overbrookschoolfortheblind

you misspelled "athlete" in the description...

date is written on top as 4-27-11

The Overbrook School for the Blind still exists. I used to live down the street from it.

Helen Keller? Did someone really tag this with Helen Keller? Jeez.

Wasn't it kind of dangerous to stack blind people into pyramids like that?

Titania is a character in Midsummer Night's Dream.

From a performance or pageant at Overbrook School for the Blind--presumably Titania is one of the Overbrook students.

Here is another photo from the Midsummer Night's Dream production from The Commons, with "Titania" at center:

A June 6, 1914 magazine used the Bain photo with this caption:
A BLIND TITANIA QUEEN OF THE FAIRIES
A Midsummer Night's Dream was given this year in the dramatic work of the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind at Overbrook. The institution's report holds that the drama not only makes the institution known but clears up the old impression that it is a "blind asylum", while in realiity it is "a boarding school for boys and girls who happen to be blind." Most important of all it gives self confidence to blind pupils, helps them to get around, and oflen completely transforms those who are slow to hear and to observe.
books.google.com/books?id=mI4qAAAAMAAJ&lpg=PR14&o...
Another 1914 account, with yet another photo:
books.google.com/books?id=FQUCAAAAYAAJ&dq=overbrook%2...

Thanks to all of you for this great research. We'll add some of this information to the record the next time we update.

Thanks for adding these lovely images to the Dancing Outside group

one of those 'courageous women of the 1910s. it's really a brilliant 'handicapped'. great photo!

Awesome Vintage*~*

Would be a great history lesson to compare the workspace here. In the 1960 I worked in a setup much like this.

Un pequeño lente para observar los impresioantes avances del siglo XX

• English. The picture shows a working woman. Considering her blindness, one thinks life was not fair with her. But all of us are in one sense or another limited beings. If looking at this picture, Ortega y Gasset may have said that that she lacking of is precisely what supports her. The photograph may not show a famous person, but it shows a working one—somebody that went beyond natural injustice and apparently transcended it too. • Castellano rioplatense. Con los auriculares puestos, esta taquígrafa ciega de principios del siglo XX fue fotografiada mientras trabajaba. Al considerar su ceguera, uno piensa que la vida no fue justa con ella. Pero, de alguna manera u otra, todos somos seres limitados. Importante es lo que hacemos con lo que la vida sí nos dio. Lo que nos falta es lo que nos sostiene, decía Ortega y Gasset. Esta foto acaso no muestre un ser famoso, pero muestra una taquígrafa ciega en plena labor. La imagen sugiere que ella, a la Naturaleza, la trascendió. Mariano Akerman - « plus ultra » → www.flogup.com/akermariano/845258 To meditate | Para meditar → efimeronte.page.tl/Atypical-Beings.htm