Some remarkable new characters

     

Part of the Museum of disABILITY History's Abandoned History Series

         Among the many treasures in the city of Buffalo, New York, is the Museum of disABILITY History (http://www.museumofdisability.org/).  This is a museum entirely devoted to advancing the understanding, acceptance and independence of people with disabilities.  In the early nineteenth century, county poorhouses were places of refuge for people with disabilities resulting from injury, illness or old age.  I think there is a place in book three of the Orphans and Inmates series for one or more characters with disabilities.  Because the story thus far focuses on the plight of children living in poverty, it makes sense that at least one of these characters should be a child.

            

          Looking to my friends at the Museum of disABILITY History for inspiration, I came across a book called Dr. Skinner’s Remarkable School for “Colored Deaf, Dumb, and Blind Children” 1857-1860 by James M. Boles and Michael Boston (part of the Museum’s Abandoned History Series). Dr. Skinner, himself a blind man, established his school first in Washington, D.C. and then in Suspension Bridge, New York (now known as Niagara Falls, New York) “for the purpose of ameliorating the condition of one of the most unfortunate class of children the world contains.” 

            Dr. Skinner's school provided much needed care, concern and education to disabled students of color.  There were only three criteria for admission:

1.      A dark face

2.      Deaf ears and a mute tongue or blind eyes

3.      The state or country in which they lived had not provided for             their education                  

            The school received nine pupils the first term and hoped to have the funds to enroll twenty the following semester (although they had identified fifty children in need of their help).  A newspaper called The Mute and the Blind, which was entirely run by the students, was produced to help support the school.  Dr. Skinner’s abolitionist leanings became a problem in terms of maintaining support for the school and he ultimately moved it to Trenton, New Jersey just before the Civil War.

            Dr. Skinner’s school got me thinking about what options were available to orphaned children with disabilities earlier in Buffalo’s history.  What might have been the fate of a blind or deaf child who lost her parents (say in a cholera outbreak)?  Le Couteulx St. Mary's Benevolent Society for the Deaf and Dumb was established in 1853 (just a short time after the year in which book three takes place).  It’s time to see what relationship, if any, existed between the orphanages and St. Mary’s.  The school that would become St. Mary’s School for the Deaf was established with the help of Bishop Timon, and was run by the Sisters of St. Joseph, so it will be interesting to understand its place among the predominantly protestant charitable institutions.  It looks like I will be spending some time in the library at the Museum of disABILITY History.  Stay tuned…