Laura bridgman without glasses

American deaf-blind woman

Laura Dewey Lynn Bridgman (December 21, – May 24, ) was the first deaf-blind American child to gain a significant education in the English language, forty-five years before the more famous Helen Keller; Bridgman’s friend Anne Sullivan became Helen Keller's aide.^{[note 1]} Bridgman was left deaf-blind at the age of two after contracting scarlet fever. She was educated at the Perkins Institution for the Blind where, under the direction of Samuel Gridley Howe, she learned to read and communicate using Braille and the manual alphabet developed by Charles-Michel de l'Épée.^[3]

For several years, Bridgman gained celebrity status when Charles Dickens met her during his American tour and wrote about her accomplishments in his American Notes. Her fame was short-lived, however, and she spent the remainder of her life in relative obscurity, most of it at the Perkins Institute, where she passed her time sewing and reading books

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Laura Bridgman: The First Deaf-Blind Pioneer

June 26 kicks off Helen Keller Deaf-Blind Awareness Week. This year’s focus is Diversity and Inclusion: Creativity and innovation are built upon diverse perspectives. Throughout June, many groups recognized the accomplishments and creativity of the Deaf-Blind community.

Many know about Helen Keller&#;s impact on the deaf-blind community over generations. However, half a century before Helen Keller was born, Laura Bridgeman became the first deaf-blind person to learn a language.

Laura&#;s Upbringing

Laura Dewey Bridgman was born to hardworking New England farmers in Hanover, N.H., on December 21, At 24 months, she became ill with scarlet fever. Though the fever passed, it left her without sight, hearing, sense of smell, and nearly all of her sense of taste.

Left with only her touch, Laura tried to make sense of the world around her. Her love for imitating her mother made her very helpful with household chores. She learned to sew a

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The Education of Laura Bridgman

Excerpted from the bookFor the Benefit of Those Who See: Dispatches From the World of the Blindby Rosemary Mahoney, out now from Little, Brown and Company.

Very few people today seem to know who Laura Bridgman was. But in her day, she was considered the most famous woman in the world other than Queen Victoria. She was a Helen Keller before Helen Keller—but, abandoned by her mentor, she died in obscurity.

Amid the general mood of progressive humanitarian social reform that was sweeping New England at the time, the Massachusetts legislature voted in to establish the New England asyl for the Blind—the first school for the blind in the United States, with Samuel Gridley Howe as its director.

In her biography, The Imprisoned Guest, Elisabeth Gitter has given an in-depth portrait of Howe, a man who was described by many as arrogant, vain, prideful, competitive, quick-tempered, defensive, overbearing, hungry for glory, a shrewd publicist and