More than 160 years of life-changing innovations.

Dempsey Sherrod, a blind man from Mississippi, convinces his state to charter a national “Publishing House to Print Books in Raised Letters” to be located in Louisville, KY. The General Assembly of Kentucky passes an act to establish the American Printing House for the Blind.

APH begins raising funds from citizens in Mississippi and Kentucky, but is delayed in beginning operations by the onset of the Civil War. After the war ends, donations from Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana restart its operations. The following year its first book is printed: Fables and Tales for Children, in Boston Line Letter.

Congress appropriates funding for students who are blind for the first time. The Act to Promote the Education of the Blind provides embossed books and “tangible apparatus” from the Printing House to students all over the country.

Federal funding creates new demand for embossed books and the Printing House outgrows its basement room at the Kentucky School for the Blind. APH constructs its own building on land nearby.

Building expansion doubles the capacity of the APH press room and bindery. Meanwhile, the preference for the braille code over raised letter embossing continues to grow. Educational aids at this time are basic–braille slates, writing guides, maps, spelling frames, etc. 1928 saw the introduction of Reader’s Digest in braille.

The Pratt-Smoot Act expands funding for literature for blind adults. In response, APH installs a complete recording studio and vinyl record production line. Hugh Sutton narrates the company’s first Talking Book, Gulliver’s Travels.

APH creates a large type department. The popularity of large type textbooks and growing demand for braille and Talking Books following World War II allows the Printing House to build a major new wing.

During the 1950s, IBM and APH partner to write an English text-to-braille computer translation program. The Department of Educational Research is established and APH dramatically expands its production of education aids. Fifty-two braille magazines are in production at this time.

IBM presents APH with a computer that can be used to automatically translate print to braille. APH completes the largest braille project ever undertaken – the World Book Encyclopedia®. UNICEF funds a project that sends older APH stereograph machines to foreign countries.

Cassette tapes are introduced as a medium for talking books. A computerized database for textbooks (Central Automated Resource List — CARL) replaces the Central Catalog card catalog. APH Braille Transcription Editors (electronic braille writing terminals) become operational and braille production is now largely computerized.

The Museum of the American Printing House for the Blind opens in October 1994. The Accessible Textbook Initiative and Collaboration (ATIC) is created to address the issues of timeliness and availability of textbooks in a variety of accessible media.

Dramatic growth occurs in the number and variety of new educational and daily living aids coming from the Printing House. In both braille and large type, new processes and digital technology convert APH from a traditional publisher to a company able to produce one book for one child, on demand.

The Printing House creates the Technology Product Research Department to emphasize the need for better, more affordable technology tools. APH introduces products that exploit GPS technology, braille translation software, digital magnification, and other promising developments. The company’s involvement with the international Transforming Braille Group, results in the introduction of the world’s first refreshable braille display under $500, the Orbit Reader 20.