SHE TOUCHED THE WORLD

The first full-length new biography of Bridgman for young readers since Edith F. Hunter’s Child of the Silent Night (1963) offers a salutary reminder that Helen Keller wasn’t the only, or even first, woman to prove that deafness and blindness are not unsurpassable obstacles to becoming a functional member of society. Though a still-undiagnosed childhood disease left her with only her hands for a sense organ and “an endless curiosity,” Bridgman responded so well to the efforts of early educator Samuel Gridley Howe, head of the first school for blind children in America, that she became an international celebrity in the 1840s. This provided evidence for the startling new idea that disabled, even multiply disabled, people could be intelligent, educable and productive. The authors (one of whom is blind and partially deaf herself) cap their profile with a long afterword analyzing the changes of attitude that Bridgman helped to spark, and describing modern support systems for disabled people. Illustrated with period photos and prints, and supported by extensive notes and resource lists, this will be a valuable and long-overdue addition to library shelves. (Biography. 10-12)