Isabelle Lyon Dean Grant was a leader of the blind civil rights movement and worked to improve education for blind children around the world.
21 Facts About Isabelle Grant
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Isabelle Grant instilled a love of education into Grant during her childhood.
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Isabelle Grant attended public school in her hometown and Elgin Academy.
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Isabelle Grant taught in England and Scotland for 5 years after the completion of her degree.
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Isabelle Grant earned her PhD in comparative literature from the University of Southern California in 1940.
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Isabelle Grant was the first blind person to teach in the California Public School system.
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Isabelle Grant began as a teacher in the Los Angeles, California public school system in 1927.
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Isabelle Grant was an advocate for Mexican American students and often went with them to court if they got into trouble.
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In February 1949, Isabelle Grant was removed from her teaching position at Belvedere and placed at Polytechnic High School.
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Isabelle Grant was required to have a sighted adult in the classroom at all times as a safety precaution.
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In conjunction with the California Council of the Blind, Isabelle Grant fought to get the California legislature to eliminate discriminatory practices for teachers who are blind.
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Isabelle Grant felt blind students should be educated alongside their sighted peers.
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Isabelle Grant believed this helps to prepare the children who are blind to live in a sighted world.
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Isabelle Grant was in Pakistan from September 1959 to February 1960 organizing the Pakistan Association of the Blind.
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Isabelle Grant would collect Braille books, typewriters, music, paper, watches, and folding canes.
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In 1964, Isabelle Grant became the first woman to receive the Newell Perry award from the National Federation of the Blind.
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Isabelle Grant was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1972.
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Isabelle Grant wrote a book about her world travel with only her white cane accompanying her.
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Isabelle Grant's book was not published until 2016, nearly forty years after her death.
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Together they had one daughter, Jane Susannah "Hermione" Isabelle Grant, born in 1930.
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Isabelle Grant died in 1977, on the day before she was to leave for New York to present to the United Nations about the needs of people who are blind.