History of Braille: Timeline and the War of the Dots

Braille was invented in Paris in the 1820s, but it took a century to become the braille people read today. Louis Braille published his six-dot code in 1829; it was officially adopted in France only in 1854, two years after his death; a congress in Paris made it the international system in 1878. In the United States it had to win the War of the Dots, a decades-long fight against New York Point and other codes, before English-speaking countries agreed on a common code in 1932. The latest chapter is Unified English Braille, the US code since January 4, 2016.

This page tells that story after 1852, with a timeline and the dates the sources disagree on. The inventor's own life is in Louis Braille: life and timeline. Disclosure: Braillito makes a braille learning app; this page is history, and the app appears only at the end.

Key points

• 1829: Louis Braille publishes his method, which already covers music; the second edition, in 1837, fixes the system (Louis Braille).
• 1854: braille is officially adopted in France, two years after his death (AFB chronology); sources differ on whether that was the country or the Paris school.
• 1878: a congress in Paris adopts braille "as the international system used for writing by the blind" (AFB).
• 1868 to 1932: in the US, New York Point, American braille and English braille compete; the fight is remembered as the War of the Dots (AFB, War of the Dots).
• July 19, 1932: the "Treaty of London" gives English-speaking countries a common code, Standard English Braille grade 2.
• 2016: Unified English Braille replaces English Braille American Edition in the US (UEB).

Before 1852: the short version

Louis Braille, blind since childhood, met Charles Barbier's twelve-dot writing at the school for the blind in Paris and cut it down to six dots, a cell that fits under one fingertip. He published the method in 1829 and a second edition in 1837. His own school banned it in 1840 under a new director, Pierre-Armand Dufau, and the pupils kept using it in secret until a public demonstration brought it back in 1844. The full story, with what the sources still dispute, is in Louis Braille.

One later invention of his is less known. By the late 1830s Braille was working on a way for blind people to write to sighted people: decapoint, letters drawn with dots on a 10 by 10 grid, dated 1839 in the book AFB reproduces. A machine to write it, the raphigraphe, built with Pierre Foucault, won a platinum medal in 1843 (AFB, Decapoint).

The logic of the cell, which never changed

The alphabet English braille uses today still shows how it was built: in series of ten. Dots are numbered 1, 2, 3 down the left column and 4, 5, 6 down the right.

The odd one out is w ⠺. The Library of Congress explains why: "the French alphabet did not contain a 'w' when the code was created," so it was added later (NLS, About braille). The whole chart is in our braille alphabet.

How braille spread after 1852

"After Louis' death in 1852, the braille code, the code he invented as a teenager, spread throughout the world," writes the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB). The milestones:

• 1854: braille is officially adopted in France. AFB's chronology says France adopted it "as a reading mode for people who are blind" (AFB chronology); our pages on Louis Braille and World Braille Day describe it as the decision of the Paris institute where it was invented. Both are in the table further down.
• 1854 or 1860: the Missouri School for the Blind becomes the first school in the United States to use braille. The two AFB sources give different years; see the table further down.
• 1878: a congress in Paris decides to adopt braille as the international system for writing by blind people.

Adoption did not mean one braille. Each language assigned the cells to its own letters and sounds, which is why braille in other languages looks the same and reads differently (braille in other languages). And in the United States, braille was only one of several raised codes. Until a US standard was agreed in 1917, AFB lists "Boston Line Type, Moon Type, American Braille, British Braille, and New York Point" as competing systems.

The War of the Dots

The most detailed account is by Robert B. Irwin, in his history As I Saw It, which AFB publishes as "The War of the Dots." Everything in this section comes from it unless another source is linked (AFB, War of the Dots).

The rival codes

• New York Point. Developed by William Bell Wait, published in 1868, and endorsed for US schools for the blind by the American Association of Instructors of the Blind in 1871. It used a variable base: its cells were two dots high and only as wide as each letter needed, which saved space.
• American braille. In 1878, Joel W. Smith of the Perkins Institution presented a "modified braille" that rearranged the cells so the most frequent letters had the fewest dots. It was renamed American braille in 1900.
• English braille. The code that kept Louis Braille's assignments, used in Britain.

The result was that a blind reader in the US who wanted access to everything in print had to learn several codes. Helen Keller did; in 1909 she wrote, "I read all the systems" (Helen Keller and braille).

Machines, hearings and a tie vote

The fight was bitter and personal, Irwin says, and technology took sides. The braillewriter of 1892, by Frank Hall, and a braille stereotypemaker in 1893 favored braille; Wait answered with his own machine for New York Point, the Kleidograph, which kept his code alive longer. A subcommittee at the 1892 convention in Brantford chose Smith's modified braille over New York Point.

In 1909, New York City had to decide which code to teach in its classes for blind children. Its Board of Education held hearings on March 24 and May 18 and decided for American braille. Helen Keller's letter, read at the hearing, put it bluntly: "I am sure that in all important respects American braille is superior to New York Point." Her full argument, about capitals, spelling and the shape of the letters, is in Helen Keller and braille.

In 1910, at the meetings in Little Rock and Louisville, a tie vote was broken by Colonel Andrew Cowan, and from then on, Irwin writes, "forty per cent of the federal appropriation went for American braille books."

Standard Dot, grade 1½ and the 1932 agreement

The educators tried to end the war with science. A Tactile Print Investigating Commission (1902) and then a Uniform Type Committee (1905) ran legibility tests on readers. On June 25, 1913, in Jacksonville, Illinois, the committee recommended "an entirely new system, to be known as Standard Dot," to replace both New York Point and American braille. It was accepted in Berkeley in 1915, but the British rejected it, and, Irwin writes, dubbed it "Standard Rot."

The compromise came in 1917, after the British refused to revise their own code. A convention in Portland, Maine, authorized a revised braille "to be designated for the present as grade 1-1/2," the commission adopted it as the US uniform type, and the American Association of Instructors of the Blind endorsed the commission's work in 1918. In 1922 the commission's powers passed to the American Foundation for the Blind.

The last step was international. On July 19, 1932, representatives of the blind of Great Britain and the United States signed the agreement sometimes called the Treaty of London, which produced Standard English Braille grade 2. Among the changes, capitals became optional and the British capital and italic signs were swapped. The workers for the blind confirmed it in 1933, the instructors in 1934, and the Library of Congress adopted grade 2 at once. AFB's museum sums it up: "It was not until 1932 that a uniform code was accepted by English-speaking countries around the world."

From EBAE to Unified English Braille

The 1932 code became the American literary code: "The official braille code, English Braille, American Edition, was first published in 1932," the Library of Congress says (NLS). The year before, in 1931, the Library of Congress had begun distributing braille materials and phonograph records to blind readers under the Pratt-Smoot Act of 1930 (AFB chronology).

The Braille Authority of North America (BANA) "officially came into existence in 1976" (BANA) and now maintains the code. In 1991 BANA saw braille use falling, partly because the code had grown complex, and decided to overhaul it. The project went international under the International Council on English Braille, which declared Unified English Braille (UEB) substantially complete in April 2004. BANA voted to adopt it on November 2, 2012, and UEB became the code in general use in the US on January 4, 2016, Louis Braille's birthday. What changed, cell by cell, is in Unified English Braille.

Math went its own way. The Nemeth Code, by the blind mathematician Abraham Nemeth, dates from the early 1950s and was updated in 2022 to work inside UEB text (Nemeth Code).

Machines that changed braille

Today braille is also read on refreshable braille displays, whose pins rise and fall, and on phones paired with them. Whether that has made braille less used is a different question, answered in is braille dying?

Timeline

Sources: those linked in each section above; World Braille Day is in why January 4?

Dates the sources disagree on

We show both rather than pick one. Where a date depends on what counts, the first use, the first sale or the first edition, the two can both be right.

Learning braille today

The code has barely changed since 1837, so learning the letters is learning Louis Braille's system. Braillito is our app, and this section is about it: in English it has 59 lessons in 8 worlds of uncontracted braille (grade 1), built from short exercises, with a braille translator and a braille dictionary. It does not teach contracted braille (grade 2) or the history on this page. Braillito is a subscription, with no free version. Depending on the plan, it starts with a free trial or with a discounted first period, if it's your first subscription (is Braillito free?). Without paying, the braille alphabet, the braille translator and the braille printables work in any browser.

Frequently asked questions

What is the history of braille in short?

Louis Braille published his six-dot code in Paris in 1829. It was officially adopted in France in 1854, and a Paris congress made it international in 1878. In the US it competed with New York Point and other codes in the War of the Dots until a common code for English-speaking countries was agreed in 1932. The US moved to Unified English Braille in 2016.

What was the War of the Dots?

The decades-long fight in the United States over which raised-dot code blind people should read: New York Point, American braille or British braille. It ran from the 1870s, with the 1909 New York City hearings and a 1910 tie vote as turning points, and ended with grade 1½ in 1917 and the common English code of 1932.

What is New York Point?

A raised-dot code published by William Bell Wait in 1868 and endorsed by US educators in 1871. Its cells were two dots high and of variable width. It lost the War of the Dots to braille and is no longer used.

When did braille come to the United States?

The Missouri School for the Blind was the first US school to use it, in 1854 or 1860 depending on the source. A national standard came in 1917, and English Braille American Edition was first published in 1932.

Why is the letter w different in braille?

Because the French alphabet had no w when Louis Braille created the code, the Library of Congress explains. The w was added later, so it does not follow the pattern of the third series.

When did braille become international?

In 1878, when a congress in Paris decided to adopt braille as the international system for writing by blind people, according to AFB.

How we checked this page

We read every source on October 28, 2026: AFB's War of the Dots (Robert B. Irwin), its chronology, its online museum pages on the dissemination of braille and decapoint, the NLS "About braille" page and BANA. The later dates come from the primary sources already cited in our posts on UEB, World Braille Day, the Perkins Brailler and the Nemeth Code. We could not read the National Federation of the Blind's braille history page (it refused our request), so nothing here comes from it. Every braille cell on this page comes from our braille engine and is checked by test.