Our Father Who Art in Heaven. Boston, 1833. Raised-letter specimen card. 8.5 x 5 in. This pictures shows a tactile specimen made from a piece of light brown rectangular cardstock, with a geometric shape and the Lord’s prayer embossed into its surface. There is a crease in the middle of the paper, as though it has been folded. There is a geometric shape comprised of squares and triangles on the upper half of the print, with alphabetic letters A through I and K at each corner of the figure. The words on the lower half of the card form part of the Lord’s prayer and read as follows: “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven: give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we for”. The text ends at the word “for,” without punctuation. Specimen was originally included in the "Address to the Trustees of the New England Institution for the Education of the Blind" (Boston 1833). [End of description] Denison Olmstead, The Rudiments of Natural Philosophy. Boston, 1845. This picture shows an up-close, detailed portion of a tactile page in upside-down orientation to the viewer. In the upper left corner of the page, the viewer’s lower right, is a small, detailed, raised symbol labeled “fig. 71.”. The symbol is made of three ovals overlapping side by side with a thin, horizontal rectangle running through the middle of all three. The middle oval is made from many thin, concentric ovals. The two side ovals are made from lines that radiate out from the edges of the rectangle, like veins radiating out from the center of a leaf to its edges. The page is mostly composed of text, most of which extends beyond the picture's frame and is semi-illegible in its upside-down orientation. A few partial lines are discernible: “natural philosop-,” “deviation,” “either east o-,” “the variation,” “line drawn on,” “the earth, due,” and “is called a meri-”. The paper is off-white, with small brown stains and smudges. [End of description] J. C. Wild, Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind. Philadelphia, 1838. Hand-colored print. 6.5 x 7.25 in. Picture shows a four-story rectangular building with many rectangular windows. The building includes two front entrances with porticos. The structure is white, and its front is lit by sunlight. Pedestrians – eight total with six men, two ladies, and one boy – walk on the sidewalk in front of and across from the building. Small trees evenly line the sidewalk in front and to the left of the building. A dark-colored watchman’s guardhouse, shaped like a chimney, stands across the street from the building. A man with a cane, and a boy, holding his hand, walk past the guardhouse. The boy appears to be gesturing in the direction of the guardhouse and the building. [End of description]

Links

See also the Library Company Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr feeds #CommonTouch for additional links to sources used in the development of the exhibition and programming.

Teresa Jaynes, Common Touch: the Art of the Senses in the History of the Blind

Ablersite

American Federation for the Blind/ 200 Years: the Life and Legacy of Louis Braille

Blindspot

Braigo Printer

Disability History Museum 

EveryBody: An Artifact History of Disability in America

Guide to Braille Resources

H-Disability

Institute on Disability Studies

Museum of the American Printing House for the Blind

National Arts and Disability Center

New York Institute for Special Education: Blindness Resource Center

Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability

Perkins School for the Blind – Books for the Blind

Society for Disability Studies

Touching the Book: Embossed Literature for Blind People in the Nineteenth Century

What Can a Body Do?