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Originally called the "Connecticut Asylum for Education of Deaf and Dumb Persons," the American School for the Deaf was founded in Hartford, Connecticut. It was the first permanent school for the education of people with disabilities in the Western Hemisphere.
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Louis Braille invents the raised text system now known simply as "Braille," enabling the blind to read.
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The Perkins Institute, the first residential institution for the developmentally disabled is founded in Boston, Massachusetts, by Samuel Gridley Howe. This marks the beginning of the practice of institutionalization that would continue into the following centuries.
