Several blind institutes, controlled by sighted administrators, reacted negatively to the adoption of Braille because it required teachers to master a non-Roman letter code.
Competing American Systems
Embossed letters were for the sighted...Braille was for the blind.
American Resistance
"1829
The New England Asylum for the Blind (later the Perkins School for the Blind)
1831
The New York Institution for the Education of the Blind (now the New York Institute for Special Education)
1832
The Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind (later the Overbrook School for the Blind)"
~ Establishment of Blind Institutes in the United States, "Chronology..." American Foundation for the Blind Archives
"The [indecision] in the use of a system that blind people themselves found easy to learn and were eager to use, came because of the resistance of the "old guard"...sighted teachers who found it difficult to accept a system that did not look like the reading system they used."
~ Barbara Cheadle, "Myths..." National Federation of the Blind Archives
Boston Line Type
In reaction, the sighted director of the Perkins School, Samuel Gridley Howe, simplified Haüy's embossed letters, yet his new code was similarly impractical for blind readers by...
"...talking to the fingers the language of the eye."
~ Pierre Villey-Desmeserets, blind French Philosopher, "The Unseen..." ca. 1900
Examples of Howe's simplified embossed type, "Boston Line Type," Perkins School for the Blind Archives
"[Howe] accomplished [Boston Line Type] by cutting off all the flourishes and points about [Haüy's] letters, and reducing them to the minimum size and elevation which could be distinguished by the generality of the blind."
~ Report of the Royal Commission on the Useful Arts (1852, Class XVII), Lorimer
Many instructors supported Boston Line Type for the blind, suggesting that sharing the same alphabet with sighted learners would help integrate the blind with the rest of society.
"Obviously, it is easier for such teachers to supervise and correct a student's work if they could follow visually what the student was writing tactually."
~ "Language of the Fingers" American Foundation for the Blind Archives
New York Point
Based on the success of Braille in Europe, William Bell Wait developed a new dot-based code that accounted for letter frequency to reduce space and cost, earning favor from printing houses: New York Point.
"New York Point has one advantage over the original Braille, as it is now used in Europe, in that it takes into account the principle of frequency of recurrence of letters. The letters that are used most are represented by the combinations of the fewest dots."
~ "Braille for the Blind," Ernest C. Witham, JSTOR, 1909
Key to New York Point, "William..." New York Institute for Special Education Archives
"In the Braille systems the pupil has to learn only one simple sign and only one set of letters; while in New York Point the pupil learns 26 small letters and 26 capital letters, making 52."
~ "The Uniform Type Question..." 1915
"New York Point," New York Institute for Special Education Archives
"I have always found New York Point a difficult, unsatisfactory system. I object to it as it appears in most books...But it has a worse effect upon the young pupil. He is liable to get an imperfect idea of capitalization and punctuation. I have received letters...which contained errors significantly like the defects of New York Point, and I cannot but believe that this illiteracy is traceable to their habitual use of a defective mode of punctographic writing during school years."
~ Letter from Helen Keller to A. Emerson Palmer, National Foundation for the Blind Archives, ca. 1912
Despite its punctuation inconsistencies, New York Point was adopted in 1871 by the American Association of Instructors of the Blind (AAIB), dominated by sighted directors, revealing how authority shaped accessibility.
“The..main cause of this lamentable state of things seems to be…that the inventors of systems and managers of institutions generally have their eyesight, and misled by this sense, they cannot understand or enter into the real wants of the blind. It is a curious and instructive fact that the [system] which is now in most favor with the blind themselves, and which [has] most vitality to [it], is due to [a] blind man, M. Braille.”
~ "The Education and Employment of the Blind: What it Has Been, Is, and Ought to be," Thomas Rhodes Armitage, 1871
American Modified Braille
In response to the deficiencies of New York Point, Joel Smith developed Modified Braille, introducing contractions and accounting for letter frequency. Despite numerous endorsements by blind teachers and students in support of a Braille-based code, the AAIB was unwilling to support Modified Braille.
"Braille [can] be taught by blind teachers, and this constitutes a threat to the job security of the sighted."
~ "Language of the Fingers," American Foundation for the Blind Archives
"Key to American Braille Alphabet and Numerals," Perkins School for the Blind Archives, Samuel P. Hayes Research Library
"I have been reading...Braille about three years, learned the alphabet in an hour, the Boston type in about a week; the great advantage the Braille has over all the other systems is that we can print it ourselves, either reading music, or cyphering."
~ Anna Crudis, Blind Teacher at Perkins
"I never learned to read, because I could not feel the letters, but when I commenced the Braille, I had no trouble."
~ Jefferson Chout
"We can not only use it for all languages, but for keeping accounts, and for music it is impossible to speak of too high praise in regard to it."
~ Fred Neukomm, Music Teacher
"This system has also another advantage over all others:...each scholar will have a copy of the lesson...and by this means only, the blind have equal opportinity to gain knowledge with seeing pupils."
~ Lissie Hauck, Blind Teacher at Perkins
"Any institution for the education of the blind (whose directors are working and striving for their pupils' education,) trying to work out their own salvation as it were, without the all sufficient aid of the Braille system, may be compared to a man who unwisely undertakes to erect some edifice upon sandy ground without first having driven into that ground the substantial piles to receive and support the foundation of the structure."
~ Jane Neil & Christina Rentz, Assistant Teachers
~ "Opinions of Blind Teachers and Pupils Regarding the Braille System," Perkins School for the Blind Archives, 1860-1870
Consequences of Multiple Systems
"Katie McGirr, a deaf-blind girl at Fanwood...now knows Line Letter, Moon, American Braille, English Braille, New York Point, and Lucas...She learned so that she could read."
~ "The Learning of Print by the Deaf-Blind," William Wade, JSTOR, 1900
By 1910, New York Point was the dominant code, but the persistence of rival systems created inconsistency for blind students. With schools adopting different codes, textbook-sharing was unfeasible, dramatically increasing production costs. Often, students were expected to learn multiple systems, exposing the practical failures of sighted-controlled institutions with blind students caught in the middle.
"Owing to the small editions of embossed books, their cost per volume is comparatively large...the limited number of books is divided, and printed in four different systems."
~ "Braille for the Blind," Witham, The Journal of Education, 1909
"Kath. [Katie] McGirr...at Typewriter," Library of Congress Archives, between ca. 1910 and ca. 1915
Census data regarding the usage of each tactile code, "The Blind in the United States, 1910" United States, Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census
"In order to avail himself of the full range of literature (which at best is woefully limited), the blind reader must learn, and keep well up in, all these codes.... How long would our seeing friends stand for such a state of affairs in ink type?"
~ Letter from Charles W. Holmes, 1905, National Foundation for the Blind Archives
This debate was not only over which code to use, but also over who held the power to define blind education.
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Tactile Uniformity