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**[Images, clockwise from top left: A Blind Girl of Rome; The Dance of Death; Adult who is blind guided by sighted child; Spring on the Yellow River; The Blind Leading the Blind]**

Blindness and visual impairment have existed as long as humans have. In response, people have long sought to create accessibility aids to help themselves to get around more easily. Perhaps surprisingly, many of the aids used throughout history are similar – if not identical – to those used by visually impaired people today.

The images featured above come from a collection held in the Perkins School for the Blind. Starting in the late 18th century, some blind and visually impaired people were able to attend schools where they were educated in reading, writing, math, science, and the arts, among other subjects. Perkins was the first such school in the United States, founded in Watertown, Massachusetts in 1829. Today, in addition to educating hundreds of students, both on- and off-campus, the school is home to the Hayes Research Library and a unique and diverse collection: The Blind in Art. It holds prints, photographs, and objects depicting blind and visually impaired people from around the world and dating back as far as the 13^th century.

Included in many of these items are representations of accessibility aids. Canes are perhaps the most obvious of these, used just as often today as they were throughout history. A Chinese scroll from the 13^th century (above, bottom right) and a black-and-white photograph from the 19^th century (above, top right) both show a blind man using a cane alongside another accessibility aid. The man in the first print, however, uses his cane to feel the ground in front of him, while the second man uses his for balance or to steady himself. Both works also show their subjects being guided: the former by a dog and the latter by a sighted child. Another guide dog appears in the print A Blind Girl of Rome (above, top left). Although lacking a cane, the girl is guided by a dog as she uses her arms to feel for any obstacles in front of her.

Alongside depictions of genuine accessibility aids and guides, the collection holds allegorical works, which often depict their blind subjects being guided unsafely. For example, The Blind Leading the Blind (above, bottom left) is one of a genre of prints that depict the biblical story known by the same title. While the phrase “the blind leading the blind” is often used metaphorically – to describe listening to or taking advice from someone who also knows nothing about the topic – in this work, the subjects are literally blind. The six blind men are being led astray by each other, all trusting a guide that cannot see. The first two of these men are falling down, tripping over the ground and each other.

The Dance of Death (above, middle) also shows a blind man trusting a dangerous guide: death itself, illustrated as a skeleton. The caption, which reads, “Carefully measuring his steps and unconscious of his perilous situation…” – implies that he is being led into danger. Although both humorous and macabre, these allegorical prints reinforce the importance of good accessibility aids.

Today, accessibility technology is more advanced and often relies on digital technologies. Released in 2015, the smartphone app Be My Eyes helps blind or visually impaired people identify objects or read labels with help from sighted volunteers. Another example is the creation of robotic guide dogs, such as Theia, that do the job of living guide animals without the monetary cost associated with a living creature. An exploration of the Blind in Art collection makes clear that although such modern accessibility aids are groundbreaking, they are merely new versions of technologies that blind people have used for centuries.

-Charlotte Berman, Wheaton College (Norton, MA), Class of 2023

Bibliography
Be My Eyes. “Our Story.” https://www.bemyeyes.com/about

Digital Commonwealth. “Blind in Art Collection.” https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/collections/commonwealth:pr76ff99b

Perkins School for the Blind. “Hayes Research Library.” https://www.perkins.org/history/visit/research-library

Assistive Technology. “Prototype: “Theia” Is A Robotic Guide Dog That Helps Blind People Navigate.” https://assistivetechnologyblog.com/2020/10/prototype-theia-is-a-robotic-guide-dog-that-helps-blind-people-navigate.html

NPR. “Help A Blind Person Identify Everyday Things, Via Smartphone App.” https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/12/15/459870958/help-a-blind-person-identify-everyday-things-via-smartphone-app

by Maureen Mann, MLS Elementary Library Media Specialist Wellesley Public Schools & member of the Outreach & Education Committee

The University of Massachusetts Lowell (U-Mass Lowell) has created two timely resources for K-12 educators to enhance immigration studies. As the Biden administration works to redefine pathways to citizenship for our southern borders over the coming months, these primary source collections, created by Massachusetts students, underscore the importance of fostering student research and documenting student voices.

The Library of New England Immigration sneak previewed their platform at a final face to face Digital Commonwealth event, “The Past Goes Modern,” on January 15, 2020 at the U-Mass Lowell campus. The new digital library provides short student-friendly Ken Burns style clips telling the stories of nearly a dozen ethnic groups that immigrated to the Lowell area over the last 400 years. The project is the brainchild of Distinguished Professor of History in the College of Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Science Professor Robert Forrant who partnered with Professor Ingrid Hess of the U-Mass Lowell Art and Design Department to secure grants to hire university students as historians, info-graphic designers, and new media journalists to produce these professional works mentored by the U-Mass faculty. Lowell K-12 educators participated in rollout testing and the result is a top-notch teaching resource that is poised to document New England Immigration stories over the next 400 years.

This year students will not visit the mills within the Lowell National Historical Parks, but thankfully this resource—years in the making–launched in the fall of 2020 despite the pandemic to offer a wide scope on the topic minus the bus fees. Even better, it comes with an invitation from the professors to encourage educators to work with students to explore the immigration stories in their students’ own families and communities. The project which both Forrant and Hess describe as a “labor of love” will link system-wide school projects featuring student investigations of community newcomers to the site “in a heartbeat.” Professor Forrant offers K-12 educator professional development for these types of initiatives. For more information contact Robert_Forrant@uml.edu.

Also featured at DC’s “The Past Goes Modern” event, was the U-Mass Libraries Southeast Asian Digital Archive. Within this collection is A City of Refugees, the Memories of Cambodia Collection, circa 1987-1991 from The George N. and Dorothea Tsapataris Collection. Lowell public school ESL teacher, Dorothea Tsapataris, and wife of long-time Lowell Public Schools Superintendent George N. Tsapataris, asked her students to create posters and artwork to help them better understand the History of Lowell Immigration, and to help Lowell better understand them.

These full color digital resources document cultural traditions and memories of Cambodian refugees recently resettled after escaping from their war-torn homeland during the 80’s. The quality of this grade 3-6 artwork is impressive, sometimes shocking. The collection provides an historical link from ESL students of the past to those students living or learning about immigration in the present.

Ms. Tsapataris’ philosophy stated within her project introduction would be as relevant in today’s classroom, “Whether one is a native born Lowellian or born elsewhere, all our ancestral roots are planted beyond the shores of the United States mainland. . . . The Future of Lowell is the children of today and their descendants.”

The collection was preserved with the foresight of former U-Mass Lowell Library Director George Hart who had a passion for digitizing primary source documents received from the community. Using Omeka platforms and Dublin Core metadata standards, the university digital services staff and specialized librarians curated these collections which feature valuable cross reference links to other primary source collections within the U-Mass Library system and the Lowell Historical Museum of History, whose archives catalog is maintained by the university library system.

As the decade turned on an unprecedented pandemic year, Digital Commonwealth continued its work, adding the following collections. Map lovers will rejoice at the newly added offerings of assorted city streets, plans and projects over the decades.

Boston Public Library

Boston Redevelopment Authority Collection (130 items)