The Imprisoned Guest: Samuel Howe and Laura Bridgman, the Original Deaf-Blind Girl

The resurrected story of a deaf-blind girl and the man who brought her out of silence.

In 1837, Samuel Gridley Howe, director of Boston's Perkins Institution for the Blind, heard about a bright, deaf-blind seven-year-old, the daughter of New Hampshire farmers. At once he resolved to rescue her from the "darkness and silence of the tomb." And indeed, thanks to Howe and an extraordinary group of female teachers, Laura Bridgman learned to finger spell, to read raised letters, and to write legi...