighted accompanists), Braille and large print copies of solos and a cassette recording of the solo, broken into small segments for ease of learning. Although the library catered for both blind and physically handicapped patrons, there is no mention of technologies specifically for people who are physically handicapped, although some could, of course, have benefited from access to audio recordings of printed material. The New Braille Musician (1973 & 1975) and That All May Read: Library Service for Blind and Physically Handicapped People (1983) also describe music collections for the blind.

By comparing the various resources on music literacy for the blind in this collection, we can see how systems have changed over time. The earliest system described is in Apparatus to Enable the Blind to Learn and Teach Music (1815). This outlines a music notation system prior to the introduction of braille. Although the apparatus is unfortunately not pictured, the article describes music notation that is not punched into card, but made up of brass characters set up on a three-foot long wooden board. As cumbersome as this may sound, it is described as being far easier than a previously available system which was apparently made of 600 wooden pieces.

By 1880 the Ontario Institution for the Education of the Blind’s Annual Reports outline three currently available methods of music notation, all using embossed card, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each. They were braille, embossed standard notation and the New York Point System. By 1935 Alexander Reuss’s book Development and Problems of Musical Notation for the Blind focuses predominantly on braille, while also giving a short history of the development of various types of notation. Reuss also emphasizes that many blind musicians have successful careers playing only by ear, and he also discusses ways that blind and sighted musicians can express their musical ideas to each other. By the 1970s, The New Braille Musician still features braille, including detailed descriptions of technical details like notating slurs (1975), and a description of a new system to use computers to print Braille music for the first time (1973).

This resource set also includes a number of articles on professional development resources for blind people working in different aspects of the music industry. History of the Education of the Blind (1910) highlight the suitability of both piano and organ as instruments for blind performers, particularly emphasizing the career stability offered by positions as church organist. It also includes a section on piano tuners. Report of Deputation of Musicians and Tuners to France and Germany (1930) outlines a research trip to Germany by British musicians and piano tuners to learn about the latest supports available for blind people working in both fields. The Blind Musician and His Training (1922) and Higher Education for the Blind: A Visit to the Royal Normal College and Academy of Music (1887) both discuss professional education for blind musicians while, in contrast, Teaching the Music Business (2004) and The Blind in Music Education of the Sighted (1951) both discuss methods blind teachers can utilize in supporting their students (sighted or otherwise).

• Burford, Leonard. “The Blind in Music Education of the Sighted.” PhD diss. Columbia University, 1952. A doctoral thesis written by blind music teacher Leonard Burford on techniques for teaching music to sighted pupils.
• Cooke, Matthew. “Apparatus to Enable the Blind to Learn and Teach Music,” 1815.
  Describes an early 19^th century machine for teaching music literacy to the blind.
• “Higher Education for the Blind: A Visit to the Royal Normal College and Academy of Music,” (1887) A description of educational courses available for the blind available at the Royal Normal College and Academy of Music in 1887.
• Holbrook, M. Cay, Tessa McCarthy, and Cheryl Kamei-Hannan. Foundations of Education, Third Edition, Volume II: Instructional Strategies for Teaching Children and Youths with Visual Impairments. New York: AFB Press, 2017. Chapter 16 on arts curriculum is particularly relevant to this collection.
• Illingworth, W. H. History of the Education of the Blind. London: Sampson, Low, Marston and Company, Ltd., 1910. Discusses the suitability of careers in music, particularly as organists and pianists, for blind people.
• Kitto, John. The Lost Senses. London: Charles Knight & Co, 1845. Contains two volumes  – Deafness and Blindness. Written by John Kitto who was deaf himself.
• Konagaya, T. “Education of the Blind in Japan,” Outlook for the Blind 45, no. 2 (February 1951): 33-38. Article focusing on music education for the blind in Japan.
• Levine, Audrey. “Teaching the Music Business,” The Blind Teacher 27, no. 1 (Spring 2003): [3-6].
  Reflections from a blind music teacher.
• Library of Congress. That All May Read: Library Service for Blind and Physically Handicapped People. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1983. Description of the Library of Congress’ National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped in 1983.
• Music for Blind and Physically Handicapped Individuals, Fall 1976. Describes the collection of Library of Congress’s Music Section of the Division for the Blind and Physically Handicapped available in 1976.
• National Institute for the Blind. The Braille Centenary. [London]: National Institute for the Blind, [1929]. Focuses on music.
• National Union of the Professional and Industrial Blind of Great Britain and Ireland. Report of Deputation of Musicians and Tuners to France and Germany. [London]: National Union of the Professional and Industrial Blind, 1930. Describes a research trip by delegates from the UK to France and Germany to explore best practice options for employing blind people as musicians and piano tuners.
• The New Braille Musician (1973 & 1975). Outlines services available to blind musicians in the 1970s.
• Ontario Institution for the Education of the Blind. Annual Reports, 1880. Toronto: Printed by C. Blackette Robinson, 1881. Includes a discussion of the types of music notation then available to blind musicians.
• Reuss, Alexander, Ellen Kerney, and Merle E. Frampton (trans). Development and Problems of Musical Notation for the Blind. [New York]: New York Institute for the Education of the Blind, 1935. Provides a short history on music notation for the blind.
• Sherman, Robert. “Why Popular Music for the Blind,” Outlook for the Blind 52, no. 3 (March 1958): 89-92. Article discussing when popular music is a good career choice for blind people
• Watson, Edward. The Blind Musician and His Training. [London]: National Institute for the Blind, 1922. A description of music education for the blind written in 1922.
• Wiener, William R., Richard L. Welsh, and Bruce B. Blasch. Foundations of Orientation and Mobility, Volume II, Instructional Strategies and Practical Applications. New York: AFB Press, 2013. The chapter on Improving the Use of Hearing for Orientation and Mobility is particularly relevant to this collection.

Music and Medicine

This section includes a range of references on music being used in therapy and rehabilitation, discussions of the ways music and sound can exacerbate medical and problems and articles on the health and wellbeing of musicians. Perhaps the most noticeable thing about this collection is the degree to which medical technologies and practices have changed over time. Early reports range from the dangerous, such as Dr. Andréas Wawruch’s use of lead to treat Beethoven on his deathbed in 1827, described in Rapport médical sur les derniers temps de la vie de Ludwig van Beethoven, to the downright bizarre, such as the claim that one patient experienced “blood jetted from the veins with considerable force” every time he heard a drum (p.484), written in Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine in 1898. However, even in this early volume we see scientists and doctors beginning to grapple with the effects that music has on the body, including descriptions of studies on the effect of music on respiration (p.486) and depression (p.487).

In Henry Addington Bruce’s 1919 volume Nerve Control and How to Gain It the descriptions of using music in mental health settings to influence mood and regulate emotions, while relatively simple, are much more familiar to modern audiences. By the 1990s, understandings of interactions between music, medicine and health were much more developed. In An Amateur Musical Group as a Factor in Solving the Tasks of Social Rehabilitation for Blind and Visually Impaired People, we learn about a program to use music ensembles to reduce social isolation in people with low vision. Meanwhile, Harvard Medical Alumni Bulletin – Music and Medicine Special Report includes articles that explore music and medicine from a range of angles, including music therapy for people rehabilitating from traumatic injury, research on the way the brain interprets sound as music, and treating injuries common to professional musicians.

• Bruce, H. Addington. Nerve Control and How to Gain It. New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1919. Contains a chapter on music and health.
• Esquirol, Etienne, and E. K. Hunt (trans). Mental Maladies: Treatise on Insanity. Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1845. Includes conditions we would now call autism and intellectual disability. Has multiple sections on how music can be used to cause or cure mental illness.
• Gould, George M., and Walter L. Pyle. Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine: Being an Encyclopedic Collection of Rare and Extraordinary Cases and of the Most Striking Instances of Abnormality in All Branches of Medicine and Surgery, Derived from an Exhaustive Research of Medical Literature from Its Own Origin to the Present Day, Abstracted, Classified, Annotated, and Indexed. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 1898. Pages 484 to 487 give theories on both the disabling and healing effects of music and other sounds.
• Harvard Medical Alumni Bulletin – Music and Medicine Special Report, 1999. This 1999 special edition of the Harvard Medical Alumni Bulletin includes a range of articles about music and medicine.
• Kantor, V.Z. “An Amateur Musical Group as a Factor in Solving the Tasks of Social Rehabilitation for Blind and Visually Impaired People,” in Urgent Problems of Social and Occupational Rehabilitation of the Visually Handicapped: Reports Presented at the International Conference on Blindness, Minsk, September 17-23, 1989. Minsk: Polmaya, 1991. A report on using music ensembles to combat social isolation in people with low vision.
• Wawruch, Andréas. “Rapport médical sur les derniers temps de la vie de Ludwig van Beethoven,” La Chronique Médicale: Revue Mensuelle de Médecine Historique, Littéraire & Anecdotique 34, no. 5 (May 1927): 144-149. Contains Dr. Andréas Wawruch’s account of Beethoven’s final days and medical treatments (in French).

Hearing Trumpet

The hearing, or ear, trumpet was one of the earliest devices designed for individuals with hearing impairments. As you can see from the image below, hearing trumpets were funnel (or trumpet) shaped devices that helped to increase the volume of close-ranged noises for the user. Acting as an extension of the outer ear, hearing trumpets worked by capturing sound from a desired direction, whilst blocking out unwanted background noises. The earliest known written account of a hearing trumpet can be found in Jean Leurechon’s Recreations Mathématiques (1624), which discusses the use of funnel shaped objects for the amplification of sound. Three years later, Francis Bacon refers to a similar kind of device in his Sylva Sylvarum (p. 347), stating that: ‘Let it be tried, for the help of hearing, […] to make an instrument like a tunnel; the narrow part whereof may be the bigness of the hole of the ear; and the broader end much larger, like a bell at the skirts; and the length half a foot or more’. 

In 1669, Giambattista della Porta (also known as Giovanni Battista Della Porta or John Baptista Porta) discussed the construction of wooden ‘instruments’ ‘to put into your ear, as spectacles are fitted to the eyes’. To ‘find the form’ of this device, Porta assesses a range of animals which he considers to have the best hearing. He concludes that, as hares and oxes are very good at hearing and have large and open ears, his hearing aid should also ‘be large, hollow, and open’. However, not everyone was comfortable using a large hearing device for fear that it might draw attention to their disability. 

These concerns over the size of hearing trumpets continued well into the nineteenth century. For example, in his Treatise on the Physiology and Pathology of the Ear (1836), John Harrison Curtis complained that many people were dissatisfied with the size of ear trumpets, and demanded more discreet hearing aids instead. This, he argued, was impossible, stating that  ‘that the longer the trumpet, the greater will be its power’. To overcome the social discomfort associated with using hearing trumpets, these devices began to be constructed in a range of styles and materials (including silver, horn, shell, wood, and lace) – transforming ear trumpets into desirable and eccentric accessories, rather than unwieldy hearing aids. By the 1950s, Evelyn Waugh confessed to using a hearing trumpet, not because ‘I hear any better for them, but [because] I look more dignified’.

Acoustic Fan

Second on our list, we have the acoustic fan. To a large extent, the acoustic fan was developed in response to people’s discomfort with the conspicuous nature of the hearing trumpet and other contemporary aids. Designed to look like a folding hand fan, the acoustic fan was very popular with higher status women who wished to disguise their use of a hearing aid. Baronne Staff’s My Lady’s Dressing Room (1892) speaks to this, suggesting that ladies who are ‘afflicted with a nervous form of deafness’ ought to use the ‘more graceful appliance’ of an acoustic fan. She states that: ‘When they wish to listen they have but to take the fan, open it, apply the rim to the upper jaw (on the side of the defective ear) and bend sufficiently to give some tension to the bamboo sticks. They will be quite surprised to find that they can hear as well as though they used an audiphone or dentaphone’.

Although the acoustic fan was a ‘new’ technology in the nineteenth century, the methods by which it worked were based on the oldest and most simple hearing aid – cupping one’s hand around the ear. Directing soundwaves into the ear by cupping one’s hands around the outer-ear can result in an acoustic gain from around 7 to 17 decibels (see: Rosalie M. Uchanski, Cathay Sarli, ‘The ‘Cupped Hand’: Legacy of the First Hearing Aid’, The Hearing Journal, 72:4 (2019)). The acoustic fan worked in a very similar way by extending the remit of the outer-ear and improving directionality. However, not everyone was supportive of the use of the acoustic fan. Vincenzo Cozzolino wrote in his Hygiene of the Ear (1892) that the use of an acoustic fan was harmful ‘because by their presence they irritate and contract the external auditory meatus’ – thereby worsening one’s condition rather than improving it.

Dentaphone and Audiphone

Despite being produced by different companies, the Dentaphone and Audiphone both operated on the same principle of ‘bone conduction’. Ordinarily, sound waves make their way into the ear canal before they are converted into vibrations by the ear-drum. The vibration of the ear-drum moves three tiny bones (known collectively as the ossicles), which then transfer the vibrations into the inner ear. The inner ear (or cochlea) is filled with liquid, which moves in a wave-like motion as a result of these vibrations. This liquid then stimulates tiny hair cells which send nerve impulses to the brain, where they are converted into sound. Bone conduction works by transmitting sound waves directly to the cochlea through the skull – bypassing the ear canal, ear drum, and ossicles. Although a series of individuals had previously drawn attention to the transmission of sound through various materials (such as Aristotle who suggested that ‘everything that makes a sound does so by the impact of something against something else’ – see De Anima, Book 2, Chapter 8, 420 b 15), it was not until the early seventeenth century that this was applied in the diagnosis of hearing impairments. In 1603, Hieronymus Capivacci, a physician who lived and worked in Padua, constructed an experiment to decipher whether an individual’s hearing loss was caused by damage to the tympatic membrane or a lesion of the auditory nerve (Opera omnia cura Johannis Hartmanni Beyeri [Frankfurt: Paltheniena, 1603], Chapter 1: De laeso auditu, p. 589). As Mudry and Tjellström write: Capivacci ‘connected the teeth of a patient to the strings of a sitar by means of a two foot long iron rod. If the patient was able to hear sound from the sitar, a disease of the tympatic membrane was diagnosed, if [they] did not hear anything it was a lesion of the auditory nerve’ (Albert Mudry, Anders Tjellström, ‘Historical Background of Bone Conduction Hearing Devices and Bone Conduction Hearing Aids’, in Implantable Bone Conduction Hearing Aids, ed. by M. Kompis, M.-D. Caversaccio [Basel: Karger, 2011], pp. 1-9 [p. 2]). 

Audiphone

Patented in 1879 by Richard Rhodes, of the Rhodes and McClure Publishing Company, the audiphone was made of a fan-shaped sheet of hard rubber attached to a handle. It worked by using a silken cord to bend the audiphone into a ‘diaphragm’ shape, before inserting the fan into the mouth and holding it against the upper teeth. This allowed for the sound waves to be transmitted through the fan, into the upper jaw bone, through to the inner ear. The tension of the cord could be adjusted depending on the requirements of the user and the nature of sound being heard (voices, music, distant sounds, etc.). Perhaps unsurprisingly, the audiphone’s 1880 advertising brochure, offers a range of customer testimonials expounding the benefits of this technology. For example, E. F. Test states that their audiphone ‘has created quite a sensation among my friends. It was comical to see a number of them fanning themselves with it, under the impression that it was simply a fan, and then in a few moments to see their astonishment when they saw me hearing with it just as well as I ever did’. Similarly, Henry Milnes claimed that, after having been ‘very deaf’ for twenty years, ‘I procured an Audiphone yesterday and can already hear quite well an ordinary conversation, and expect by a little practice to be able to hear sermons, music, etc., without much difficulty’. (Further testimonials of this nature appear in a later, 1882, advertising brochure). 

However, not all agreed. In 1881, Laurence Turnbull published Imperfect Hearing and the Hygiene of the Ear. In chapter eight of his book, Turnbull compares the audiphone to other contemporary hearing technologies, such as the hearing trumpet. In his work, he too has a number of personal testimonies which are altogether more negative than those promoted by Rhodes & McClure. For example, one gentleman referred to as I. H. found that, when using the audiphone, ‘he cannot hear, unless the voice of the speaker is so elevated that all his private matters are made known to all around; he also object[ed] to the shape, as being too conspicuous, even in the form of a fan’. Mrs. L, a ‘lady of great refinement’, also tried the audiphone, but claimed that she ‘would not be seen […] with the thing in her mouth all the time. For church and lecture, or opera, she prefers a small pocket ear-trumpet of metal, covered with black velvet’. 

Dentaphone

Despite being marketed as ‘a new scientific invention which enables the Deaf to hear by the sound-vibrations conveyed through the medium of the teeth’, the dentaphone was patented a year later than the audiphone and operated on identical principles. Like the audiphone, the dentaphone was a hard rubber fan which could be inserted between the teeth to facilitate the transference of sound waves via bone conduction. Interestingly, in their 1879 advertising brochure, the American Dentaphone Company takes the time to assure potential customers that the dentaphone can be used by wearers of artificial teeth. Although the Audiphone’s brochure mentions this very briefly, the Dentaphone Co. is more thorough, explaining that ‘with this process [of sound transmission] the nerves of the teeth have nothing whatever to do, the vibrations being transmitted entirely through the bony framework of the face and head; and hence, so long as artificial teeth are properly in their place, they conduct the sounds just as well as would the natural teeth’. (For more on dentures as a disability technology, see Set 3: Dentures).

Aurolese Phone

Aurolese phones were first designed and marketed by Frederick Charles Rein (a German manufacturer based in London) in the early nineteenth-century. However they were later manufactured by multiple other companies (such as Down Bros Ltd. and the William V. Willis Company of Philadelphia) under a variety of names, including auricles and cornets. As you can see from the image below, these hearing aids took the form of a headband with a funnel on each side that could be inserted into the ear. In this way, auolese phones operated along the same premise as a hearing trumpet – amplifying close range sounds and helping to minimise background noise through more targeted and directional sound capture. However, unlike the hearing trumpet, the aurolese phone was designed to blend in with hairstyles or hats, negating complaints about the overly ostentatious nature of most contemporary hearing aids. The ‘invisibility’ of one’s hearing aid appears to have been an especially important factor for upper and middle-class women. Although the aurolese phones are not mentioned by name, the William V. Willis Company briefly advertised their book of ‘25 instruments to assist the hearing’ in the Ladies Home Journal for April 1902, p. 33. As we can see from the 1922 Transactions of the American Otological Society, the William V. Willis Company was known for its production of ‘auricles’ and that auricles were, in turn, believed to be a suitable device for women who wished to conceal their use of hearing aids. 

Electrical Hearing Aid

In 1898, Miller Reese Hutchinson (an American electrical engineer) constructed the first portable electrical hearing aid – which he named the Akouphone. This device was inspired by Alexander Graham Bell and his invention of the telephone. Much like the telephone, the akouphone used a carbon microphone which could modulate electrical current and amplify sound. Unfortunately, the akouphone was expensive, heavy, and bulky – it weighed approximately three and a half pounds and was encased in a heavy rubber box! As such, it’s popularity was limited amongst individuals with hearing impairments, who continued to use cheaper, more portable devices such as the hearing trumpet. However, four years later, in 1902, Hutchinson improved upon the design of his akouphone. Whilst still using carbon microphones, he reduced the size and weight of the device and renamed it the ‘acousticon’. In the 1903 Association Review, Enoch Henry Currier praises Hutchinson’s improvements, claiming that ‘he has succeeded in perfecting a battery which is so small as to make it easy to be carried; the battery of course being the foundation upon which the effectiveness of the instruments rests’ (p. 200). Due to their ability to adapt, improve, and make use of new technologies, the Hutchinson Acoustic Company (which later became the General Acoustic Company) enjoyed great success and continued to produce hearing aids well into the 1980s. 

Despite the early success of the carbon-based hearing aid, the 1920s saw the emergence of a new kind of electrical hearing aid which used vacuum tubes to amplify sound. Much like carbon hearing aids, early examples of vacuum hearing aids tended to be large and unwieldy. For example, the vactuphone (produced by the Globe Company in 1921) weighed around seven pounds! It was not until the later 1930s that two English companies – Amplivox of Wembley and Vernon-Spencer of London – produced wearable vacuum hearing aids. For Amplivox of Wembley, this was a ‘two-piece’ aid in which the batteries were separate from the hearing aid. For Vernon-Spencer of London, this was a more compact ‘one-piece’ aid, where the batteries were contained within the hearing aid case. An example of these wearable hearing aids can be seen at the end of a 1949 Encyclopaedia Britannica film titled The Ears and Hearing.

As has been a theme throughout this primary source set, these smaller electrical aids were praised for their subtlety. For example, in the January 1911 edition of The Trained Nurse and Hospital Review, the General Acoustic Co. advertise their hearing aids whilst claiming that, ‘ladies who use the Acousticon dress their hair so as to make the head-band and ear-piece invisible’. (p. 67). Similarly, in 1933, Margaret Prescott Montague wrote of her experience using an electrical hearing aid, stating that: ‘Upstairs in my own room I tried the thing out first. If it was not going to be a success – and probably it wasn’t – I preferred to be alone with my disappointment. I put it on. I heard the clock tick – farther, and father, and father away, I heard it – all across the room! And that when with my unaided ears I can barely hear it at the distance of an inch! Oh, joy! Still wearing the device, I ventured downstairs into the family circle, and said to my two kinsmen, ‘Look at me – do you notice anything?’ They looked me all over from head to foot, and then, doing their masculine best, offered hopefully, ‘Why you have on a new dress.’ And this a garment I had worn all winter. Joy again! The little thing was so inconspicuous that no one’s conversation was to be dried at the roots by the terrifying sight of an ear trumpet.’ (pp. 49-50).

Spectacles

According to projections from the Vision Council, around 164 million American adults wear spectacles! In fact, of all the devices included in these ‘Disability and Technology’ source sets, spectacles (or glasses) are arguably one of the most ubiquitous forms of assistive technologies. As such, there is a huge amount of information pertaining to their construction, use and dangers, in the Medical Heritage Library’s collections.

However, the use of spectacles has a much longer tradition than most people realise. As Horner points out in his On Spectacles: Their History and Their Uses, magnifying lenses have been used as ocular aids since the ancient period. To demonstrate this, he cites Lanyard’s discovery of the Nimrud Lens, dating from 750 BC – 710 BC, as one of the earliest examples (this item is now held in the British Library and can be accessed here). However, it was not until the late thirteenth century, in Italy, that spectacles, as we might recognise them today, were invented. 

The first textual reference to spectacles (discussed by George H. Oliver in his Address on the History of the Invention and Discovery of Spectacles) comes from the sermon of an Italian Friar named Giordano da Rivalto, delivered on February 23rd,1305. In this semon, Giordano stated that: ‘It is barely twenty years since the art of making spectacles which enable us to see better was introduced, one of the most useful arts in the world. I have myself seen and spoken to the man who first made them’ – but he does not reveal who this man might be. After this point, the demand for, and accessibility of, spectacles developed exponentially – resulting in the wide use of these items that we see today.

Prescribing Spectacles

Most of the material we hold in the Medical Heritage Library, which pertains to spectacles, focusses on their construction, purchase and use from the nineteenth century onwards. 

We see in the collections, a number of texts designed for opticians, medical professionals, and medical students, which outline how one ought to choose and prescribe spectacles for a patient. A good example of this can be seen in Robert Brudenell Carter’s series of lectures on Defects of Vision which are Remediable by Optical Appliances. These lectures, which were delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1877, considered a range of conditions (including presbyopia, hypermetropia and myopia, astigmatism, and asthenopia), before assessing what sorts of spectacle lenses should be prescribed to treat them. In the case of presbyopia (the loss of the eye’s ability to focus on nearby objects, which is so frequently associated with ageing), Carter recommends the prescription of a range of concave lenses with gradually increasing magnifying powers to be used as an individual’s sight worsens. Very similar works, concerning these same ocular impairments, were produced by doctors such as D. B. St. John Roosa in 1899 and Archibald Stanley Percival in 1910.  

Outside of these doctors and opticians writing for others within the medical profession, some medical professionals produced pamphlets for a public audience, which sought to advertise and educate people on the value of spectacles. For example, in 1856, F. A. Moschzisker produced Spectacles: Why and When to Use Them. This pamphlet which he ‘wrote to be read and in a very short space of time’, berates those ageing individuals who stubbornly refuse to wear spectacles, stating that: ‘The presbyopic Eye, if refused assistance, is necessarily strained by every attempt to perceive near objects, and suffers more in a few months by forced exertion than it would do in as many years, if assisted by such Glasses as would render vision easy and agreeable’. 

Dangers of Using Spectacles

Throughout the nineteenth-century, there began to emerge a market for quacks selling cheap, mass-produced spectacles. These concerned contemporary opticians who believed that, at best, these items were made of ‘common window glass’ and so did nothing to improve one’s vision and, at worst, these items were inappropriately polished and over strong, thereby causing damage to the eyes. For example, in his The Art of Preserving the Sight (1815), Georg Josef Berg dedicates a whole chapter to the ‘Inconveniences and Dangers of the Common Kind of Spectacles’, in which he argues that cheap and irregularly made spectacles can generate dark spots and callosities in the eye, resulting in minute dark shapes floating in one’s field of vision. Similarly, in his 1850 Spectacles: Their Uses and Abuses, Jules Sichel suggests that myodesopsia (floating shapes within one’s vision) is caused by the use of concave lenses with too strong a prescription for their user.

As a result of these concerns over the dangers associated with using inappropriate spectacles, several doctors offered advice on how take care of one’s eyes (in order to delay the use of spectacles for as long as possible), before then explaining how to select appropriate spectacles when their use was no longer unavoidable. A good example of this can be seen in John Harrison Curtis’s Observations on the Preservation of Sight, and on the Use, Abuse, and Choice of Spectacles (1834). In this text, Harrison Curtis draws attention to a whole host of ‘evils’ that can damage one’s sight. These include, the wearing of veils; white washed walls – especially when opposite a window and therefore reflecting the sun’s rays; poor hygiene; gazing on the moon; reading or practising needlework at night; overheating the blood through arguments or debates; and fatigue (to jame just a few!) He goes on to suggest that, if one avoids all of these things and still requires spectacles, these should be used ‘as sparingly as possible—only when unavoidable’.

Similarly responding to this anxiety over the dangers of spectacle use, the Royal College of Surgeons of England released a pamphlet in 1867, which advised people as to the ‘requirements that should in all cases be possessed by the optician to whom the selection of spectacle lenses is entrusted’. These included: 

• An intimate knowledge of the anatomical structure of the eye, and of the theory of vision.
• An extensive acquaintance with the science of optics.
• A sound mathematical knowledge.
• A practical acquaintance with the manufacture of lenses and spectacle frames.

Unlike other doctors of the period, the Royal College of Surgeons were not against the use of spectacles altogether, but rather encouraged people to buy from respected opticians.

Guide Dogs

For as long as people and dogs have been living together, dogs have been used by blind people as assistive aids. For example, scholars such as Michael Tucker have argued that an image of a guide dog appears in a first-century AD mural in the ruins of Roman Herculaneum! We also find images of guide dogs in several medieval manuscripts (such as Walters Art Museum, MS 82, fol. 207r.), and later they appear in Victorian literature. Charles Dickens, for example, writes in A Christmas Carol that, ‘even the blind men’s dogs appeared to know him [Scrooge]; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts’. However, it was not until after the First World War that guide dogs began to be trained and issued en masse. 

One of the early pioneers in the training of guide dogs en masse was Dorothy Harrison Eustis. Eustis was working as a dog breeder and trainer in Switzerland when she first heard that a large guide dog training centre had been set up in Potsdam, Germany. Intrigued by their methods, Eustis visited the centre for several months and later wrote in Dogs as Guides for the Blind that, ‘since the Great War, Germany has developed the training and use of these dogs on a very large scale and to-day almost every German war blinded soldier capable of handling a dog has one provided by the Government and receives an allowance for it’s maintenance’. 

Inspired by this system, Eustis wrote an article about the Potsdam training centre for the Saturday Evening Post in 1928, stressing the independence that guide dogs could bring to people with ocular impairments. Shortly after publication, she received a letter from a young blind man named Morris S. Frank, asking how he might help to set up a similar institution in America. He stated that, ‘I wrote to Mrs. Eustis to find out where I could obtain such a dog she answered that it was true that these shepherds would do these things and that, while they could not be procured in America, she would be glad to have a dog trained for use under American conditions, and train me with the dog’. Frank took Eustice up on her offer and together they worked to train Buddy the Guide Dog. Buddy was so successful that Frank and Eustice subsequently worked together to found ‘The Seeing Eye’ guide dog school.

Training Guide Dogs

So how then did Eustis and her team at The Seeing Eye train these dogs for their roles as sighted guides? Well, first of all dogs had to be specially bred and raised. German Shepherds were generally considered the best breed of dog to become guides. As Dickson Hartwell points out, German Shepherds were of a good size, easy to keep clean, and intelligent without being unthinkingly obedient. Other dogs, he says, do not possess this same combination of skills. For example, although a ‘French poodle could learn the routine of guiding a blind person in about two-thirds of the time it takes to teach it to a German Shepherd […] [when] faced with an open manhole, the poodle on the command “forward” would not go left or right and around the manhole but it would, as has been demonstrated in tests, attempt to jump it, to the imminent and serious risk of it’s blind charge’. 

When these German Shepherd puppies were of an age to begin their training, they were entered into a three month programme. During this time, a sighted trainer will take ‘the student dog through city streets and other given routes until she learns to meet any situation which may be encountered’ (House and Garden, 1934). During this time, the dog would participate in several ‘blindfold tests’, whereby the sighted trainer would be blindfolded and the dog would be expected to guide them through city streets. The harnesses that these dogs wore (both in training and in their lives as guides) were of crucial importance to their work. Unlike a pet or companion dog who may be walked on a fabric lead attached to a collar, guide dogs from The Seeing Eye were ‘equipped with an especially built harness which has a stiff “U”-shaped lead’ (New York Sunday Mirror, 1932). The stiffness of this lead would allow the guidee to be more easily directed by the movements of the dog. 

After successfully passing these three months of training, these dogs would be carefully matched with a blind person, with whom they would undergo another round of training. The blind individuals would be taught how to care for their dogs (e.g. how to clean their fur, what to feed them etc.), before being shown how to work with their guide dog as a team. As Morris S. Frank discussed in an interview for Family Circle in 1945, ‘our job here is not only teaching dogs, but teaching men […] when a man learns that to follow his dog he must stand up with his shoulders square (so that the dog’s shoulder will be in line with his knee when he walks beside her), and when he finds that he must walk briskly so that her stops will mean something to him, he seems to take a new lease on life’.  

Living with a Guide Dog

Within our collections, we have a number of sources that include testimonies from people that received guide dogs from The Seeing Eye. For example, Colonel Fred Fitzpatrick (who, after Morris S. Frank, owned the second guide dog in the United States), said of his dog: ‘I do not know what I would do without Eric. I could not get along without him’. Similarly, Rose Resnik, writing in 1942, says of her guide dog Ilsa: ‘her patience and efficacy as a guide are constant sources of marvel to me. Never is there a hint of irritability or resentment during the long hours under the seat in the theatre or concert […] Day or night she is always ready and glad to go where I need her’. 

However, in the early days of guide dogs, not everyone understood the importance of these animals. For example, Hector Chevigny stated that ‘we go to restaurants for lunch or dinner. When I am seated, Wizard [the guide dog] downs obediently at my feet. Occasionally head waiters are outraged at the very thought of a dog’. He goes on to explain that he didn’t waste his time explaining Wizard’s role to these people and instead found restaurants that were happy to have them. Rose Resnick also describes how some people did not trust guide dogs to do their jobs properly and, in their efforts to help, caused more trouble than good. She recalls how, when she and her dog got out of a street car one day, ‘the conductor, against my remonstrances, got out with me and literally shoved me through two cars which were parked near the curb. Ouch – my shin hit the bumper of one of them. This would never have happened if he had let my dog guide me through them’! 

Reading Devices

The final section of this Source Set will consider the development and use of ‘Reading Devices’. As we will see, the reading technologies discussed below could be divided into three categories: those that were specifically designed for individuals with visual impairments and used by said individuals; those that were not designed to function as disability technologies, but were rapidly taken up by individuals with visual impairments; and those that were designed to benefit the visually impaired community, but were taken up just as enthusiastically by individuals without visual impairments. As a result, this final section also serves to demonstrate the ways in which assistive aids influenced the development of technology more broadly (and vice versa).

Braille

Braille (a system of raised dots that individuals can read with their hands) is arguably the best known reading device for individuals with ocular impairments. It was invented by Louis Braille in 1824 – when Louis was only fifteen years old! 

While studying at the School for the Blind in Paris, Braille had been introduced to a method of communication called ‘Night Writing’. This had been developed by a man named Charles Barbier who had served in Napoleon’s army. Barbier had noticed that soldiers would light lamps to read important military correspondence at night. However, the light from these lamps frequently drew the attention of enemy forces, revealing the location of the army, and resulting in casualties. In order to avoid this, Barbier constructed a system of raised dots and dashes that soldiers could read with their fingers, without the need of a light. Braille was inspired by this idea, but thought that Barbier’s system was too complicated, so worked on simplifying and refining the system for use by blind people. In 1854, France adopted Braille as its’ official communication system for blind people. 

However, despite the invention of Braille in the nineteenth-century and the early adoption of Braille by the French, it was not used by English speakers until 1932. As such, a lot of the material in our collections that concerns Braille dates from the twentieth century – such as Madeleine Seymour Loomis’s book, You Can Learn to Read Braille. Prior to this, English speakers had been using ‘Moon Type’, designed by William Moon in 1845. This system consisted of simplified versions of letters from the Roman alphabet which were subsequently embossed so as to be read by hand. In her article, The Reconstruction of the Blind in France, Isabel W. Kennedy suggests that, in the case of individuals with hardened fingertips who could not feel the nuances in dotted writing, Moon Type was more valuable than Braille. It was also lauded as being easier to understand by individuals who had lost their sight in later life and already recognised letters from the Roman alphabet. Nevertheless, Moon Type was also a much slower system of reading and the similar shapes of some letters could cause confusion amongst readers. As such, it was generally superseded by Braille in the mid-twentieth century. A good example of this can be seen in a 1958 Manual for Instruction in Braille and Moon Type in which seven pages are devoted to Braille and one sentence is given to Moon Type.

The Electric Eye

Another device, which shortly predates the use of Braille by English language speakers, is the ‘Electric Eye’ designed by Robert E. Naumberg in 1931. As discussed in the magazine, Popular Science Monthly, this device ‘instantly transcribes the ordinary print of a book into raised magnified letters that can be read with the finger’, and therefore did not require users to learn a new system of reading. This (like Moon Type) was desirable for individuals who lost their sight later in life and subsequently recognised Roman letters. However, this embossed version of the Roman alphabet was not optimised for blind readers. Not only was this process of reading slower, but it was also easier to mistake similar letters for one another. On top of this, the device was large (around the size of an office desk), complex, and would have been expensive to run. It was not a machine that could, practically, be kept in the homes of ‘ordinary’ people. As such, and unfortunately for Naumberg, the Electric Eye remained a largely undesirable piece of equipment

Radio

Despite its earlier use as a military technology, radio was increasingly adopted as a civilian commodity throughout the 1920s. Although this system of conveying the news and providing entertainment was not specifically designed with blind people in mind, radio rapidly became an indispensable disability technology for individuals with ocular impairments. For example, in a 1929 Town Crier article, ‘What Radio Means to the Blind’, a Massachusetts woman is cited as saying that, when she listens to the radio, ‘I forget my blindness, forget everything except that I am one of the many thousands enjoying the same great pleasure’. Similarly, in a 1922 Reader’s Digest article titled ‘Radio for the Blind’, a  Miss Leila Holterhoff, of New York City, is quoted as saying: ‘‘I believe that the radiophone will be the greatest single force in history in ameliorating the condition of the blind.’

However, radio faced one major challenge in becoming a widely used disability technology – it was very expensive to purchase a radio set. As Ward Seely points out in 1922, an average radio set cost around $250 (approximately $4,115 by today’s standards!) Whilst some blind people tried to avoid these high prices by building their own radio sets (as can be seen in the case of Dr. Marks, who describes how he builds and operates his own short-wave transmitters in a 1932 article ‘Radio for a Dark World’), others set up schemes through which individuals and companies could donate radios  to blind individuals. For example, by 1929, the American Foundation for the Blind had ‘distributed 3,500 radios among blind people, through the cooperation and generosity of the public, the press and the foremost radio manufacturers in the United States’.

Talking Books

In 1934, the Literary Digest labelled Talking Books as ‘the most important development in aids for the blind in the last hundred years’. They go on to state that these Talking Books will ‘free braille readers of the laborious task of fumbling through endless pages of embossed letters, and enable blind people who cannot read braille to read novels and non-fiction by ear’. But what were these ‘Talking Books’?

Talking Books were first conceived of by a man named Ian Fraser. Fraser had lost his sight after having been shot at the Battle of the Somme and, despite having learnt Braille, was frustrated with how long it took to read a book in this format. In 1918, he began working with the Royal National Institute of Blind People to find a solution to this problem. To begin with, Fraser tried to record books on gramophone records, but these could only hold up to five minutes of content. By 1934, Fraser and his team had developed records that could play for up to 25 minutes per side. From this, the Talking Book (a ‘ten double-sided 12 inch gramophone disks, each side with a playing time of about 25 minutes’) was created. Shortly after, this idea was taken up by Robert B. Irwin, Executive Director of the American Foundation for the Blind, enabling Talking Books to become an international phenomenon.

However, like radio sets, Talking Books were often too expensive for people to buy. As such, a series of Talking Book Lending Libraries emerged through which people could borrow these items at no cost. In 1937, the Literary Digest reported that twenty-seven libraries across America offered a selection of 200 talking books. These books would then be sent free to the borrower through the mail, and then, like an ordinary library, the borrower would return the book on completion. 

Although this technology was initially developed for blind people, ‘talking books’ have proved incredibly popular with sighted people too. In 2021, it was reported that 46% of Americans over the age of eighteen had listened to at least one audiobook!