Anagnos, Michael (07 November 1837–29 June 1906), educator of the blind, was born in the remote village of Papingo in the Epirus region of northwestern Greece, the son of a peasant named Demetrios Anagnostopoulos, whose family held a prominent position within the community; his mother’s name is not known. He attended high school in the city of Ioannina and in 1856 entered the National University of Athens, where he took courses in Greek, Latin, French, and philosophy. Shortly after graduating from the university he went to work for ...
Article
Anagnos, Michael (1837-1906), educator of the blind
Kenneth A. Stuckey
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Barnard, Frederick Augustus Porter (1809-1889), scientist and university president
Robert A. McCaughey
Barnard, Frederick Augustus Porter (05 May 1809–27 April 1889), scientist and university president, was born in Sheffield, Massachusetts, the son of Robert Foster Barnard, an attorney, and Augusta Porter. He attended school at the Saratoga Academy across the state border in New York and then at the Stockbridge Academy, where he was a classmate and friendly rival of ...
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Bradley, Milton (1836-1911), manufacturer of games and educational materials
Deborah S. Ing
Bradley, Milton (08 November 1836–30 May 1911), manufacturer of games and educational materials, was born in Vienna, Maine, the son of Lewis Bradley, a craftsman, and Fannie Lyford. After finishing high school in 1854 in Lowell, Massachusetts, Bradley found work in the office of a mechanical draftsman and patent agent. There he earned enough money to enroll himself in the Lawrence Scientific School at Cambridge, where he studied drafting. Half a year short of completing the two-year course, Bradley moved to Hartford, Connecticut, with his parents. Unsuccessful in securing employment there, he left home in 1856 for Springfield, Massachusetts, where he immediately found work with the Wason Car-Manufacturing Company as a draftsman....
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Castro, Sal (25 October 1933–15 April 2013)
Mario T. Garcia
Castro, Sal (25 October 1933–15 April 2013), high school teacher and community activist, was born Salvador Castro in Los Angeles, the only child of Carmen Buruel and Salvador Castro, both Mexican immigrant workers. Because his father was undocumented he was deported in 1935 as part of a repatriation movement that blamed Mexican immigrants for taking jobs from “real Americans” during the Great Depression; Castro and his mother were spared being part of this tragic episode. The separation eventually led to his parents divorcing; his mother later remarried....
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Catto, Octavius Valentine (22 February 1839–10 October 1871), civil rights activist, educator, and athlete
Timothy J. Potero
Catto, Octavius Valentine (22 February 1839–10 October 1871), civil rights activist, educator, and athlete, was born to William T. Catto and Sarah Isabella Cain in Charleston, South Carolina. His family soon moved to Baltimore, Maryland and ultimately settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Catto’s father, a former slave who gained his freedom early in life, became an ordained Presbyterian minister. His mother came from a mulatto family. Catto attended segregated primary classes at the Vaux Primary School and the Lombard Street School in Philadelphia and the prestigious Allentown Academy in Allentown, New Jersey. In ...
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Catto, Octavius Valentine (22 February 1839–10 October 1871)
S. Fox
In
Portrait of Octavius V. Catto, c.1871, by S. Fox
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, [LC-DIG-ppmsca-18480]
Article
Churchman, William Henry (1818-1882), educator of the blind
Mary Klages
Churchman, William Henry (23 November 1818–18 May 1882), educator of the blind, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Quakers Micajah Churchman and Eliza (maiden name unknown). At the age of fifteen his eyesight began to fail, which was attributed to strain from reading and “overstudy” of languages and mathematics. At age eighteen he entered the newly founded Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind as an advanced pupil who had the equivalent of a common-school education but needed specialized training in the skills relevant to the blind, especially writing and reading raised print. A model pupil of the institution, he graduated three years later and spent a year as a teacher there before taking an appointment in 1840 as a teacher of mathematics and music at the Ohio Institution for the Blind in Columbus....
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Gallaudet, Edward Miner (1837-1917), educator
Timothy Reagan
Gallaudet, Edward Miner (05 February 1837–26 September 1917), educator, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, noted educator of the deaf and principal of the Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons (now the American School for the Deaf), and Sophia Fowler, a deaf graduate of the Connecticut Asylum. Edward attended Trinity College in Hartford, supporting himself by teaching part time at the Connecticut Asylum, where he continued to work full time after leaving Trinity College....
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Gallaudet, Thomas (1822-1902), Episcopal minister to the deaf
Harvey Hill
Gallaudet, Thomas (03 June 1822–27 August 1902), Episcopal minister to the deaf, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, educator of the deaf, and Sophia Fowler. Thomas Hopkins had founded the Connecticut Asylum, a school for the deaf in Hartford in 1817, and Sophia was one of its first graduates. They had little money but their work was well known and brought them into contact with the highest echelons of society. Growing up in these surroundings, Thomas early became interested in education for the deaf and particularly in communication through sign language....
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Gallaudet, Thomas Hopkins (1787-1851), educator of the deaf
Timothy Reagan
Gallaudet, Thomas Hopkins (10 December 1787–10 September 1851), educator of the deaf, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Peter W. Gallaudet, a merchant, and Jane Hopkins. Gallaudet was a gifted and successful student, graduating from Yale University in 1805. He entered Andover Theological Seminary in January 1812 and graduated in 1814. As a result of health problems that would continue throughout his life, Gallaudet returned to Hartford, Connecticut, where his parents had moved when he was thirteen, rather than accepting a ministerial position....
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Howe, Samuel Gridley (1801-1876), educator of the handicapped and social reformer
Kenneth Stuckey
Howe, Samuel Gridley (10 November 1801–09 January 1876), educator of the handicapped and social reformer, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Joseph Neals Howe, a prosperous maker of ropes and cordage, and Patty Gridley. During the War of 1812, Joseph Howe lost money by selling cordage to the federal government for which he received in payment useless treasury notes, leaving his family in straitened circumstances during Samuel Howe’s boyhood....
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Horton, Myles (9 July 1905–19 January 1990), co-founder of the Highlander School, educator and activist in the labor and civil rights movements
Dale Jacobs
Horton, Myles (9 July 1905–19 January 1990), co-founder of the Highlander School, educator and activist in the labor and civil rights movements, was born Myles Falls Horton in Savannah, Tennessee, the eldest son of Elsie Falls Horton and Perry Horton. Both parents were schoolteachers prior to Horton’s birth, but lost their jobs when the qualifications to teach were increased to include a year of high school, which neither of them possessed. After a number of years of low-paying jobs, Horton’s father became an active participant in the Worker’s Alliance, the union of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), while Horton’s mother volunteered to teach literacy in the community. Horton later said that he took from his mother a belief in the power of love, “the principle of trying to serve people and build a loving world” (Horton, p. 7). These lessons in working for the greater good of society would serve as the guiding force throughout his life....
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Neef, Francis Joseph Nicholas (1770-1854), educator and author
Gerald L. Gutek
Neef, Francis Joseph Nicholas (06 December 1770–08 April 1854), educator and author, was born in Soultz, Alsace, France, the son of Francis Joseph Neef, the town miller, and Anastasia Ackerman. Neef studied for the Roman Catholic priesthood at the abbey school at Murbach, where he became proficient in Latin and Greek. Inspired by the French Revolution, however, he abandoned his clerical studies to serve in the French army. Attaining the rank of noncommissioned adjutant subofficer, he was seriously wounded at the battle of Arcole during the Italian campaign of 1796 when an Austrian round lodged between his right eye and nose. The injury brought him an honorable discharge and lifelong health problems, including recurrent headaches, fainting spells, and temporary blindness....
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Nitchie, Edward Bartlett (1876-1917), special educator and author
Edward L. Lach, Jr.
Nitchie, Edward Bartlett (18 November 1876–05 October 1917), special educator and author, was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Henry Evertson Nitchie and Elizabeth Woods Dunklee. His life underwent a complete change when at the age of fourteen he became almost totally deaf. In spite of this handicap, he completed his preparatory education at the Adelphi Academy and Brooklyn Latin School (both in Brooklyn, New York) and the Betts Academy of Stamford, Connecticut. Forced by his hearing loss to make adaptations in order to benefit from his teachers’ lectures, Nitchie habitually sat in the front row of the classroom, made extensive use of an ear trumpet, and conducted post-class interviews with his instructors. Using these methods he made excellent grades, and he entered Amherst College in 1895 at the age of nineteen. While at Amherst Nitchie continued to use his adoptive measures effectively; he not only achieved academic success (named Phi Beta Kappa during his junior year, he graduated magna cum laude in 1899), but he also served as the class “Ivy Poet” at commencement, as well as the editor of the ...
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Peet, Harvey Prindle (1794-1873), educator
G. Steve Barrilleaux and John W. Schifani
Peet, Harvey Prindle (19 November 1794–01 January 1873), educator, was born in Bethlehem, Connecticut, the son of Richard Peet and Johannah Prindle, farmers. Peet was educated in a country school in Bethlehem and then taught in district schools from age sixteen until 1816, when he entered Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. He entered Yale College in 1818 and graduated in 1822. Shortly after graduation, ...
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Russ, John Dennison (1801-1881), educator of the blind, social reformer, and physician
Richard G. Durnin
Russ, John Dennison (01 September 1801–01 March 1881), educator of the blind, social reformer, and physician, was born in what is now Essex (then part of Ipswich), Essex County, Massachusetts, the son of Parker Russ, a physician, and Elizabeth Cogswell. He graduated from Yale College in 1823 and soon afterward went to Brunswick, Maine, where he studied medicine with Dr. John D. Wells, a member of the faculty of medicine at Bowdoin College (Russ did not enroll at Bowdoin, however). He studied further in Baltimore and Boston and in 1825 received the M.D. degree from Yale Medical School. During 1825 and 1826 Russ was in Europe where he served in several hospitals. After his return to the United States he practiced medicine in New York City....
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Seguin, Edouard O. (1812-1880), physician and educator
Stanley L. Block
Seguin, Edouard O. (20 January 1812–28 October 1880), physician and educator, was born in Clamecy, France, the son of T. O. Seguin; his mother’s name is not recorded. He began his education at Auxerre and at the Lyćee St. Louis in Paris. His degree was not in medicine. It is unclear whether his specialty training was in education, physiology, or some allied field....
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Sizer, Theodore Ryland (23 June 1932–21 Oct. 2009), education reformer, private school headmaster, and university professor
Robert L. Hampel
Sizer, Theodore Ryland (23 June 1932–21 Oct. 2009), education reformer, private school headmaster, and university professor, was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the youngest of six children of Theodore Sizer, Yale University professor of art history, and Caroline W. Foster. He attended Pomfret, a private secondary school, and graduated in ...
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Wait, William Bell (1839-1916), educator
Edward L. Lach, Jr.
Wait, William Bell (25 March 1839–25 October 1916), educator, was born in Amsterdam, New York, the son of Christopher Brown Wait and Betsey Grinnell Bell. After receiving his early education in local public schools and the Albany Academy, he entered the Albany Normal College (now the state University of New York at Albany). Following his graduation in 1859, he took a teaching position with the New York Institution for the Blind in New York City, remaining there until the outbreak of the Civil War. Answering the first call for troops issued by President ...
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Wharton, Robert Leslie (5 Sept. 1871–2 Aug. 1960), presbyterian missionary, pastor, teacher, and school administrator
Joe P. Dunn
Wharton, Robert Leslie (5 Sept. 1871–2 Aug. 1960), presbyterian missionary, pastor, teacher, and school administrator in Cuba, was born on his parents’ farm in McLeansville, North Carolina to William P. Wharton and Jane N. Rankin Wharton, who were married in 1856. After graduation from Davidson College with an A.B. in ...
