Who Was Laura Bridgman? Her Education at Perkins

Laura Bridgman (1829-1889) lost her sight and hearing as a small child and became, at the school now known as Perkins, a pupil of Samuel Gridley Howe, who began teaching her language in 1837 with raised-letter labels on everyday objects. Perkins's archive calls her "the first documented person who was deafblind to be formally educated in the United States" (Perkins finding aid), and Perkins says her education "created the model followed by all Perkins students who were deafblind for decades" (Perkins).

Below: who she was, how Howe taught her, what she wrote, whether she read braille, how her education compares with Helen Keller's, and where the sources disagree. Pages were checked on October 30, 2026. Most details come from Perkins School for the Blind's own pages and archive; the first lessons come from Howe's report as Charles Dickens printed it in American Notes (1842).

Key points

• "First" needs care. Perkins's own pages word it in different ways. We use the archive's wording: the first documented person who was deafblind to be formally educated in the United States.
• Howe began with touch. Raised-letter labels on objects came first, then loose letters, metal types and the manual alphabet, which is fingerspelling (Howe's report in American Notes).
• She wrote for decades. Perkins holds her journals, letters and a poem, many in "square hand," a writing method with angular letters (Perkins finding aid).
• No source we read says she read braille. They describe raised letters and embossed books.
• Anne Sullivan knew her. Sullivan befriended Bridgman at Perkins and read Howe's reports before she taught Helen Keller (Perkins).

Laura Bridgman at a glance

Sources: Perkins story page, Perkins AG59 finding aid, Howe's report in American Notes, American Annals of the Deaf, January 1904.

Who she was

Laura Dewey Bridgman was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, on December 21, 1829 (Perkins; Perkins finding aid). She lost her sight and hearing as a small child. Perkins says she developed a rudimentary sign language, but that communication with her family was very limited.

Perkins says that in that era people who were deafblind were "considered hopelessly unreachable." Samuel Gridley Howe, Perkins's founding director, heard about her and traveled to Hanover. Perkins says he easily convinced her busy family that her best chance lay at his school in Boston.

Howe's report says she was brought to the Institution on October 4, 1837. Perkins says she arrived 11 weeks before her eighth birthday (Perkins).

How Howe taught her

Howe wrote up the first lessons in a report, and Dickens printed long passages of it in American Notes (Project Gutenberg). Unless another source is named, this is his account of the first months.

1. A choice. After about two weeks to settle in, Howe could have built on her own signs. Perkins says he decided instead to teach her English (Perkins).
2. Labels. He pasted labels printed in raised letters on knives, forks, spoons and keys. She felt them and could tell the label for spoon from the label for key. Then she was given loose labels with the same words and matched them to the objects.
3. Loose letters. Letters on separate bits of paper were arranged to spell book or key, mixed up, and she put them back in order.
4. Metal types. Next came a set of metal types and a board with square holes to set them in. Handed an object, she picked out the letters for its name and arranged them on the board. This went on for several weeks.
5. The manual alphabet. Howe taught her to form the letters with her fingers instead of "the cumbrous apparatus of the board and types." He dates this to about three months after she began.

Howe was candid about the early stages. Of the labels, he wrote that "the only intellectual exercise was that of imitation and memory." Perkins quotes the same sentence. Of the loose letters, he wrote that the process had been mechanical until "the truth began to flash upon her." He adds that "many weeks of apparently unprofitable labour" passed before it happened.

Other accounts put these steps on a slightly different clock. Perkins says she made the breakthrough "within weeks" (Perkins). John Macy, who wrote a supplement to Helen Keller's autobiography, says the manual alphabet came after two months of raised letters, when Howe sent one of his teachers to learn it (Keller, The Story of My Life).

Once she understood that objects have names, Perkins says, she "eagerly demanded to be taught the name of everything she encountered." A little over a year after she arrived, her curriculum was much like that of the other pupils, with a teacher constantly at her side to fingerspell to her (Perkins). Her classes covered reading, writing, geography, arithmetic, history, grammar, algebra, geometry, physiology and philosophy (Perkins).

Howe did not teach her alone for long. Macy writes that after the first year or two Howe gave her over to other teachers, who worked under his direction. Perkins's archive holds the journals those teachers kept, beginning in 1841, written by Lydia Drew, Eliza Rogers, Mary Swift and Sarah Wight. One entry, in the volume that opens June 1, 1841, records that on June 9 she asked who made water and Howe answered (Perkins teacher journals).

She taught, too. The teacher-journals record says she "delighted in teaching" another deafblind pupil, Oliver Caswell. An oil painting by Alvan Fisher, from about 1844, shows her teaching him to read.

What she wrote and left

The Perkins Archives' Laura Bridgman collection holds letters, journals, spiritual writings, photographs and books. The finding aid dates her correspondence from 1839 to 1889, mostly letters to family, friends, teachers and Perkins staff, and Perkins calls her "an enthusiastic letter writer throughout her life" (Perkins finding aid; Perkins).

Here is what the finding aid lists:

• Journals, 1841-1856. They mostly record her curriculum and daily activities, and also include dictated stories and definitions.
• Spiritual and other writings, 1843-1877. These include "Holy Home," described as her most widely known poem, and "saying cards" and autographs she wrote, presumably to sell as souvenirs.
• "Laura Bridgman's Dream." The collection has an original and copies of this piece, written for J.W. Smith in January 1859.

The archive also holds many transcriptions of her letters. The finding aid says many journals and letters were written in pencil in "square hand," and that this method "produces angular letters which can be difficult to read at times." Dickens saw her diary in 1842 and called it "a fair legible square hand." He watched her sign her name: she kept her left hand touching her right, and "wrote straight and freely."

Perkins's page also shows a handwritten account from 1885. In it she remembers Perkins as "a delightful abode for me in the part of the Institution for the blind." Perkins says she read a great deal in her free time, "principally from the Bible."

Did she read braille?

The sources we read describe raised letters, loose and metal types, and fingerspelling. The Perkins teacher-journals record says Howe taught her English "via embossed materials and later the manual alphabet." A Harvard Library post says Howe "had developed an embossed version of the alphabet."

The finding aid lists braille, too. One series holds "embossed books, correspondence, and ephemera in braille," some of which belonged to her. Items include one listed as a "Braille booklet given to L.B." and an embossed book dated 1835, "A Selection of Psalms, from Doctor Watts and other Authors," noted as hers. The finding aid does not say what code she read, and neither do the other sources, so we don't say she read braille.

For comparison, Anne Sullivan wrote on July 31, 1887: "I am teaching her the braille alphabet, and she is delighted to be able to make words herself that she can feel." Which braille codes Helen Keller read is covered in Helen Keller and braille; for the code's own history, see the history of braille.

Fame and later years

Howe published his account of her education in the Perkins Annual Reports, and Perkins says it made both teacher and student famous. In 1842 Dickens visited and wrote about her in American Notes. He pictured her "built up, as it were, in a marble cell, impervious to any ray of light, or particle of sound." Perkins says Dickens described her "in sentimental terms" and that his "effusive praise increased her celebrity and popularity throughout the world." In her childhood, Perkins says elsewhere, she was "said to be second in fame only to Queen Victoria."

Her instruction at Perkins ended in 1850, when she was 20, and she returned to New Hampshire to be with her family. Perkins says her health began to deteriorate, and Howe and Dorothea Dix, her friend and advocate, raised an endowment so she could have a permanent home at the school. She lived at Perkins, her "Sunny Home," for the rest of her life, in one of the four cottages with the students. She taught needlework and sewing (Perkins), sold her needlework pieces, and, as Perkins puts it, did her share of the housework.

She died at Perkins on May 24, 1889, at 59 (Perkins). One Perkins student cottage is now named for her (Perkins).

Laura Bridgman and Helen Keller

Keller wrote that her mother's "only ray of hope" came from Dickens's American Notes: she had read the account of Bridgman and "remembered vaguely that she was deaf and blind, yet had been educated" (Keller). Perkins says Keller arrived at Perkins 50 years after Bridgman (Perkins).

The thread between them was Anne Sullivan, a Perkins graduate. Perkins says she befriended the middle-aged Bridgman and learned the manual alphabet to talk with her, then spent months reading Howe's reports before going to Alabama. Macy gives the months: August 1886, when Captain Keller wrote, to February 1887. Keller's book dates Sullivan's arrival to March 3, 1887; what happened next is in Helen Keller facts.

Two small links remain. Keller recalled that Perkins children sent the doll Sullivan gave her and that Bridgman had dressed it (Keller). And on July 31, 1887, Sullivan wrote: "I had a letter from Laura Bridgman last Sunday."

How do the two educations compare? The 1904 review says the principles behind both were "substantially the same," and that Sullivan "added at least one important principle": starting with unceasing talk by fingerspelling, even with no sign the child understood. It adds that Keller seems to have been no quicker than Bridgman to grasp the connection between word and thing ("it was a matter of weeks with each"), though Keller's vocabulary then grew faster. It also notes that Sullivan took Keller out to meadow, wood and stream, while Bridgman's teachers, "living in a city and in an institution," lacked the opportunity for that.

In his supplement to Keller's book, Macy judged that Howe's work with Bridgman "made Miss Sullivan's work possible," while Sullivan "discovered the way to teach language to the deaf-blind." Perkins takes a longer view: for decades after Bridgman, its approach to deafblind students "varied little from Bridgman's day." For questions about Keller's own story, see was Helen Keller real?. For how deafblind people communicate now, including tactile fingerspelling, see deafblind communication.

Where accounts differ

• "First." The archive finding aid: the first documented person who was deafblind to be formally educated in the United States. The story page: "the first student with deafblindness to be formally educated." The teacher-journals record: the first child to gain a significant education. Harvard Library: the first to "ever be taught language formally." We use the first, narrowest wording.
• When her schooling ended. 1850 (Perkins) or 1852 (the 1904 review).
• When the manual alphabet came. About two months in (Macy) or about three (Howe).
• When Sullivan went to Alabama. One Perkins page says 1886; Keller's book says the letter went out in the summer of 1886 and Sullivan arrived in March 1887.
• The doll. Keller says Bridgman dressed it; Perkins says it wore clothing Bridgman had sewn.

Where Braillito fits

Braillito, our app, teaches braille. It teaches the braille cells in lessons with exercises you play, with lives, levels and a daily streak: 59 lessons in 8 worlds in English. It also has a translator, a dictionary and a cell builder. The English lessons are uncontracted braille (grade 1); they don't teach contracted braille or transcription, and Braillito isn't a braille transcriber.

Bridgman's lessons began with raised letters, and the sources we read don't say she read braille. If you'd like to see how a word looks in braille today, the translator on braillito.com shows how a word or short phrase looks in UEB, but it only applies the rules a program can apply, so it doesn't replace a transcriber. Without paying, the braille translator works in any browser. Starting from zero? See how to learn braille.

Braillito is a subscription with no free version; depending on the plan, it starts with a free trial or a discounted first period, if it's your first subscription (is Braillito free?). Get Braillito.

Frequently asked questions

Who was Laura Bridgman?

A woman from Hanover, New Hampshire (1829-1889) who lost her sight and hearing as a small child and was educated at Perkins from 1837, first by Samuel Gridley Howe and then by teachers working under him. Howe's reports made her known around the world. After a stay with her family, she lived at Perkins for the rest of her life and died there in 1889 (Perkins).

Was Laura Bridgman the first deafblind person to be educated?

Perkins's archive calls her "the first documented person who was deafblind to be formally educated in the United States." Other pages word it more broadly, such as the story page's "first student with deafblindness to be formally educated." We use the archive's narrower wording; we haven't checked what happened outside the United States.

How did Samuel Gridley Howe teach Laura Bridgman?

With touch. He started with raised-letter labels on objects, moved to loose letters and metal types, and then taught her the manual alphabet, about three months in by his own account (Howe's report). After that she had a teacher who fingerspelled to her.

Did Laura Bridgman read braille?

The sources we read describe raised letters, embossed books and fingerspelling, and none says what code she read. The Perkins finding aid lists braille items, some of which belonged to her, but doesn't say she read braille.

What was Laura Bridgman's connection to Helen Keller?

Anne Sullivan, who taught Keller, had been a Perkins student and knew Bridgman. Keller's mother had read about Bridgman in Dickens's American Notes, and Keller arrived at Perkins 50 years after Bridgman (Perkins).

Where can I see Laura Bridgman's own writing?

Perkins's Laura Bridgman page lists digital collections that include her journals and other writings, the teacher journals and digitized scrapbooks (Perkins).