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Where Can I Find a Picture of Louis Braille?
We hear this question a lot—why are there no
photographs of Louis Braille on the Braille Bug site?
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We looked long and hard for a photograph of
Louis Braille. But he died in 1852, and at that time photography
had been around for only 13 years. It was still a relatively difficult
and rare process.
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Also, Louis Braille's code for reading wasn't adopted by
the school where he taught until eight years before he died. France didn't
officially adopt Braille's system until two years after he died. It
wasn't until 1890 that the code was adopted in Austria, Belgium,
Denmark, England, Germany, Spain, and Scotland—and it took even
longer to reach the United States. Louis Braille really became more
famous after his death!
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Maybe people didn't think of taking a photo of
him while he was alive because they didn't know how famous he would
later become. But someone did think to take an old type of
"photo" called a daguerreotype shortly after his death. Here is a
portrait of Louis Braille that was
based on the daguerreotype. You can see this image, as well as others, in a
new biography from National Braille Press entitled Louis Braille:
A Touch of Genius. As the author notes, "This is the visage of
a dead man; in life, he kept his eyes open."
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The only other image we have of Louis Braille
is a sculpted bust, which can be found at the school in Paris where
he taught, the Royal Institution for Blind Youth.
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It's hard to remember in these days of
digital cameras and instant pictures how young photography actually is.
Sculpture has been around for thousands of years—photography for only 165 years!
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- The Braille Bug
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