The Overbrook School for the Blind in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was established in 1832. [1] Its present site, in the city's Overbrook neighborhood, was acquired in 1890. [2] Along with the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children and the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, it is one of four state-approved charter schools for blind and deaf children in Pennsylvania.
The Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind opened in March 1832. A few years later, on October 27, 1836, a new building was dedicated on the northwest corner of Schuylkill Third (now Twentieth) and Sassafras (now Race) Streets on what is today the site of the Franklin Institute in the Logan Square neighborhood of Philadelphia. [3]
The school's founder, Julius R. Friedlander, died on 17 March 1837, after years of poor health. At the time of his death, he was not quite 36 years old. [3] : 122
During the early 1900s, the school offered athletic programs for its students. [4] In June 1907, Overbrook's track and field team members defeated their rivals from the Baltimore School for the Blind in the annual intercollegiate competition held between the schools. [5]
That same month, Professor Olin H. Burrit became the new superintendent of the school. He had previously been employed as the superintendent of the New York State School for the Blind. [6]
In December 1907, the school's forty-member choir performed at the dedication of Philadelphia's Grace Baptist Temple. [7]
The school was renamed the Overbrook School for the Blind in 1946, expanding and growing over the next decades. The school building suffered a fire in 1960. [8]
The building began to experience leaks in 2012 and a complete roof replacement was undertaken that same year. The building's Ludowici tiles were replaced with new ones produced by the original manufacturer. [9]
Anne V. Ward (1877–1971) was both an alumna and a faculty member of Overbrook. [10]
Elisabeth Freund (1898–1982) developed a Touch and Learn Center for the school that was a model for other blind centers internationally. [11]
Girard College is an independent college preparatory five-day boarding school located on a 43-acre campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The school was founded and permanently endowed from the shipping and banking fortune of Stephen Girard upon his death in 1831.
Overbrook is a historic neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is situated in the northwest of West Philadelphia.
Russell Conwell "Jing" Johnson was a pitcher during five seasons of American Major League Baseball. He played for the Philadelphia Athletics.
Thomas Story Kirkbride was a physician, alienist, hospital superintendent for the Institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital, and primary founder of the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane (AMSAII), the organizational precursor to the American Psychiatric Association. Along with Benjamin Rush he is considered to be the father of the modern American practice of psychiatry as a specific medical discipline. His directive and organization of institutions for the insane were the gold-standard of clinical care in psychiatry throughout the 19th century.
The Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art (PMSIA), also referred to as the School of Applied Art, was a museum and teaching institution which later split into the Philadelphia Museum of Art and University of the Arts. It was chartered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on February 26, 1876 in response to the Centennial International Exhibition held in Philadelphia that year.
A tactile alphabet is a system for writing material that the blind can read by touch. While currently the Braille system is the most popular and some materials have been prepared in Moon type, historically, many other tactile alphabets have existed:
The Philadelphia Art Alliance at University of the Arts was a multidisciplinary arts center located in the Rittenhouse Square section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was the oldest multidisciplinary arts center in the United States for visual, literary and performing arts. In June 2024 the Alliance's parent institution, the University of the Arts, abruptly closed.
Alfred Langdon Elwyn was an American medical doctor, writer and philanthropist. He was a pioneer in the education and care of people with mental and physical disabilities. He was one of the founding officers of the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind in 1833 and founded the Pennsylvania Training School for Feeble-Minded Children in 1852. The community of Elwyn, Pennsylvania and the Elwyn Institute are named in his honor.
Robert E. Lamberton High School was an American high school located in the Overbrook Park section of Philadelphia. The school was closed in 2013 as part of Philadelphia's shutdown of 23 district-run schools. Displaced students were enrolled in Overbrook High School.
The Pennsylvania School for the Deaf is the third-oldest school of its kind in the United States. Its founder, David G. Seixas (1788–1864), was a Philadelphia crockery maker-dealer who became concerned with the plight of impoverished deaf children who he observed on the city's streets. The current school building is listed by the National Register of Historic Places, and two former campuses are similarly recognized.
Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW) is the United States' largest municipally owned natural gas utility. Construction was completed by engineer Samuel V. Merrick on January 22, 1838, and operations continued from the 1800s to the present day.
Naomi Wyatt is a former Secretary of the Pennsylvania Office of Administration, who served in that role from 2007 to 2010.
Vicki Phillips is an American education consultant and former executive vice president and chief education officer of National Geographic who previously served as the director of education for the College Ready program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and as the Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
The Wissahickon Skating Club is a non-profit skating club that is located in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia.
John Joseph Graham was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1964 to 1988.
Julius Reinhold Friedlander (1803–1839) was a German-American educator. He was the founder of the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind in Philadelphia, which later became the Overbrook School for the Blind.
Arthur Ingersoll Meigs (1882–1956) was an American architect.
Elisabeth Freund (1898–1982) was a German-Jewish educator and writer. Born in Germany, she emigrated to Cuba in the 1930s and to the US in 1941. Freund developed learning curricula for the blind, and founded a Touch and Learn Center at the Overbrook School for the Blind in Philadelphia in the mid-20th century.
The 1907 Carlisle Indians football team represented the Carlisle Indian Industrial School as an independent during the 1907 college football season. Led by sixth-year head coach Pop Warner, who returned after having helmed the team from 1899 to 1903, the Indians compiled a record of 10–1 and outscored 267 to 62.
Anne V. Ward, sometimes written as Anna V. Ward, Annie V. Ward, or A. V. Ward, was a Scottish-born American educator. She was blind from youth, and taught at the Overbrook School for the Blind for 25 years, until her retirement in 1946.
