Laura Dewey Bridgman

When Laura Dewey Bridgman was two, scarlet fever left her without the ability to see or hear, and her senses of taste and smell were impaired. Just before her eighth birthday, she entered into Boston’s Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind, where the director, Dr. Samuel Howe, took a special interest in teaching her. Howe attached labels with raised letters to common objects such as kitchen utensils, and Bridgman learned to identify letters and combine them into words. After Charles Dickens publicized her achievements, which he had witnessed firsthand, visitors flocked to the Perkins Institution to see Bridgman demonstrate her prowess. She went on to assist in the teaching of others, including Oliver Caswell, whose portrait is also included in this exhibition. At her death, her brain and sensory-related organs were dissected in an effort to understand the relationships between her disabilities and her accomplishments.