Victorian Britain was a heavily visual era. Sighted people gained access to the Penny Post, and the ability to communicate with friends across the nation with relative ease in an alphabet which was already well-established. On the other hand, for the blind community, many different tactile alphabets were invented simultaneously to address their exclusion from this culture, and blind education was completely decentralised.
Tilly Guthrie is a PhD researcher in the history of tactile literacy, specialising in the period between the invention of Braille in the 1820s and its eventual adoption in Britain at the end of the nineteenth century. In this conversation with Braillists Chairman, Dave Williams, she will describe some of the tactile alphabets in use at that time, and show how their concurrence affected blind people’s access to culture and community and how blindness was perceived by the sighted.
To join by phone, please use these details:
- Phone number: 0131 460 1196
- Meeting ID: 840 2014 9850
- Passcode: 123456