Perkins School for the Blind
blind school in Massachusetts
Perkins School for the Blind, or simply Perkins, is the oldest school for the blind in the United States. It is located in Watertown, Massachusetts and was established in 1829. It was historically known as the Perkins Institution for the Blind.
Perkins manufactures its own Perkins Brailler, which is used to print embossed, tactile books for the blind; and the Perkins SMART Brailler, a braille teaching tool, at the Perkins Solutions division housed within the Watertown campus's former Howe Press. The campus is also home to the Perkins Braille and Talking Book Library and the Howe Innovation Center for accessible technology.
History
Founded in 1829, Perkins was the first school for the blind established in the United States. The school was originally named the New England Asylum for the Blind and was incorporated on March 2, 1829. The name was eventually changed to Perkins School for the Blind. John Dix Fisher first considered the idea of a school for blind children based upon his visits to Paris at the National Institute for the Blind and was inspired to create such a school in Boston, but it was founded by Samuel Gridley Howe, who had also studied education for the blind in Europe.
The school is named in honor of Thomas Handasyd Perkins, one of the organization's incorporators.
“Perkins School for the Blind” enters the record as blind school in Massachusetts. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Perkins, School and Blind can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q114071. VIAF identifies the subject as 129632721. The Library of Congress control number is n50059548. Authority coordinates are 42.363, -71.175. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1829.
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This entry incorporates text from “Perkins School for the Blind” 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.