https://commontouch.librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Pennsylvania-Institution-for-the-Instruction-of-the-Blind.-Philadelphia-w277.jpg17892000touch1https://commontouch.librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/CommonTouch300-1.pngtouch12016-03-09 15:52:122016-03-09 20:52:24Visual Record of the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind
https://commontouch.librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/pb1863continental-25-5761-f-50b-d.jpg8331600touch1https://commontouch.librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/CommonTouch300-1.pngtouch12015-12-08 09:00:062015-10-22 19:23:20Seeing the Elephant
https://commontouch.librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Thomas-Greene-Bethune-Blind-Tom-celebrities-album.jpg1200795touch1https://commontouch.librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/CommonTouch300-1.pngtouch12015-11-10 08:35:312016-03-01 02:17:04Race, Celebrity, and Disability in the Collections
https://commontouch.librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Newsam.jpg20001248touch1https://commontouch.librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/CommonTouch300-1.pngtouch12015-09-01 08:30:542015-09-10 20:00:40On Visual Eavesdropping and the White Noise of History: Albert Newsam and Visual Culture in Nineteenth-Century America
https://commontouch.librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/hostetler-music-p-2014-60-1-cdv.jpg7311200touch1https://commontouch.librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/CommonTouch300-1.pngtouch12015-06-30 08:30:322015-09-10 20:01:58The Hostetler Family of Blind Musicians
![Picture shows the gallery, including four of Jaynes’s seven installations on view. In the center foreground is Jaynes’s Gift#1 on display on a flat, horizontally-angled rectangular table with a dark wood base. A white and brown paper owl rests on a cylindrical stand to the left of a large open book under a rectangular, clear acrylic hood. To the right of the display with the owl stands Jayne’s Gift #5, a map representation of the travels the 19th–century blind surveyor John Metcalf. It is a vertically-positioned, large rectangular table composed of a a linen top and a light brown wood base. A multi-color grid, outlines of geometric shapes, and green porcelain geometric shapes adorn the linen top. In the center background, on the back wall painted off-white, is Jayne’s Gift #4, a visual transmutation after the musical work of blind African American musician Thomas Wiggins. It is three horizontal and three vertical rows of prints in a geometric interplay of greens, browns and yellows. To the right of the prints on the wall is a small wooden frame in which brass musical notes are displayed. To the far right background is a view of Jaynes’s Gift #6, the scent mechanism the olfactometer, in a niche in an off-white curved wall. The floor of the room is covered with a tan colored carpet. [end of description]](https://commontouch.librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/mckinnis-galleryshot-845x321.jpg)
![Picture shows the catalog cover illustrated with a profile, close-up of Teresa Jaynes’s Gift #1, a brown and white paper owl. Text in red letters is printed to the upper right of the image of the owl. Text reads: Common Touch [next line] The Arts of the Senses in the History of the Blind. [end of description]](https://commontouch.librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/catalog-cvr-jpg-845x321.jpg)
![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 women 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. Text printed below the images reads: “Lith. Of J. T. Bowen, Phila. Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind. Published by J.T. Bowen at his Lithographic & Print Colouring Establishment, 94, Walnut St Philada. Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1840 by J. T. Bowen in the Clerk’s Office of the Dt. Ct. for the En. Dt. of Pa.[End of description]](https://commontouch.librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Pennsylvania-Institution-for-the-Instruction-of-the-Blind.-Philadelphia-w277-845x321.jpg)
![Picture shows a close-up of a section of text from an 1863 playbill. Text reads from top to bottom: Part Second [next line].Overture, ---Orchestra. [next line]Comic Song,--- P. Williamson. [next line] Guitar Dnet [sic], ---Marion Brothers. Slight Skirmish: or, the Best Way to Settle It. [next line] George White and P. Williamson. [next line] Ethiopian Jig, - - - J. H. Barleur. [next line] Pathetic Ballad, - - - Billy Rose. [next line]. Seeing the Elephant, [next line] Hilfrem, Hirst and Burr. [next line] Comic Song - - - Ed Shaw [next line] Essence of Old Virginia, - - - J. H. Barluer [next line] [image of pointed finger] Black Blunders, [image of pointed finger] [next line] Geo. White and P. Williamson. [next line] Song and Dance, - - - Ed. Shaw [next line] Overture, - - - Orchestra. Text is surrounded by a rectangular-shaped border composed of two parallel black lines, one thick and one thin. [End of description]](https://commontouch.librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/pb1863continental-25-5761-f-50b-d-845x321.jpg)
![Thomas Greene Bethune, known as Blind Tom, ca. 1870. Black & white photograph. 4 x 2.5 in. Picture depicts the carte-de-visite portrait photograph of musician Thomas Greene Bethune, later Wiggins, known as Blind Tom. Shows the young African American man from his waist up, his body slightly angled to the viewer’s right. His tightly curled hair is shortly cropped. His eyes are closed. He wears a white shirt with a turned down collar. Under the collar is a dark cross tie. He also wears a dark jacket with wide notch lapels, several creases around the waist, and the top button fastened. The photograph is framed within a rectangular shape printed with a thick gold line surrounded by a thin black line. The frame is on light-colored paper. The top edge of the frame is slightly rounded. Hand written text below the portrait reads: “Blind Tom” [End of description]](https://commontouch.librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Thomas-Greene-Bethune-Blind-Tom-celebrities-album-795x321.jpg)
![Picture shows the upper edge of a writing board or tablet over a white background. The tablet is made of a brown cardboard-like material with a faded pink and blue marbled pattern and has raised, tactile, evenly spaced bars on its surface. In the center of the first bar, handwritten script reads “Mrs. E. A. Lusk.” [End of description]](https://commontouch.librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/zinman-blind-111998-o-collage-detail.jpg)
![Picture shows a bust-length lithographed portrait of Albert Newsam. His body is slightly angled to the viewer’s left and his gaze looks slightly to the viewer’s right. He has dark hair, parted on the left side to the viewer, and worn slightly long and swept to the sides. He also has side burns. Newsam wears a jacket with wide notched lapels that are partially in velvet and over a loose fitting vest and a white shirt. He also wears a cravat with the ends hanging loosely. [end of description]](https://commontouch.librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Newsam-845x321.jpg)
![Camera Obscura! [United States, ca. 1853]. Printed handbill. 11.5 x 5 in. Picture shows a handbill illustrated with a decorative border. The border is rectangular-shaped and looks like ribbons spiraled around rods with grommets at each of four corners. The document will be described from the top of the page to the bottom. Text reads: Camera Obscura! [new line] There will be an Exhibition [new line] of [new line] Paintings! [new line] Given this [blank] Even[in]g, [new line] at 7 o’clock, [blank] 185[blank] [new line]. In the [blank] [new line] at [blank]. [new line] At which [new line] Prof. W. F. Johnson, [new line] A Colored Gentleman, of the N. Y. In-[new line] stitute for the Blind, will introduce to the citizens [new line] of this vicinity, and the public generally, without [new line] reference to Party or Politics, Fifteen Scenes, illus-[new line] trative of some of the features of the American In- [new line] stitution of Slavery, accompanied by some ap- [new line]propriate odes, “The Slave Mothers’s La-[new line] ment,” “Appeal to Christina,” “Un- [new line] cle Tom’s Religion.” To conclude with ten interesting Changing [new line] Views, magnified, active, and as large as life. [new line] Admission One Shilling. [new line] Children Under 10 years of age sixpence. [new line] [picture of pointed finger] Complimentary to Press and Clergy. [new line] Opinion of the Press.- Mr. Johnson, has been a re- [new line] sident of our village, when at home, for some 20 years, during much of [new line] which time we have been acquainted with him. Blind since his youth, [new line] he has, with untiring perseverance [sic], educated himself. During three [new line] years’ residence in New York Institute for the blind, he made him [new line] self acquainted with the science of Phrenology, under the instruction of [new line] Prof. Fowler. The independence and strength of character exhibited by [new line] Mr. J. in procuring an education, with the privilege of sight denied him, [new line] is worthy of admirati[o]n; and those who know him, stand ready at all [new line] times to attend his lectures and exhibitions. He has an instructive and [new line] entertaining exhibition. – Ithaca Journal. [End of description]](https://commontouch.librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/smxam1853john-5741-f-2-532x321.jpg)
![[Portrait of Hostetler family of blind musicians]. Mount Pleasant, Penna.: From A. N. Staufer, [ca. 1866]. Black & white photograph. 4 x 2.5 in. Picture shows one woman and three men, seated next to each other, and holding instruments. The woman holds an accordion in her lap and she looks slightly down. To her left is a man, his eyes closed, who holds a viola perpendicular to his lap with one hand and a bow in his other. To his left is a man resting a cello between his legs. He holds a bow across the base of the cello with his right hand. To his left is the last man, his eyes closed, who holds a violin by his left shoulder and a raised bow in in his right hand. The woman, as well as the man who holds a cello, wear glasses. The woman wears a dark-colored corseted dress with long sleeves and a long skirt. The men, who look toward the viewer, are bearded and wear dark-colored suits. [End of description]]](https://commontouch.librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/hostetler-music-p-2014-60-1-cdv-845x321.jpg)
