In 2008, the American Printing House for the Blind (APH) celebrated 150 years of providing braille, large-print, and audiobooks as well as tactile educational aids to blind and visually impaired students.
Part of its celebration was the commissioning of a new book, History in the Making: The Story of the American Printing House for the Blind, 1858-2008 (Butler Books, 2008), by Carole Brenner Tobe, former director of the APH Museum in Louisville, Kentucky.
The book traces APH’s development from a one-press publisher located in the basement of the Kentucky School for the Blind, to the world’s largest provider of specially formatted reading materials, whose headquarters now occupies a city block. The following is a chronology of major events in APH history.
Key Moments in the History of the American Printing House for the Blind
1858: American Printing House for the Blind founded in Louisville, Kentucky “to print books in raised letters for the benefit of the blind.”
1875: APH releases wooden, jigsaw-puzzle-like “dissected maps”
1879: US House of Representatives passes the “Act to Promote the Education of the Blind,” providing funding under a federal quota system for the publication of free embossed textbooks
1885: APH releases first cardboard tactile maps
1919: Susan B. Merwin, only the second woman to head a US school for the blind, succeeds B.B. Huntoon as head of APH
1922: Lula May Wash, a proofreader, becomes APH’s first visually impaired employee
1928: APH acquires Chicago’s Cooper Manufacturing as a repair and machine shop for making metal slates; publishes Reader’s Digest, the first mainstream magazine to appear in braille
1935: President Roosevelt approves production of 5,000 Talking Book players as a WPA project
1936: APH publishes first large-print book (hand-set in monotype), Everyday Manners for American Boys and Girls, funded by a benefactor
1936: Hugh Sutton records Gulliver’s Travels, the first Talking Book produced in APH’s new recording studio
1939: APH publishes Reader’s Digest as a Talking Book; release of dissected map of US in hard rubber
1949: First open house reveals strong public support and interest in APH’s operations; APH revenues top $1 million for the first time
1955: Release of tactile globe
1959: APH publishes Talking Book version of Newsweek
1962: Release of Lavender Braillewriter, made of impact-resistant Cycolac plastic; sold 2,300 in five years; discontinued in 1982
1964: With funding from the Field Foundation, APH completes world’s largest braille publication, the 145-volume World Book Encyclopedia
1970: Cassette Talking Books introduced
1975: APH employee base nears a record 600 (it employs 330 today)
1977: General recall of lead-contaminated educational aids
1981: Virginia Keeney becomes first APH board member: APH employees vote to join Teamsters Union (strikes in 1988 and 2005)
1984: APH records Concise American Heritage Dictionary on 55 audiocassettes
1985: Release of Talking Apple Literacy Kit, the first braille software
1987: Blaise Engineering releases Braille ‘n Speak, an improvement of APH’s Pocket Braille electronic note-taker developed by Fred Gissoni
1988: APH produces a record 800 Talking Books
1992: APH forms Public Relations department led by Gary Mudd, APH’s first blind vice president
1994: APH Museum opens
1996: APH launches website with online product catalog and the Louis Database; becomes “project company” in Toyota Motors’ operations mentoring program
1998: Mitzi Friedlander narrates 1,000th book (an APH first); APH narrators vote to join AFTRA, the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists (struck in 2000)
2004: APH switches to digital recording process developed by its Technology Research Department
2008: Release of Sendero Digital Mapping Software; celebration of APH sesquicentennial.
Though its mission began before the Civil War, the American Printing House for the Blind remains on the leading edge of every innovation that has enabled the blind to read, and now carries its work into the digital age.
Andrew Leibs - Andrew Leibs is Suite101’s Feature Writer for Accessible Recreation. He is a longtime chronicler of the disability movement with ...
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