American Printing House For The Blind

Today we visited the American Printing House For The Blind

They had a tour at 2:00 so here we are ready to go.

There's a museum that we checked out briefly prior to the tour.

I took a lot of pictures but it was hard to decide which ones to post.

The blind were becoming educated and wanted to have books but there were few to read.

Due to the limited market, the books were very expensive. The government needed to get involved and supply the backing so the blind could have the same opportunities as the sighted.

Another problem was there were too many different braille codes.

There were five different codes which brought about "The War OF The Dots". This was eventually resolved by the development of the braille stereograph machine. Once the British and Americans agreed upon the dot code, the machine made it possible to create a massive expansion production.

Now came the competition for embossing contracts.

At this point, we began the tour. Cameras were not allowed on most of the tour but I was able to get a few pic's of some of the old machines.

   

How to make a globe.

And one of the many different writing machines.

Back in the museum, there were some excellent displays.

Reading braille was becoming popular but writing was another problem. It started with crude punch cards but slowly progressed.

Then there was a section in the museum for their favorite guy.

It doesn't look like him here but yes, that is Little Stevie Wonder



Then the development of talking books which are still very popular. We were lucky enough to see some of the actual recording being done for talking books and also some books that were being converted from text to braille.

One of the first talking recorders.

The museum had sections that covered just about everything such as math and science. And yes, there are blind chemist.

A lot of the blind are capable of doing just about anything the sighted can do.

Joyce is typing her name in braille.

These are all different braille typewriters and they are in like new condition.

Bet you didn't know that Boston was one of the first cities to have a school for the blind. I didn't know that and I'm from Massachusetts.

This display has pictures of the machines used here.

Here's an old typewritter made in Salem, Ma.

And at the end there was this display about cane developement and our K9 friends. That ended our tour which lasted about two hours. The manufacturing area was a let down because there really wasn't much to see other than a couple of presses. But, that was all we were allowed to view and I'm sure there was more.

As we got two blocks away we passed this collection and had to turn around.

Not only was all this stuff in one yard, but the building was also full.

I love these kind of collections.

Even a caboose

Awesome, but time to go back to camp. We are heading out in the morning for a new destination.