“For any good result to be obtained, the question must not be settled for the blind, but by the blind themselves.”
~ "The Education and Employment of the Blind: What it Has Been, Is, and Ought to be," Thomas Rhodes Armitage, 1871
"The most lamentable fact in this connection is that we have at present five distinct codes of embossed print, and virtually subdivisions of some of them as well."
~ Letter from Charles W. Holmes to the 1905 AAWB convention, As I Saw It, Robert Benjamin Irwin
In 1905, a newly-formed association of blind workers (AAWB) reacted by appointing the Uniform Type Committee (UTC) to drive code reform by...
"...investigat[ing] the various forms of tactile print, and to labor for the adoption of some one universal system."
~ "The Uniform Type Question..." 1915
"American Association of Workers For The Blind (AAWB) Boston Convention," Disability History Museum Archives, 1907
They spent the next 8 years testing American Braille and New York Point with 1,200 blind readers.
"When offered the appointment on the committee I asked if I was expected to work for the general adoption of New York Point or for a uniform type, whatever it might be. The reply was that I should work for a uniform type regardless of any predisposition I might have. This was all I wanted to know and I accepted service under those conditions."
~ L. Pearl Howard, representative of the Uniform Type Committee, As I Saw It, Robert Benjamin Irwin, ca. 1910s
"What we need, and must have, and will have if we but make up our minds to it, and stand by each other, is an international, universal code of embossed type for all English-speaking countries...Will not this association, which is a mighty power in the affairs of the blind in this country, put its shoulder to the wheel and see to it that the word to quit is not given till the wheel moves?"
~ Letter from Charles W. Holmes to the 1905 AAWB convention in Saginaw, Michigan, As I Saw It, Robert Benjamin Irwin
Having learned five codes, deafblind activist Helen Keller advocated for Braille adoption.
Portrait of Helen Keller reading a Braille book, "Making..."
"I understand that you are to consider the relative merits of American Braille and New York Point. Between these two systems, it seems to me, there can be no question when the facts are all properly presented to you...I am sure that in all important respects, American Braille is superior to New York Point because it meets completely the needs of capitalization, punctuation, legibility and physical use of ease of reading."
~ Letter from Helen Keller to A. Emerson Palmer (UTC representative), American Foundation for the Blind Archives, 1909
New York Point's sighted inventor attempted to rebut the tests, claiming they favored the Braille systems.
"In making up the test lists[,] great care has been taken to relieve the Braille readers of these inherent obstacles by reducing the number of these letters and by the position assigned to them."
~ William Bell Wait, "...An Examination of the Report of the Uniform Type Committee," 1915
Headlines from the Columbus Dispatch, Perkins School for the Blind Archives, June 18, 1909
By 1913, the AAWB-sponsored testing found British Braille was superior to both codes. While the simplest solution would have been to accept British Braille, some disliked its copious contractions, so the UTC combined the three codes' best elements in the following proposal of the Standard Dot System:
Excerpt from the "Report of the Uniform Type Committee," June, 1913
The AAWB's Standard Dot failed because the British refused to adopt the new code as requested by the AAIB.
"I am so sorry that Standard Dot appears to us in this country impossible of acceptance. We don't doubt for a minute that it is a very good system, but then so is British braille, and why should we change to gain so little?"
~ Personal Letter from W. M. Stone, Headmaster of the Craigmillar School for the Blind, to H. R. Latimer, Secretary of the UTC, December 17, 1915, As I Saw It, Robert B. Irwin
After deliberation and retesting, the AAWB and AAIB compromised by adopting Braille 1½ in 1917 to consolidate all American blind learners under one code. However, Braille 1½, essentially simplified British Grade 2 (189 contractions), included only 44 contractions, inhibiting international collaboration.
"The [American] learner need be told hardly more than once that 'brl' stands for Braille, 'cd' for could, 'pd' for paid, 'rev' for receive, etc.
The tendency of Americans to enlarge upon the difficulties of learning so many contractions, making no distinction between abbreviations and arbitrary characters, is irritating to the British grade two devotee."
~ "A Comparative Study of Braille Grade One and a Half and Braille Grade Two," Irwin and Wilcox, 1929
"...Taking Down Notes in Braille Shorthand," National Archives, January, 1919
"The American blind were tired, however, of changes. Many still living had first learned [Boston] linetype, then New York Point, then American braille, then Revised braille grade 1½ ...A speaker at one of our national conventions who, in a burst of oratory, said, "If anyone invents a new system of printing for the blind, shoot him on the spot."
~ As I Saw It, posthumously published reminiscences of Robert B. Irwin
"This half-step [between Braille 1½ and British Grade 2]...left enough of a gap between the two English-language systems to hinder free exchange of literature across the Atlantic Ocean."
~ "Language of the Fingers," Francis A. Koestler
Continued comparative testing between Braille 1½ and British Braille was conducted to determine a shared system across international borders that would satisfy competing national priorities.
"Well, we want uniformity, we want it badly...There would be uniformity if you adopted British braille. There are more readers of British than of any other system of punctography...It is the system of the blind of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and India. It is as nearly identical with the braille of European countries as differences of language make possible, and it is actually read by great numbers of every European country."
~ Letter from W. M. Stone to H. R. Latimer, December 15, 1915, As I Saw It, Robert Benjamin Irwin
In 1932, blind British and American representatives, led by Robert B. Irwin, agreed on contracted Standard English Braille (Grade 2) in the Treaty of London, finally achieving English-speaking uniformity.
"Robert B. Irwin (Executive Director of the American Foundation for the Blind)," American Printing House for the Blind, Inc., M. C. Migel Library, 1955
~ Excerpt from Irwin's announcement, "Uniform Braille for the English-Speaking World Achieved," JSTOR, 1932
"The revised code...can be easily learned within a few hours by those familiar with the Braille system heretofore used in the United States."
~ Robert Benjamin Irwin, "A. L. A. NEWS," JSTOR, 1932
~ "Blind children of Kentucky learn to read," Digital Public Library of America, c. 1930s
Competing American Systems
Braille in Practice