Kate M. Foley
American librarian and advocate for blind literacy
Kate M. Foley (May 26, 1873 – October 7, 1940) was an American librarian and advocate for blind literacy, based in San Francisco, California.
Early life
Catherine M. Foley was born in East St. Louis, Illinois, the daughter of James Foley and Bridget E. Dunn Foley. Her parents were both immigrants from Ireland. She was blind from infancy, from ophthalmia neonatorum. "I was in my sixth year before I understood the meaning of the word blind. Up to that time, I had romped and played with other children, climbed trees, jumped ditches, accepting bumps and bruises as part of the game, and having no sense of fear, since some child always held my hand." She attended the California Institute for the Deaf and Dumb and Blind, graduating in 1895.
Career
Foley began working for the California State Library in 1914, in the Books for the Blind department, as Home Teacher of the Blind. She started a public school class for blind children in Los Angeles in 1917, and taught a class of men at the Industrial Home for the Adult Blind in Oakland, California. "The pupils have confidence in a blind teacher," she explained, "because they know that every step in their difficult path is familiar to her feet." She also trained educators to work with blind students, trained clubwomen to copy texts into Braille, and worked with blind prisoners at San Quentin.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kate M. Foley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.