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Peltz Gallery,
Ground Floor, School of Arts, Birkbeck, London WC1H 0PD
July 18 – September 16, Monday-Friday 9-8pm.
September 17 – October 30,
This free exhibition
explores the history of literacy for blind and visually impaired people in
nineteenth-century Britain and Europe through the development of embossed literature.
It introduces visitors to the variety of embossed writing systems that blind
people were taught prior to the widespread adoption of braille at the end of
the nineteenth century. There was fierce debate in this period between
educators who favoured a system based on the Roman alphabet that could be read
still by sight and those who advocated for an arbitrary system – such as
braille – more suited to finger reading.
Touching the book:
Embossed literature for Blind People brings together a rich array of
material, including important examples of early classbooks, spiritual guides,
the first specially-commissioned embossed Bibles, writing devices, pamphlets
and visual images. It details how early embossing attempts were motivated
by religious desire to enable blind people to read the word of God directly
through touch. This fuelled investment in embossing processes which in turn
improved the quality and durability of embossed books.
Most significantly
however, the development of finger-reading practices helped to create new
communities of literate blind and visually-impaired people who began advocating
for reading and writing systems best suited to the needs of blind people. The
exhibition highlights individuals in the nineteenth-century blind community who
both raised the profile of and were instrumental in improving literacy for
blind and visually-impaired people, including Laura Bridgman, William Moon,
G.A. Hughes, Louis Braille and Thomas Rhodes Armitage.
