bookshelf

THE EDUCATION OF LAURA BRIDGMAN

Name: THE EDUCATION OF LAURA BRIDGMAN
Author: Ernest Freeberg
ISBN: 0-674-00589-9

FIRST DEAF AND BLIND PERSON TO LEARN LANGUAGE

by Ernest Freeberg ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2001

A thoughtful and fascinating account.

bookshelf

A well-crafted study of the treatment of the disabled in early American society.

At an international exhibition in London in 1851, writes Freeberg (Humanities/Colby-Sawyer Coll.), the American exhibit consisted of “a model of Niagara Falls, some false teeth, and a large collection of pasteboard eagles.” A disappointed American editor remarked that the nation should have sent Laura Bridgman there, for everyone in Europe had heard by then of this now-forgotten marvel of American culture. A deaf and blind farm girl from New Hampshire, Bridgman had been placed (at seven) in Boston’s Perkins Institution for the Blind. There, under the tutelage of Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, she had learned how to read, write, and even talk by means of a “manual alphabet.” Howe’s triumph in teaching these skills to Bridgman, writes Freeberg, had bearing not only on the treatment of the supposedly unimprovable handicapped, but also on contemporary philosophy and theology—for it demonstrated that nurture could overcome nature. Howe, a Unitarian, was also interested to learn whether religious inclinations were innate, reasoning that if Bridgman showed any spiritual sensibilities this would prove, against Calvinist doctrine, that humans were not “deeply alienated from God.” His widely published reports on his findings throughout the course of Bridgman’s education made her an international cause célèbre, and Charles Dickens himself made it a point to visit Bridgman while on his famed American tour. No one ever thought to ask Bridgman of her own views of her experiences, however, on the assumption that “she could never understand the issues involved and would only be shocked and confused to learn that so many people were scrutinizing her every word and deed”; although the omission seems paternalistic, the author points out that Bridgman, in fact, seems to have developed no ability to think deeply or abstractly—a matter that fueled still further debates. Still, Howe’s humane treatment afforded her at least some measure of happiness, and his ideas influenced the education of others with disabilities—notably, Helen Keller, whose teacher (Annie Sullivan) read all of Howe’s reports and interviewed Bridgman herself. (For a competing biography of the subject, see Elisabeth Gitter’s The Imprisoned Guest, below.)

A thoughtful and fascinating account.

Pub Date: May 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-674-00589-9

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Harvard Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2001

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

- BOOK REVIEW
A TRAITOR TO HIS SPECIES
by Ernest Freeberg

- BOOK REVIEW
THE AGE OF EDISON
by Ernest Freeberg

bookshelf

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

bookshelf

Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

bookshelf

NIGHT

by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

bookshelf

Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.