Samuel Gridley Howe
| Samuel Gridley Howe | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
November 10, 1801 Boston, Massachusetts |
| Died | January 9, 1876 (aged 74) Massachusetts |
| Resting place | Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Boston, Massachusetts |
| Occupation | Physician, Abolitionist |
| Spouse(s) | Julia Ward (m. 1843–76) |
Samuel Gridley Howe (November 10, 1801 – January 9, 1876) was a nineteenth century United States physician, abolitionist, and an advocate of education for the blind. He organized and was the first director of the Perkins Institution.
An abolitionist, in 1863, he 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.
Howe was born on Pearl Street in Boston, Massachusetts on November 10, 1801. His father Joseph Neals Howe was a ship-owner and cordage manufacturer. His mother Patty (Gridley) Howe was considered to be one of the most beautiful women of her day.
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."
Boston in the early nineteenth century was a hotbed of political foment. Howe’s father was a Democrat who considered Harvard University a den of Federalists, and refused to allow his sons to enter the university. Accordingly, in 1818, Howe's father had him enrolled at Brown University. Most of his time there was spent engaged in practical jokes and other hi-jinx and, years later, Howe told his children that he regretted that he hadn’t more seriously applied himself to his studies. One of his classmates, Alexis Caswell, became a doctor and future president of Brown University; he described Howe by the following: “He showed mental capabilities which would naturally fit him for fine scholarship. His mind was quick, versatile, and inventive. I do not think he was deficient in logical power, but the severer studies did not seem to be congenial to him.” After graduating from Brown in 1821, Howe attended Harvard Medical School, taking his degree in 1824.
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