2006.12.1

Perkins Institute Model 13 Desk Slate

Perkins Institute Model 13 Desk Slate; rectangular wooden board with parallel grooves in sides, seven pairs of holes in grooves to hold pins in the slate; nickel plated brass paper clamp riveted to top of board, clamp has a piano hinge with a steel wire pin, two teeth on bottom pass through holes in the top plate of the clamp; nickel plated brass slate, four rows of 34 cells, cells have dimpled cutouts to hold stylus point in proper position; raised bead horizontally on top of slate between the second and third row of cells; steel pin on piano hinge; single pin (down) on top frame of slate passes through matching hole in bottom frame; bottom plate of slate has six hollows punched under each cell to help form proper dots.

H-12.625 W-10.5 D-0.75 inches

ca. 1935

Perkins Institution for the Blind

Watertown, MA

Mrs. Ethel Angell was born in Cleveland and moved with her family to Temp, AZ as a child. A schoolteacher, she married her husband Phillip in 1921, while attending UC Berkeley. In the 1930s, she joined a Red Cross class in Berkeley to learn braille transcription. Her daughter, Tommy, remembered her mother working on the transcriptions while she and her brother swam or played at the park. Red Cross certification was obtained at the time by passing a written test and submitting a braille "manuscript" of 50 or more transcribed pages. This slate was used by Mrs. Angell to prepare her manuscript.

Gift of Tommy Angell, 2006.12