Kentucky School for the Blind annual and biennial reports

Report, Annual

Accession Number: AnnRep1.15

Scope & Content: Report holdings: 1843-1887, 1890-1892, 1895, 1897-1902, 1905-1917, 1919-1926, 1928-1929, 1931, 1933-1934, 1939, 1942-1950. Printed reports document the school's management, building, and student activities. They include financial statements and a list of students. Black-and-white photo illustrations after 1901; an engraving of the school building in some of the earlier reports. 1908 report has engravings of the main building and the Colored Department building. Title varies: Annual Report . . . of the Kentucky Institution for the Education of the Blind (1851). Report of the Kentucky Institution for the Education of the Blind (1890). Report of the Kentucky School for the Blind (1922). Annual Report of the Kentucky School for the Blind (1946). Also included are two illustrated promotional booklets, ca. 1926 and 1932, and an 1872 statement of receipts.

Creator: Kentucky School for the Blind

Interview Date: / /

Administrative History: The Kentucky School for the Blind (KSB) was the third state-supported school for the blind established in the United States. Originally called the Kentucky Institution for the Education of the Blind, the school's founder was Bryce McLellan Patten, who began teaching a class of six blind students in the summer of 1839. On February 5, 1842, KSB was chartered with an appropriation of $10,000 and opened in May of that year on Sixth Street in downtown Louisville. Bryce Patten was the unpaid director and maintained the school; Otis Patten, his brother, was the teacher. The school moved to a new building on Broadway Avenue in 1845. When this building burned in 1851, a tract of land on the Frankfort Turnpike Road (now Frankfort Avenue) was purchased and a school built on the site in 1855. In 1884, the state legislature established a Colored Department for African-American students at KSB. Classes were held in a separate building erected that same year. The school was integrated in 1955, and the Colored Department building razed in the 1960s. In 1967, the main school building was razed to be replaced by modern campus buildings.

Subjects: Schools for the blind and visually impaired Education -- Kentucky Annual reports

Rights: Contact museum staff regarding reproduction of materials.