Historical Figures
Samuel Gridley Howe
Note: Each month of 2007,
Access Press will feature an important person in disability history:
local, regional or national.
Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe (1801-1876)
was involved in many social causes in 19th century America. He was
concerned about the conditions of persons with mental illness, persons
with hearing and visual impairments, slaves, and groups of people
who were politically oppressed throughout Europe.
In 1848, Dr. Howe, director of the Perkins School for the Blind,
established The Massachusetts School for Idiotic and Feeble-Minded
Youth, an experimental boarding school in South Boston for youth
with intellectual deficiencies. Howe firmly believed in the importance
of family and community, and wanted his school to prepare children
with disabilities to live with the rest of society.
At this time, most social
reformers in America believed “idiots” could
not be taught. Many believed that phrenology – the practice
of studying the shape of the skull to determine human characteristics
and functions – offered the only hope of understanding disabilities.
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Excerpted with permission
from Parallels in Time, [www.mncdd.org]
