Review

General Books

Most people if asked to name a famous American deaf-blind woman would respond Helen Keller. Many would not be aware that there was another equally well-known American woman afflicted with a double-sensory handicap. Her name was Laura Bridgman. Ernest Freeberg writes a fascinating story of Laura Bridgman whose bout with scarlet fever left her blind and deaf at the age of two. Her parents, Daniel and Harmony Bridgman of Hanover, New Hampshire, lost two older daughters to scarlet fever and were unable to provide proper care and supervision for their younger daughter. They agreed, in 1837, to allow Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe to place her in the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston, Massachusetts. Howe, the director of the school, undertook the personal task of educating this young child who lived in a world shut off from all sight and sound. He saw in Laura a chance to conduct a profound "experiment" to vindicate his ideas about human development, education, and discipline. And in the process, he was successful in teaching his young student to speak and read with her fingers, and to think and express herself as well.	1
This monograph is as much about Samuel Gridley Howe's reformist ideas to improve conditions in an American society undergoing vast changes as it is about his ideas about human nature, as personified by Laura Bridgman. He and social reformers Dorthea Dix and Horace Mann were convinced that as America became an industrialized and urbanized society, expansion of crime, poverty, labor unrest, and civic corruption were sure to follow. Howe's efforts amidst these changes focused on teaching language and thinking skills not only to Laura Bridgman but to other handicapped young students excluded from the mainstream of American society. His objective was to "erase the stigma of dependency and segregation that had always isolated them from society, robbing them of their full humanity."	2
Professor Freeberg's prodigious research in the archival records at the Perkins School, including reading Laura Bridgman's diaries, is commendable. His clear, cogent writing about this young woman's endeavor to learn language and thinking skills is detailed within the context of Dr. Howe's determination to engage the public's interest in her progress as she grew into adulthood. Howe's motives were also to solicit people's financial support for his venture in educating the blind. As a skilled public relations entrepreneur, with a network of friends and supporters including Charles Dickens, Howe gained a national and international reputation for himself, his school, and Laura Bridgman.	3
Laura Bridgman lived with Howe and his wife Julia Ward Howe for a year in their apartment at the Perkins School. When the Howes moved to their own home she was only a welcome guest. While Howe's fame spread, he was often absent and she came to rely more on her teachers Mary Swift and Sarah Wight. These two marvelous teachers, who followed Howe's strict teaching methods and rigid discipline, are true heroes who taught Bridgman basic fundamental skills enabling her to break through the isolation imposed by her double-sensory handicap. Interestingly, another teacher at Perkins, Annie Sullivan, was sent to Alabama in 1887 to teach young Helen Keller. That linked forever Howe's pioneering efforts and those of his instructors at the Perkins School to Helen Keller the "second Laura Bridgman." Laura Bridgman died in 1889 at the age of fifty-nine overshadowed by the later accomplishments of Helen Keller. The "second Laura Bridgman" who broke through her own wall of silent darkness, never tired of praising the pioneering example of Laura Bridgman and the pathbreaking work of Samuel Gridley Howe.	4
This monograph is a timely, sensitive, and engaging portrayal of the struggle and ultimate triumph of human nature. Its timeliness is pertinent to us who live in a society where many people with handicaps and disabilities are no longer ostracized or segregated. Indeed Professor Freeberg writes that Dr. Howe eventually came to believe "institutionalization of the blind harmed them by encouraging their sense of isolation from the rest of society." Students enrolled in United States history survey courses or who study social and cultural history, as well as educational history, will benefit enormously from reading The Education of Laura Bridgman. Thankfully, the author has brought our attention to the engaging story of a remarkable American woman too long kept in a dark and silent world.	5
Southern Connecticut State University Jon E. Purmont

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