Professor Kudlick: Boston Line Type Failed to Pay Attention to Expertise of the Blind

Monday, July 08, 2019
Photo of Boston Line Letter at Museum of the American Printing House for the Blind
Boston Line Letter at the Museum of the American Printing House for the Blind. Photo by Ricky Irvine.

99 PERCENT INVISIBLE -- Catherine Kudlick directs the Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability at San Francisco State, where she’s also a History professor. And she doesn’t even really buy Howe’s argument that Boston Line Type was “universal.”

“He might have thought of it is universal, but it’s universal in that way that the colonizer thinks things are universal. It’s like you know these poor native peoples need educating and will try to bring them up to my level and make them like me.” Howe failed to pay attention to the expertise of the blind.

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