2018.14.1-9

Raised Line Drawing Kit

Howe Press/Perkins School

.1) Bright aluminum protractor, with pins on bottom to engage in a drawing board; swiveling indicator bar, arc of protractor is notched in five degree increments and marked with raised dots at fifteen degree increments, base of protractor is marked in inches, with tactile notch at each full inch, and raised dots at quarter inch increments along with braille numbers counting 1-12; stamped on base, "HOWE PRESS/PERKINS SCHOOL/WATERTOWN, MASS."
.2) Bright aluminum ruler, with pins on bottom to engage in drawing board; tactile notch on top edge at each full inch, raised dots at each quarter inch, and numbered in braille 1-12; stamped, "HOWE PRESS/PERKINS SCHOOL/WATERTOWN, MASS."
.3) Bright aluminum square or right angle, stamped ""HOWE PRESS/PERKINS SCHOOL/WATERTOWN, MASS."
.4) Bright aluminum stylus, one half of shaft is hexagonal, tapering at end to a white nylon tip; other half of shaft is knurled, tapering to steel stylus inserted in tip; stamped "HOWE PRESS/WATERTOWN, MASS."
.5) Blackened steel tracing wheel, flat bar, rounded on handle and tapering to steel star wheel on tip, with crossbar inserted through shaft just above taper; stamped, "HOWE PRESS/WATERTOWN, MASS."
.6) Blackened steel compass, handle at top is knurled and fitted to round spring, legs adjusted with a knurled thumb screw on a threaded screw mounted on the side, one rounded foot and one needle foot; stamped on leg, "HOWE PRESS/WATERTOWN, MASS."
.7) Blackened steel compass with star wheel, handle at top is knurled and fitted to round spring, legs adjusted with a knurled thumb screw on a threaded screw mounted on the side, one star wheel foot and one needle foot; stamped on leg, "HOWE PRESS/WATERTOWN, MASS."
.8) Freehand drawing stylus: stainless steel bar bent into U shape spring; hollow point steel stylus secured by black knob on top extension; steel dot on bottom extension which meets stylus point when spring/bar is compressed.
.9) Envelope of Mylar embossing sheets.

ca. 1980

Howe Press, Perkins School

Watertown, Massachusetts

In 1939, Edward Waterhouse, a math teacher at the Perkins School in Watertown, Massachusetts, was designing pioneering appliances to teach mathematics. In 1939, there were no commercially available adapted tools that would allow students with visual impairments to draw raised lines for themselves. By 1941, the Howe Press, the manufacturing arm at Perkins, had introduced "Geometry Instruments," a compass with a star wheel, a braille protractor, a tracing wheel, and braille rulers. In 1947, the Perkins Annual Report says that their geometry instruments were being made at the Howe Press machine shop, now in Watertown (having moved that year from Boston). In 1950, the category was renamed "Mathematical Instruments." You could buy all six drawing tools in 1956 for $13.45.
By May of 1968, Howe Press and Perkins had packaged their tools in a kit, the Raised Line Drawing Kit. It consisted of a rubber-faced drawing board, a nylon tipped stylus, a tracing wheel, a twelve-inch ruler, a protractor, a compass, and a right angle, along with 100 sheets of ten-inch square Mylar. The RLDK produced a raised line drawing on the opposite side of the Mylar. By 1976, Howe had also introduced their Freehand Drawing Stylus, a tool allowing you to place individual raised dots anywhere on the page.

Museum Collection, 2018.14.