Samuel Gridley Howe

Samuel Gridley Howe (November 10, 1801 – January 9, 1876) was an American physician, abolitionist, and advocate of education for the blind. He organized and was the first director of the Perkins Institution. In 1824 he had gone to Greece to serve in the revolution as a surgeon; he also commanded troops. He arranged for support for refugees and brought many Greek children back to Boston with him for their education. An abolitionist, in 1863 Howe was one of three men appointed by the Secretary of War to the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission, to investigate conditions of freedmen in the South since the Emancipation Proclamation and recommend how they could be aided in their transition to freedom. In addition to traveling to the South, Howe traveled to Canada West (now Ontario, Canada), where thousands of former slaves had escaped to freedom and established new lives. He interviewed freedmen as well as government officials in Canada. Early life and education Howe was born on Pearl Street in Boston, Massachusetts on November 10, 1801. His father, Joseph Neals Howe, was a ship-owner and rope manufacturer in Boston. The business was prosperous until he supplied the U.S. Government with ropes during the war of 1812 and was never paid. His mother Patty (Gridley) Howe was considered to be one of the most beautiful women of her day. Samuel Gridley Howe's grandfather, Edward Compton Howe, was one of the patriots at the Boston Tea Party. Howe was educated at Boston Latin School, where he was cruelly treated and even beaten according to his daughter. Laura (Howe) Richards later wrote: "So far as I can remember, my father had no pleasant memories of his school days."