Perkins School for the Blind

views updated

Perkins School for the Blind, at Watertown, Mass.; chartered 1829, opened 1832 in South Boston as the New England Asylum for the Blind, with Samuel G. Howe as its director; moved 1912. From 1877 to 1955 it was called the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind. It was the first chartered school for blind children in the United States. Among the school's pupils were Laura Bridgman and Anne Sullivan Macy. Since 1982 it has also educated individuals with other than visual handicaps.