Educators Who Made Learning More Accessible

Braille’s six-dot cell gave blind readers a compact system they could use for reading and writing. It drew on the idea of raised dots, but the smaller cell fit under a fingertip. Adopting a shared system took time while different schools and publishers still taught competing codes.

Sullivan used a manual alphabet to spell words into Helen Keller’s hand. Her letters show what she did between the moments that later became famous, linking newly learned words to objects and situations that Helen could explore. That made touch a channel for building vocabulary.

A Deaf teacher from France, Clerc helped found the school that opened in Hartford in 1817. He brought signs used in Paris, while pupils arrived with signs from their own communities. A classroom where Deaf children could communicate with one another became a place where those traditions could meet.

Nemeth developed a braille code that could represent mathematical and scientific notation. It gave readers a way to work with expressions for themselves, including distinctions that matter in a formula. Access still depended on textbooks and other materials being transcribed into a code the students knew.

Foxx taught blind Black children at Mississippi’s Piney Woods Country Life School, where she also supervised residential care. She taught braille from the program’s opening and later added instruction with large-print books. She went on to lead the Capers Division of the Mississippi School for the Blind when the state still educated Black and white blind students separately.

Bethune started a school in Daytona for Black girls who had few local educational opportunities. The school grew into the institution now known as Bethune-Cookman University. It met a need in a segregated system while the wider barriers that made it necessary were still in place.

Phule became headmistress of the school for girls she and Jyotirao Phule established in Pune in 1848. Opening a classroom to girls challenged the assumption that they had little use for formal education. The school gave families a place to send their daughters while that assumption remained widespread.

Blackwell and her sister Emily opened a medical college for women alongside their New York infirmary in 1868. Connecting the college with the infirmary offered a way for women to gain medical training while many established schools still barred their admission.

New York City denied Heumann a teaching license, and she challenged that decision before becoming a public school teacher. Disability rights work later took her into the campaign to enforce Section 504. Her experience shows how getting into the classroom can depend on what a school district or institution is required to change.

Collins founded Westside Preparatory School in Chicago and first taught students in her home. The school emphasized reading and writing alongside mathematics. Its early years show what it took to make a new place for children to study before the school had a building of its own.

Howe developed Boston Line Type, an embossed alphabet used to teach blind children to read at Perkins. Its small, simplified raised letters took up less room on a page, making books cheaper to print. Howe even hired a printer to build a press for the type, a reminder that teaching a reading system also meant getting books into students’ hands.

Smithdas counseled deafblind clients on employment and rehabilitation and went on to direct community education at the Helen Keller National Center. In 1966 he returned to Perkins, where he had gone to school, to give the commencement address pictured here. His work shows how access to education continues through training and into employment.