43 Facts About Laura Bridgman

Laura Dewey Lynn Bridgman was the first deaf-blind American child to gain a significant education in the English language, forty-five years before the more famous Helen Keller; Bridgman's friend Anne Sullivan became Helen Keller's aide.

Laura Bridgman was educated at the Perkins Institution for the Blind where, under the direction of Samuel Gridley Howe, she learned to read and communicate using Braille and the manual alphabet developed by Charles-Michel de l'Epee.

For several years, Laura Bridgman gained celebrity status when Charles Dickens met her during his 1842 American tour and wrote about her accomplishments in his American Notes.

Laura Bridgman's fame was short-lived and she spent the remainder of her life in relative obscurity, most of it at the Perkins Institute, where she passed her time sewing and reading books in Braille.

Laura Bridgman was the third daughter of Daniel Bridgman, a Baptist farmer, and his wife Harmony, one of the five first settlers of Thetford, Vermont.

Laura Bridgman was a delicate infant, small and rickety, who often had convulsions until she was eighteen months old.

Laura Bridgman's family was struck with scarlet fever when Laura was two years old.

Laura Bridgman's mother kept her well-groomed and showed the child affection, but Laura Bridgman received little attention from the rest of her family, including her father, who, on occasion, tried to "frighten her into obedience" by stamping his foot hard on the floor to startle her with the vibrations.

Laura Bridgman's closest friend was a kind, mentally impaired hired man of the Bridgmans, Asa Tenney, whom she credited with making her childhood happy.

Laura Bridgman knew Native Americans who used a sign language, and had begun to teach Laura to express herself using these signs when she was sent away to school.

In 1837, James Barrett of Dartmouth College saw Laura Bridgman and mentioned her case to Dr Reuben Mussey, the head of the medical department.

Laura Bridgman entered the school on October 12,1837, two months before her eighth birthday.

Laura Bridgman was frightened and homesick at first, but she soon formed an attachment to the house matron, Miss Lydia Hall Drew, who was her first instructor at the school.

Laura Bridgman then had her feel the labels by themselves, and she learned to associate the raised letters with the articles to which they referred.

Laura Bridgman was in good health and happy, and was treated as a daughter by Howe.

Laura Bridgman lived in the director's apartment with Howe and his sister, Jeannette Howe, until Howe married Julia Ward in 1843.

Laura Bridgman's case had already begun to interest the public, and others were brought to Dr Howe for treatment.

Crowds gathered to watch Laura Bridgman read and point out locations on a map with raised letters.

Laura Bridgman became "very much excited" by these events, but her teachers were concerned because Laura Bridgman knew she drew more attention than the other students.

Laura Bridgman suffered a series of emotional losses during her teenage years and early twenties.

Laura Bridgman's fears were realized when the couple returned from their honeymoon in August 1844.

Laura Bridgman never developed a close relationship with Julia Ward Howe who, according to her daughters, had a "physical distaste for the abnormal and defective" and a "natural shrinking from the blind and other defectives with whom she was often thrown" following her marriage to Howe.

Laura Bridgman had a private room, and she rarely mingled with the other students unless they paid her "particular attention".

Wight saw that Laura Bridgman could be willful and irritable, behavior characteristics that required discipline.

Laura Bridgman could be emotionally demanding of her young teacher, becoming peevish and short-tempered whenever Wight wanted some time alone.

In 1845 at the age of sixteen, Laura Bridgman developed anorexia, her weight falling from 113 pounds to 79 pounds.

Howe rightly surmised that Laura Bridgman was "reacting to the many abandonments and losses she had endured," and he proposed that she pay a visit to her family, with whom she had had little contact in recent years.

Laura Bridgman particularly enjoyed being reunited with her mother, sisters Mary and Collina, and brother Addison, who was able to communicate with Bridgman in sign language.

Laura Bridgman was reunited with her old friend Asa Tenney, who visited her frequently during her two-week stay.

Laura Bridgman begged to go along as Wight's housekeeper but, ultimately, Wight went without her, leaving Laura Bridgman with no friend, companion or teacher to console her.

Laura Bridgman eventually embraced her family's Baptist religion and was baptized in July 1852.

Laura Bridgman began occasionally to write devotional poems, of which "Holy Home" is the best known:.

Laura Bridgman feared death, but she saw heaven as a "place where these fears might at last be laid to rest".

Laura Bridgman returned to New Hampshire and, for a time, she enjoyed being reunited with her family; however, she was homesick for the school and her anorexia eventually returned.

When Howe learned that Laura Bridgman's health was rapidly deteriorating, he sent a teacher, Mary Paddock, to the Laura Bridgman home to take his former student back to the school.

Laura Bridgman earned a little spending money, about $100 a year, from selling her crocheted doilies, purses, and embroidered handkerchiefs, but she was primarily dependent upon the school to supply her with room and board.

Laura Bridgman was a skilled textile creator, making intricate lace collars and other trim such as complicated bead work.

Laura Bridgman lived a relatively quiet and uneventful life at the school.

Laura Bridgman was buried at Dana Cemetery in Hanover, New Hampshire near her family's farm.

Laura Bridgman became famous in her youth as an example of the education of a deaf-blind person.

Sullivan learned the manual alphabet at the Perkins Institution which she took back to Helen, along with a doll wearing clothing that Laura Bridgman had sewn herself.

Laura Bridgman's case is mentioned in La Symphonie Pastorale by Andre Gide.

In 2014, a fictional account of the life of Laura Bridgman, What Is Visible by Kimberly Elkins, was published.