Accession Number: 2009.24.16.1309
Description: Bound in brown rice paper covers, lined with reused braille paper; Japanese characters inked on front and back with crab figure on back; label clipped to front reads "Kenji Toi, Glee Blind Girl's Home, #1 Takai, Okamoto, Motyama, Higashi-Nadaku, Kobe, Japan"; inside album 4.5 x 6.5" BW prints are inserted into diagonal cuts in pages at their corners, with typed captions; -Outside view of the new building of the Glee Blind Girl's Home; -Study Hall; -Workshop; -Workshop; -Manual training in the old home; -Girls learning knitting in the old home; -Mr. Toi's family and the girls; -Ground work at the time of erection; -Girls playing with their friend; -A group of girls; -General & Mrs. Walker inspect our girls' demonstration at the Kobe Fair, April, 1950; -Miss Helen Keller's first visit to Japan, made about 14 years ago. Michiko Toi, then 6 years old, being introduced to Miss Keller by Miss Thomson. -Newsclipping from the "Mainichi," October 17, 1949, "Former Japanese General Learning English With 20-Year-Old Blind Girl".
Medium: Paper, Photographic Paper
Date: 1950
History/Provenance: Helen Keller and Polly Thomson met Michiko Toi, age 6, in 1937 on their first trip to Japan, and visited the Toi School founded by Kenji Toi on October 5, 1948 during her second trip to the country. Michiko Toi would later receive a scholarship to travel to America and study at the Perkins School in the 1950s from the John Milton Society, but we know little else about the Toi's and the foundation of the school.
Credit Line: AFB Migel Memorial Library Collection, 2009.24
Subjects: Blind children Braillewriters Knitting Schools for the blind and visually impaired Vocational education
