history

The Blind Detective in Popular Culture

This month, on the museum’s Facebook and Twitter, we’re posting some photos and brief histories of blind detectives in fiction,...

The Carrier’s Address

I stumbled across something interesting while cataloging the archives of the Kentucky School for the Blind Alumni Association yesterday. Historians...

Christmas Letters to Helen

In 1933, Miss Elizabeth Aitkin sent Helen Keller a handful of letters from her third and fourth grade classes in...

Math Accessibility Through History

I like numbers. I think the way they dance around and make different, almost mystical combinations is cool. (Hang with...

Piney Woods Country Life School

For a small exhibit this fall I researched two Hall of Fame recipients, Dr. Laurence C. Jones and Martha Morrow...

A Lot of Dots

Photos above from Museum Archives: Hall braillewriter 1892; APH employees typing braille printing plates with stereograph machines, c. 1945; detail...

A Barrel of Documents

My journey of discovery started when I found two folders in the American Foundation for the Blind Archive folders, both...

National Museum Education Associates Appreciation Day

There is a National Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day (January 31), a National Squirrel Appreciation Day (January 21), even a National...

How the Helen Keller Archive Began

When I started working in the AFB (American Foundation for the Blind) Helen Keller Archive at APH in October of...

We Are Open

I’ve been pretty excited this week. It’s been almost sixteen months since we had a visitor in the museum, but...

Why We Celebrate Helen

In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson awarded Helen Keller the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. The award...

The Chair Went Out the Window

Museum objects and their stories are codependent. The artifact is the real deal. After all, it was there when history...

Helen Likes Beer

“Helen,” she said superfluously, “does like beer.” That about sums up Helen Keller… That’s not what people expected to read...

The Teacher as North Star

May is Teacher Appreciation Month in the U.S., but here in the museum at the American Printing House for the...

We Don’t Need Another Hero

For the past three years I have been thinking a lot about heroes and heroism. Museums, as institutions that preserve...