MUSEUM ACCESS FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED VISITORS

by

PHYLLIS McKENZIE, A.B., M.A.T.

A THESIS

IN

MUSEUM SCIENCE

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty

of Texas Tech University in
Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for
the Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Approved

Accepted

May, 1979
 CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 1
I. DEFINING THE PROBLEM 4
A Mandate for Change 4
The Blind Among Us 8
Perception in Blindness 12
Multiple Handicaps 17
II. GONE BEFORE 24
The First Attempts 24
More Special Galleries 34
Educational Programs 40
Part of the General Public 49
Retrospect: What Have We Learned? 56
III. TO UTILIZE OUR RESOURCES 64
Guidelines for Museum Staff 64
Guidelines for Museum Planners 68
IV, A PROGRAM 75
Modifications of the Museum of Texas Tech University . 75
A Ranch Tour for Blind and Sighted Children 79
LIST OF REFERENCES 88
APPENDIX
A. AUDIOSCRIPT, MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ARTS 94
B. PUBLICITY BROCHURE, INDIANAPOLIS MUSEUM OF ART 96
C. TOUCHABLE OBJECTS, FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY .... 97

11
 INTRODUCTION

There is, among museums, a recent upsurge of planning for

handicapped audiences. This interest has been spurred by federal
legislation requiring access for all persons to cultural institu-
tions. Significantly, and to their credit, some museums worked with
handicapped people long before required to do so by law. But for
museums planning such programs, there is little material to guide
them. Most literature in museum journals consists of self-
congratulatory success stories. Educational and scientific jour-
nals sometimes investigate psychological aspects of handicaps, but
do not relate these to the museum situation. "How-to" information
is in short supply, especially for museums on a limited budget.
Even dissemination of demographic data would be helpful. How
would potential programs be altered, for instance, if museums
knew that most legally blind persons have some usable vision,
that only a minority read braille, and that a majority are over
age sixty-five? The best publications available are a continuing
series of pamphlets issued by the National Arts and the Handicapped
Information Service and a book by the Smithsonian Institution,
Museums and Handicapped Students: Guidelines for Educators. Their
material about blindness, while apropos, is limited: they do not
consider modes of perception nor the uneasiness felt by docents in
the presence of visually impaired visitors. There is no single
publication which includes, under one cover, a consideration of
psychological, sociological, and legal aspects of blindness; a
review of existing facilities; and recommendations for future
planning. Such is the scope of this study. It is intended as a
guide to museums in the throes of planning accessible programs.
In creating the sample programs which appear in Chapter IV of this
1
paper, I found all of the preceding considerations to be relevant.
To compile background material, I relied upon both published
sources and direct correspondence with a number of museums. Muse-
ums were most generous In sending information about their programs,
facilities, and efforts to accommodate visually handicapped peo-
ple.
The word "blindness" appearing in these pages refers to any
visual dysfunction which limits one's interaction with the envi-
ronment. By this usage I certainly do not imply total blindness.
The American Foundation for the Blind reserves the term "blind"
for total blindness, that is, for persons who lack even light
perception. The Foundation uses the term "visually impaired" in
all other instances (Beechel, 1974, p. 5; Smithsonian, 1977,
p. 125). In this paper the terms are interchangeable. Where it
is necessary to distinguish between total and partial blindness,
the distinction will be made.
Some people object to such phrases as "the blind" and "the
handicapped." One explains, "It makes them feel like non-persons"
(Beechel, 19 75, p. 37). To refer instead to "visually impaired
visitors" and to "the blind population," it seems to me, is begging
the question. Does not this, too, categorize people by one salient
feature? As 1 hope my writing indicates, I strongly support the
desire of handicapped people to be respected as individual human
beings. Yet it is to the handicapped aspect of their being that
museums must make adjustment. This paper has needed at times to
speak of blindness collectively, and in those instances "the
blind" was the most logical word choice.
In this paper there are four chapters. The first explores
psychological and legal factors which museums should consider
before planning is begun. Chapter II reviews the state of prior
museum efforts and the lessons to be learned from them. Chapter
III offers general guidelines for museums, while Chapter IV, using
these guidelines, suggests specific measures for a specific museum.
 It is my hope that this paper will increase understanding of
people who differ from their fellows only in acuity of vision.
 CHAPTER I
DEFINING THE PROBLEM

A Mandate for Change

The most significant law concerning museums and the handi-

capped is the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Public Law 93-112),
Section 504 of which states.

No otherwise qualified handicapped person in the United States

. . . shall, solely by reason of his handicap, be excluded
from participating in, be denied the benefits of, or be sub-
jected to discrimination under any program or activity
receiving federal financial assistance.

What does this mean? Most museums receive federal financial

assistance: grants, construction funds, or other monies. By the
Rehabilitation Act they are absolutely enjoined to make their
programs accessible to all handicapped persons. Even museums
which escape direct jurisdiction of the Rehabilitation Act are
likely to fall under related statutes. Revenue Sharing amendments
of 1976 (Public Law 94-488, sec. 8) extended accessibility require-
ments to governments receiving federal revenue sharing funds.
Most state legislatures have passed laws similar to the Rehabil-
itation Act of 1973, many of which require accessibility to all
public buildings (Beechel, 1974, p. 4 ) .
This wave of legislation concerning handicaps comes in the
wake of the civil rights movement. Organization among handicapped
people was still nascent in 1968, when Congress passed the Archi-
tectural Barriers Act (Public Law 90-480). That law required
architectural accessibility in all buildings built or renovated
with federal funds after 1968. Standards for accessibility were
drafted, including ramps, curb cuts, elevators, wide toilet stalls,
and more. However, the bill contained no enforcement machinery,
4
 5
and a number of new buildings constructed after 1968 ignored the
mandate for accessibility (Molloy, 1978, p. 29). Outcry in response
to this led to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Significantly,
this law extended coverage to all types of handicaps, not just
ambulatory limitations. It included blindness, deafness, mental
handicaps, and (as later defined by the Attorney General) drug
abuse and alcoholism. The Rehabilitation Act reiterated archi-
tectural requirements and established the Architectural and
Transportation Barriers Board to enforce compliance. Another
part mandated affirmative action plans to employ the handicapped.
Section 504, quoted above, is actually a broad civil rights state-
ment. Its key concept is access to programs.
Program accessibility was a fuzzy, undefined concept. En-
forcement of the law languished. In 1977 wheelchaired protestors
gathered in Washington in an outpouring of rage and frustration.
Responding to this, in May 1977 the Secretary of HEW issued regu-
lations implementing Section 504 for HEW grantees. These regula-
tions stipulated a timetable for compliance: (1) By August 1977
all programs had to be accessible except where structural changes
were necessary. (2) If structural changes were needed, institutions
were required to develop a transition plan in conjunction with
handicapped individuals and to make this plan publicly available
by December 1977. (3) All structural changes had to be completed
by June 1980. It should be noted, however, that HEW did not
require architectural modifications in existing buildings if
other methods could achieve program accessibility.

Accessibility to the recipient's program or activity may be

achieved by a number of means, including redesign of equip-
ment, reassignment of classes or other services to accessible
buildings, and making aides available to beneficiaries. . . .
Structural changes in existing facilities are required only
where there is no other way to make the recipient's program
accessible (U.S. Sec. of HEW, 1977, p. 22689).

The HEW regulations immediately governed the Museum Services

Institute, one of its subdivisions. In January 1978 HEW issued
 6
guidelines to assist other federal agencies in writing regulations
for their own grantees. In these recommendations HEW reaffirmed
its position:

[This stricture! does not prohibit architectural barriers; it

does prohibit exclusion of handicapped people from federally
assisted programs and activities by virtue of such barriers
(U.S. Sec. of HEW, 1978. p. 2135).

Newly constructed buildings are, of course, required to conform

to a uniform set of architectural standards. Existing museums are
enjoined only to make their programs accessible.
Federal agencies including the National Endowment for the
Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
began drafting regulations for their grantees which will take effect
in 1979. These are expected to conform closely to HEW stipulations;
that is, they are expected to grant sixty days for the implementa-
tion of program accessibility if no structural changes are needed,
and up to three years if structural changes are required. NEA
and NEH are major sources of museum funding.
The lega] injunction has led to alarm in some quarters.
What do blind persons need? Museums suffer a dearth of information
concerning the handicapped groups which they are trying to serve.
Although architectural modification is crucial to people with
ambulatory limitations, it makes little difference to blind
visitors. These people are trained to operate in a world not
specifically designed for them, and architectural barriers are of
minor importance. A museum safe for the general public will be
safe for them. What j_s needed is an attitudinal change.
Laws require that museums make their programs accessible,
but they do not stipulate how this is to be done. Planners are
on uncharted ground. A clearing house, the National Arts and the
Handicapped Information Service, has been established to assist
cultural institutions which are making adjustments for the handi-
capped. This service offers free advisory pamphlets, descriptions
of existing programs, and addresses for further information.
Write ARTS, Box 2040, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10017.
Lani Lattin Duke of NEA (cited in Rosenbaum, 1978) stated that
if parts of an institution are accessible, it is in compliance.
"We have talked about being as flexible as we can. . . . We are
here to assist arts organizations, not impede them."
Both the HEW regulations for its own grantees and its
guidelines for other agencies delineate that not all parts of
an institution need be open to the handicapped.

A recipient shall operate each program or activity so

that the program or activity, when viewed in its entirety,
is readily accessible to and usable by handicapped persons.
This paragraph does not necessarily require a recipient to
make each of its existing facilities or every part of an
existing facility accessible (U.S. Sec. of HEW, 1978, pp.
2138-39).

Thus, if a museum offers a sign language tour for the deaf on

Thursdays, it need not offer such a tour on every day of the week.
It does not need an elevator if a representative selection of its
programs and exhibits is available on the ground floor. The law
does not give blind people a carte blanche to touch everything in
a museum.
In some instances museums have reacted to accessibility by
throwing money at the problem. There are horror tales of $100,000
elevators that travel only eight feet to the second floor (Molloy,
1977, p. 17). Such drastic measures are not required, and careful
planning can eliminate needless expense.

In most cases accommodations for disabled people will require

more imagination than expense, more innovation than equipment
— a n implicit challenge to arts professionals (Molloy, 1978,
p. 31).

In order to plan adequately for handicapped persons, museums

must know their needs. Research before a project begins can save
distress and disappointment later. It is recommended that museums
establish a working relationship with handicapped persons in their
communities. In fact, museums writing transition plans are required
 8
to consult such people.' Handicapped groups are often eligible for
special services, and they are in a position to know what facilities
and bargains are available in their community. The Arts Endowment
has incorporated into its 504 draft regulations the same enforce-
ment procedures used in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, meaning
that federal agencies will rely on disabled people to file com-
plaints. If a museum can satisfy its local handicapped population,
it is not likely to have a problem. Museums which ignore their
handicapped constituency do so at their own risk. Handicapped
needs are a civil rights movement of increasing urgency, and cul-
tural institutions are particularly vulnerable to public embarrass-
ment. Once a day-long picket was staged by persons in wheelchairs
before the inaccessible Orchestra Hall in St. Paul, Minnesota. The
resulting television coverage led to hasty architectural modifi-
cations (Molloy, 1977, p. 16). For years the Nevil Gallery of the
University of Pennsylvania Museum was a special facility open only
to the blind. Blind persons began demanding access to other collec-
tions as well, and there are now special tactile tours through the
museum's sculpture galleries (National Arts and the Handicapped
Information Service, 1977, p. 9 ) .
The remainder of this chapter is devoted to the special char-
acteristics and needs of handicapped people. Most museum staff
members know little about blindness. Given such ignorance, it is
easy to base plans on misconceptions and stereotypes. If we are
to make museums accessible to visually impaired persons, we must
know our audience.

The Blind Among Us

There are an estimated ten million visually impaired persons

in the United States, only 500,000 of whom are "legally blind"
(National Arts and the Handicapped Information Service, 1978, p. 3).
A person is considered legally blind if his vision is no better
than 20/200 with the best correction available; that is, if he sees
 9
at a distance of twenty feet what someone with normal vision sees
at two hundred feet. A person is also considered legally blind
if his angular field is twenty degrees or less (normal vision takes
in an angle of sixty to seventy degrees). These definitions were
adopted by the American Medical Association in 1934; they determine
eligibility for state economic assistance and rehabilitation
benefits. A person may be legally blind and still have a consid-
erable amount of usable vision. There are many kinds of blindness
including "tunnel vision," in which a person sees as though looking
through a drinking straw. Such people can appreciate a painting,
but they m.ust scan small sections of it at a time. Some legally
blind people can see only in bright light, others only if there
is no glare. Some can see clearly one moment while having blurred
vision the next—"milking out," as one person described it (cited
in Lisenco, 1971, p. 9 ) . Significantly, if a person has any vision
remaining, he will use it to apprehend an object before relying on
other modes of perception (Lisenco, 1971, p. 22). Museums tend to
assume that touchable exhibits are the only meaningful experience
for the blind. But many "blind" people can see colors if they are
bright enough, letters if they are large enough. Only 10 percent
of the legally blind, or approximately fifty thousand people, are
totally blind; that is, unable to determine even the direction of
light (National Arts and the Handicapped Information Service, 1978,
p. 3). Such people do not live in the poetic "black world": what
they experience is a neutral gray world, not blackness (Cutsforth,
1933/1951, p. 130).
In his book Stigma (1963), Ervlng GofPman describes the phe-
nomenon of "passing": a stigmatized person will try to disguise his
handicap in order to be accepted as "normal." In a museum a visu-
ally handicapped visitor may deny that he has any difficulty, even
though he bumps into things. Or he may resist joining what is
termed "the visually handicapped tour." We must be sensitive to
the human needs which trigger such responses.
 10
Half of the legally blind are over age sixty-five (Beechel,
1974, p. 5; Toll, 1975, p. 461). Few of these people visit muse-
ums, often because of ambulatory difficulties and other limitations
accompanying old age. Perhaps what would best serve the elderly
is museum outreach kits. This is not to say that there is no place
for tactile galleries in a museum. But if museums design facili-
ties solely for the blind, they should realize that the potential
audience is very, very small.
Nor does brailling museum labels solve the problem of acces-
sibility for the blind. According to the National Blindness Infor-
mation Center (cited in National Arts and the Handicapped Informa-
tion Service, 1978, p. 3), only about 150,000 people, or one-third
of the legally blind population, read some braille. Fewer than
forty thousand persons are considered literate in the system.
There are several reasons for the low numbers. Most so-called
"blind" people have some vision, and many can read large print.
Visual impairment is largely a problem of age; a person who loses
his vision late in life often feels no need to learn braille.
Braille is most often taught to preschool and school-age blind
children.
The demography of blindness has been changing recently, and
this, too, has a bearing on museum planning. Immediately following
World War II and continuing into the early 1950s, a great many
babies were blinded from retrolental fibroplasia. This resulted
from the practice of placing premature infants in incubators with
a high concentration of oxygen. The oxygen caused developing blood
vessels of the retina to constrict; later, out of the incubator,
the blood vessels grew back in haphazard fashion, sometimes pushing
into the eye's vitreous body and detaching the retina (Silverman,
1977, p. 104). Retrolental fibroplasia could cause blindness, but
mental facilities were unimpaired. These babies are now young
adults in their twenties and thirties. Likex^ise, there are numbers
of blind Vietnam War veterans whose intelligence follows the norms
of the general population. Thus, we have a large group of elderly
 11
blind who are likely to have ambulatory limitations, and a smaller
group of young, mobile, intelligent blind adults. Blind children
are a different matter. Except where blindness results from acci-
dent, one rarely sees a child who is only blind. Most blind chil-
dren today have multiple handicaps—they are blind and mentally
retarded, blind and crippled, etc. Partially this results from
the fact that more severely handicapped infants are being saved
than in previous generations. Many junior high age children are
blind as a result of exposure in utero to the rubella epidemic
of 1964-65 (Calhoun, 1974, p. 38; Toll, 1975, p. 46). Unlike
retrolental fibroplasia, rubella tends to damage more than just
eyesight. Yet despite their handicaps, blind children may make
more sophisticated museum visitors than blind adults. They have
had the benefit of new educational opportunities and increasing
acceptance from, society.
There are two major divisions of blindness: the congenital,
or those who are born blind; and the adventitious, those who become
blind as the result of post-infancy accident or illness. There is
a significant difference in the perception possible by these two.
If a person has ever seen, he remembers what vision is and can
utilize descriptions of visual stimuli—he understands the concept
of color, for instance. Most blind visitors to museums have seen
at one time or still have some vision. But if a person has never
seen, it is extremely difficult to communicate the sensation of
vision to him. Especially difficult is the synthesis which vision
allows. Vision instantly integrates everything into a coherent
whole: we see a whole painting, a whole rocket ship. A person
trying to comprehend by touch must build from the parts and make
a mental leap to conceptualize the whole. Some can do this, some

cannot.
The next section will examine aspects of perception which
bear upon museum planning for the blind. Blind people do nor per-
ceive an environment in the same manner, nor in the same propor-
tions, as sighted persons do. It is important to understand the
 12
differences.

Perception in Blindness

If a person has any vision remaining, he will employ this

in a museum setting. Persons who are totally blind, or who cannot
orient themselves through eyesight, will rely heavily on sound.

Space is defined for the blind by movement in space, handling

of form in space, and by sound (Eastwood, 1976, p. 37).
Blind people do not touch their way through life; rather,
they achieve much of their sense of space and their orien-
tation through sound (Calhoun, 1974, p. 37).

Often totally blind people can detect obstacles by the

reflection of high frequency sound waves bouncing off them—a
phenomenon undetected by the sighted. The potential of sound is
rarely utilized by museums. Some museums are trying to rectify
this by incorporating more aural stimuli. The Lions Gallery of
the Senses in the Wadsworth Atheneum of Hartford, Connecticut,
once staged a hands-on exhibition of musical sculptures. This
elicited much interest and experimentation among blind partici-
pants.
More often museums have appealed to the haptic perception of
the blind. "Haptic" means "having to do with touch." Many museum
efforts have concentrated on sculpture galleries—not an unlikely
choice, as smooth, rounded forms seem to be among the most pleasing
stimuli to tactile nerves (Eastwood, 1976, p. 43; Haseltine, 1966,
pp. 15-16). Blind people also respond to the temperature of sur-
faces: the coolness of marble, the warmth of wood, the coldness of
bronze. A tap of the finger will indicate whether an object is
solid or hollow, while the quality of a surface may convey view-
point or intent--"the sinister feel of rough granite, the serenity
of smooth marble, the cruelty of jagged metal" (Rowland, 1973,
p. 117). Museum staff members are often amazed at a blind per-
son's ability to relate objects to other fields of study. At the
Mary Duke Biddle Gallery in the North Carolina Museum of Art, a
 13
blind child was once handed a piece of scrimshaw. Although he had
never before handled such an object, he immediately identified it
from a passage in Melville's Moby Dick, which he had read in braille
(Stanford, 1976, p. 7 ) . On another occasion the same gallery dis-
played a series of portrait busts including that of North Carolina's
Governor Dan Moore. Touching the bust, a student declared that
the governor had once suffered a broken nose—a diagnosis later
confirmed by the governor himself (Stanford, 1976, p. 49).
This ability to make connections stems from a mode of learn-
ing. A blind person cannot learn from watching and imitating as
other people do. Instead he must listen, touch, and remember.
Memory becomes extremely important. Sometimes a blind person will
invest a simple object—a personal treasure or museum object he
can touch—with deep associations.

One ordinary little terra-cotta Grecian urn is of more aes-

thetic value to the blind man than all of the chiseled crea-
tions of Phidias. It contains not only all that Grecian
culture means to the individual, but also it is a real, com-
plete tactual object which is capable of carrying a large
amount of meaningful beauty in its own right. Likewise, an
old Scottish snuff jug, in addition to being concretely pleas-
ant to handle, has the power of recalling the old presbyters
of a Scottish church who emptied it in their annual sessions
(Cutsforth, 1933/1951, p. 187).

Although hands-on exhibits will certainly increase museum

accessibility to the blind, tactile perception has limitations.
For one, small objects are apprehended most easily. How can a
blind person experience a large sculpture, or a dinosaur skeleton,
or a piece of architecture? Models may be used, but they have the
same failings as do reproductions: They may look like the original,
but they do not feel the same. Texture, weight, surface tempera-
ture, and sound of hollowness or solidity are rarely reproduced
with fidelity.
As mentioned before, touch does not automatically integrate
impressions. A person must first feel the parts, they try to
imagine the whole. Tactile study of an object takes more time
 14
than visual examination. Contrasts must be more extreme. A blind
person recognizes a triangle because it has three angles and three
sides, but in order to distinguish one triangle from another, there
must be a greater difference for touch than for vision (Cutsforth,
1933/1951, pp. 174-75),
It is an error to assume that the senses of vision and touch
are equivalent. Says Thomas Cutsforth, a person blinded in a
childhood accident who later became an articulate and passionate
spokesman for the blind,

Any intelligent attack on the problem of aesthetic devel-

opment in the blind must abandon the position that tactual
perception is at all adequate to produce the richness of
experience that visual perception furnishes. . . .
In tactual perception visual wholes in which schematized
spatial relations are represented cannot be comprehended
(1933/1951. pp. 184-85).

Tactile exploration perceives a literal realism. It is

extremely difficult to suggest abstraction or symbolism to touch
unaided by vision. Some slight communication is possible: rounded
forms to indicate voluptuousness, thin attenuated forms to indicate
suffering. In general, however, blind people respond more vigor-
ously to concrete representational art than to abstract forms.
Says Patricia Scherf Smith (1977, p. 11), director of public infor-
mation for the American Foundation for the Blind:

A large amount of sculpture, particularly that which is visu-

ally imitative, cannot be apprehended fully by touch alone.

Says Yasha Lisenco (1971, p. 22):

The works of those artists who attempt imitations of a visual

reality can become incomprehensible, or at most quite uninter-
esting, when explored in this manner.

And Cutsforth (1933/1951, pp. 170-71):

Touch and vision are two distinctly different forms of experi-

ence. Tactual perception, no matter how well trained, carries
with it a meaning of literal realism which does not permit the
grasp of ideal meanings. The most perfect piece of taxidermy
 15
is much less the real animal to touch than the most ordinary
bidimensional picture is to vision. Not only that, but the
mounted animal is much more definitely something else. All
its perceptual realities in touch save static form and a little
of its texture are not to be found by inspection of the living
animal. On the contrary, it is hard, stiff, stationary,
without internal movement, and it has some unfamiliar posture
that distorts its meaning. The fur is dead and cold, with none
of the loose side-slipping of the skin. Verbally it is the
animal, but experientially it is something quite different.

The same problem occurs when museums try to illustrate through

models or representations in another medium.

A teacher feels that if she shows a child a porcelain model of

a frog, she has given reality to his concept of a frog, its
size, shape, and position. Temperature, slipperiness, movement,
all the tactually characteristic frog attributes, as well as
its sound, are omitted. Tactually the porcelain frog is
scarcely froglike at all. It may look like a frog, but it
surely does not feel like one (Cutsforth, 1933/1951, pp. 57-58).

One of the most limiting constraints on touch is its inabil-

ity to perceive suggested motion. Line and imbalance suggest
motion to vision. For instance, a pointed arrow will carry our
eye in the direction of the point. But to touch,

the dynamics are absent; it is an arrow at rest. . . . Running

figures are crouching still figures, and Discobolus is a static
poser (Cutsforth, 1933/1951, pp. 171-72).

Yasha Lisenco (1971, p. 32) described the art one might expect
in a congenitally blind world, where both producers and perceivers
of art were totally blind.

- Forms would have a solid "eternal" quality, with an absence

of color, line, imbalance, and other elements which connote change
to vision.
- Insides and visually hidden parts would be as carefully
worked as exteriors.
- There might be a lack of interest in the total form; instead,
an emphasis on parts that have meaning for the artist—for example,
eyes and nose.
 16
- Texture contrasts would be the major vehicle for expressing
tension—for instance, nubby cloth against metal.
- Three-dimensional qualities would be emphasized over linear,
tonal, or color considerations.
- Lighting would be ignored. An object would appear almost the
same at midnight as at noon—"almost," because the surface temper-
atures at the two times would be different.

Persons who conduct art or craft classes for the blind often
impose their own aesthetic standards. According to Lisenco (1971,
p. 4 ) , work by blind persons is praised and valued according to
the degree to which it approaches visual realism. Certainly this
inhibits creativity. There is danger of creating a situation in
which blind students fawn for acceptance from sighted judges,
thereby denying their own experiential reality.

The blind receive such an exaggerated opinion of visual beauty

and visual pictoral art that they have no confidence in the
validity of their own methods of appreciation. . . .
The result has been that the blind undervalue their own
true aesthetic experiences and rehearse the empty visual shucks
to their utmost ability (Cutsforth, 1933/1951, pp. 178, 180).

In adapting to the vocabulary of the sighted world, blind

people learn words for that which they cannot possibly experience.

To the teacher the mass of wrought marble about the chiseled

figure is drapery. To the blind child it is nothing but more
marble, no matter what he has been taught to call it. It does
not mean drapery or fabric any more than the icicles clustered
about the rain spout mean fabrics and draperies (Cutsforth,
1933/1951, p. 175).

Or—

A lamb, which is a kinky, woolly, bony, wiggling object, pos-

sessing none too delightful an odor, whose feet are generally
dirty and sharp and whose mouth and nose are damp and slobbery,
is not described Cto the blindD as such, but as the snow-white,
innocent, gamboling lamb (Cutsforth, 1933/1951, p. 51).

For anyone presuming to work with the blind, Thomas Cutsforth

makes provocative reading—due largely to his iconoclastic tenden-
 17
cies. Ultimately he questions even the need for "aesthetic" museum
experiences.

Little aside from technical importance can be gained from a

picture or a statue that is not in a story created with the
same degree of artistic mastery. The loss of this form of
stimulation to the blind is not so important as the educators
are prone to believe (1933/1951, p. 182).

How will museums answer this challenge?

Multiple Handicaps

As mentioned before, most blind children today have additional

handicaps. The Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975
(Public Law 94-142) requires that handicapped children be integrated
into ordinary public school classes to the maximum extent possible,
unless school and parents agree otherwise. This principle was
reiterated in the implementation order for Section 504 of the Reha-
bilitation Act.

A recipient to which this subpart applies shall educate,

or shall provide for the education of, each qualified handi-
capped person in its jurisdiction with persons who are not
handicapped to the maximum extent appropriate to the needs
of the handicapped person (U.S. Sec. of HEW, 1977, p. 22682).

The principle of educational integration, or mainstreaming,

is based upon extensive research which shows that handicapped
children perform better when they spend at least part of their
time with nonhandicapped peers (Smithsonian, 1977, p. 141). What
this means to museums is that fewer "special education" classes
will be visiting. An ordinary public school class may include a
blind child with multiple handicaps, or a blind child as well as
a child with ambulatory limitations and a mentally retarded child.
Anyone working with the blind must have at least a general knowl-
edge of other major handicaps as well. This section attempts to
provide such an overview. Of course, each handicap could become
a thesis in itself; the information below is no more than an intro-
 18
duction.

Deafness
Deaf persons are simply those who, due to hearing loss, cannot
understand speech or sound. Their intelligence varies as does the
normal population's. However, persons who become deaf in the pre-
lingual years (prior to the development of spoken language) are
likely to have a language handicap. Eighty percent of our knowl-
edge is transmitted through sound (Beechel, 1974, p. 17); deaf
children do not have the benefit of receiving such knowledge. Deaf
people speak in pictures and think in pictures. Their knowledge
of abstract terms may be extremely limited. It is an error to
assume that a deaf person can automatically understand a museum's
labels or self-guiding brochure. On a tour of deaf children, a
docent may need to explain such abstract concepts as "ethics" or
"environment" or even "tree."
Deaf people are taught various forms of communication. Some
can lipread. However, approximately half of all English sounds
are homophones; that is, they look like some other sound on the
lips (Beechel, 1974, p. 16). It is estimated that in the best of
circumstances, a deaf person attempting to lipread will understand
only 26 to 30 percent of what is said (Beechel, 1974, p. 16;
Smithsonian, 1977, p. 8 ) .
A docent presenting a tour to such an audience should speak
clearly in a normal tone of voice (remember that some persons
have residual hearing). If a deaf person's eyes wander from the
speaker, he cannot "hear"; therefore, allow plenty of time for
viewing an object before and after speaking about it.
Many deaf people know one or more forms of manual communi-
cation. Fingerspelling is the easiest for a docent to learn but
the most time consuming to perform. In fingerspelling, one hand
position stands for each letter of the English alphabet; words are
spelled out letter-by-letter. This system can be learned by a
hearing person within thirty minutes (Beechel, 1975, p. 39). Sign
 19
language takes longer to learn, but if a museum staff member would
learn only a few commonly-used signs, it would Immensely increase
accessibility. There are two languages of signs, American Sign
Language (Ameslan) and Manual English. Ameslan is known by most
older deaf people; it has signs for both ideas and words, but lacks
verb tenses. One can say "I go store," but not "I am going to the
store" or "I went to the store." Manual English is more grammati-
cally complete and is taught in schools; it incorporates the verb
tenses of standard English. However, frequently a person who uses
Manual English in school will use Ameslan in other life situations
(Smithsonian, 1977, p. 114). It is important for a museum to
determine, prior to the visit, what form of communication its
audience will know. In any tour involving the deaf, a docent
should carry pencil and paper, for sometimes deaf persons prefer
to ask questions and receive answers in writing. Use basic English
free of idiomatic expressions. It is helpful if key terms are
repeated throughout the tour (Dietrich, 1978, p. 12).
When a person is both blind and deaf, both handicaps are
more profound. The characteristics of deaf-blindness are not a
combination of the characteristics of deafness and the character-
istics of blindness. Some idea of the severity of the handicap
can be gained from realizing that, in the total perceptual process
by a human being, use of the visual sense has been estimated at
84 to 90 percent; the second most extensively used sense is the
auditory sense (Beechel, 1974, p. 17). The number of deaf-blind
persons in the United States is approximately 3600 children and
5400 adults (Beechel, 1975, p. 39). Although their numbers are
small, the world of the deaf-blind has been so constricted that
museums can be especially meaningful to this group of people.
They will respond to any exhibit explorable through touch, taste,
or smell. Communication is a serious problem. Some are learning
braille or a one-hand manual alphabet. If a docent does not know
these, it is still possible to communicate with a deaf-blind person.
Take his hand and print capital letters in his palm. Remember to
 20
pause between words.

Ambulatory Limitations
Persons with ambulatory limitations include those who must
use wheelchairs, crutches, walkers, or leg braces—approximately
6.2 million people (Beechel, 1975, p. 42). The condition may or
may not involve brain damage. Architectural accessibility is vital
to this group of people. Fitted with the proper orthopedic devices,
most are absolutely capable of navigating unaided—if the building
is accessible. If not, they are completely restricted. Some
architectural modifications which museums may need to make are
ramps, curb cuts, wide door frames, elevators, exhibits of lowered
viewing height, and restrooms, drinking fountains, and public
telephones which can be used by persons in wheelchairs. Few ortho-
pedically handicapped persons visit museums; museums which have
planned for accessibility must advertise their facilities.

It is . . . just too difficult, too demanding of effort and

embarrassment, to enjoy the experience. Even access to a
building can be daunting: a disabled person cannot know,
without being told, that there is a portable ramp inside the
building or that there is an alternative level entrance else-
where. Very few people are brave enough to stop a complete
stranger and ask him to drag them up a flight of stairs
(Heath, 1976, p. 57).

Although structural changes cost money, they are not without

fringe benefits. Museums are finding that accessible facilities
are more enjoyable for many kinds of people besides the physically
handicapped. Children have a better view of exhibits which are
designed for wheelchair height. Pregnant women and persons with
heart conditions appreciate elevators. Baby strollers are being
pushed up ramps.
An orthopedically handicapped visitor to a museum may require
assistance opening doors or managing elevators. He may, however,
prefer to navigate totally under his own power. All museum staff
members should know how to fold and open a wheelchair and know
where such equipment is stored. A blind visitor with ambulatory
 21
limitations will, of course, almost certainly have a nonhandicapped
person in attendance. On a tour a docent should include the ortho-
pedically handicapped person in a comfortable, nonobtrusive manner.
Without being obvious, move him near the front of the group and
adapt the pace of the tour so that he is not left behind (Dietrich,
1978, p. 21).

Mental Handicaps
The current trend is to divide mental handicaps into three
subgroups: mental retardation, learning disabilities, and emotional
disturbance. However, the classification of human beings has not
progressed to a science. There is much overlap between these. Be-
haviors which compose them have not been precisely defined, and
often a child will exhibit behaviors characteristic of all three
classifications (Smithsonian, 1977, p. 137). The categories are
briefly described here. One learning disability is dyslexia, a
perceptual difficulty which causes the eye to transpose and confuse
letters. A person might read "saw" for "was," "form" for "from."
Other learning disabled children can add but not subtract, can
hear directions but not remember them. An example of emotional
disturbance is a child who bumps into things. Some emotionally
disturbed children cry when the situation is humorous, laugh when
it is sad; others can't seem to get along with anyone (Smithsonian,
1977, p. 136). Mental retardation refers to impaired intellectual
development. Significantly, 87 percent of individuals so classi-
fied are only mildly or moderately retarded (Beechel, 1974, p. 18;
1975, p. 41). They are perfectly capable of functioning in society
and of holding down jobs if given some guidance.
A common trait across mental handicaps is poor self image.
Wliatever euphemisms are used, a child still suffers the consequences
of the label. He is taunted by peers and may come to view himself
as "crazy" or "dumb." In a museum these children sometimes seem
uninterested or unresponsive, when actually they are simply suffer-
ing from tension—they are afraid of saying something wrong or of
 22
making a mistake and appearing foolish. Not uncommonly, mentally
handicapped children are apprehensive about a museum visit. A
docent can allay their fears by giving specific directions and
explanations about what is going to happen. A series of visits to
the museum may be more advantageous than a single visit, for it
gives mentally handicapped visitors more time to adjust (Heath,
1976, p. 56). Because a child cannot use proper speech, it does
not necessarily follow that he cannot understand what is said to
him; many such persons understand spoken language perfectly well
(Beechel, 1975, p. 41). When a person does not respond in the
expected manner, there is a tendency to regard him as lacking in
feeling. This can be dehumanizing to both docent and student.

A damaging misconception is that a mentally retarded person

does not feel emotions as intensely as do others with normal
intellect. From all that can be determined by those working
with people with mental retardation, there is no difference
between them in this respect: they are just as sensitive
(Beechel, 1975, p. 41).

That last sentence might well be a byword to museums which

plan for the handicapped. It applies to persons with any impair-
ment.
Often mentally handicapped children are excitable and have
short attention spans. They may find security in a structured
environment with few distractions and not too many choices. Museum
tours for the mentally handicapped should be more limited and
structured than those for other audiences. Include objects familiar
to the children as points of departure: toys, household utensils,
etc. Staff members can nurture the self-esteem of such children
by accepting and valuing them as persons, by providing opportunities
to succeed, and by giving honest praise whenever possible. Mentally
handicapped children may enjoy physical involvement, such as putting
their arms around a tree. Encourage individual, concrete explora-
tion and minimize lecturing. A public reprimand is likely to
provoke an emotional reaction (Dietrich, 1978, p. 17). Ideally
docents should interact with mentally handicapped visitors in a
 23
one-to-one situation, for this allows maximum flexibility in meet-
ing individual needs. It has been said that the most crucial
element in teaching a special child is "the ability to form a
human relationship and to sustain it, even for a brief moment"
(Smithsonian, 1977, p. 146).

This chapter has explored some characteristics and needs of

blind and other handicapped people. Museums are legally enjoined
to make their facilities accessible to such persons. Important
to planning are certain facts: (1) most blind persons are elderly;
(2) few can read braille; (3) most so-called blind people have some
useful vision. Currently many blind children have additional
handicaps. Museum staff members must feel comfortable with these
and know how to approach and accommodate various limitations.
Tactile and auditory exhibits will improve accessibility for
visually handicapped people. However, the senses of touch and
hearing are not a substitute for the sense of vision. They invoke
a different kind of experience and a different perception of
reality.
 CHAPTER II
GONE BEFORE

The First Attempts

Although the legal injunction has compelled all museums

suddenly to concern themselves with the handicapped, many have
been doing so for years, especially in the field of visual handi-
caps. These museums proceeded from the simple assumption that
blind people would profit from and enjoy touching artifacts—the
one commodity which museums have in abundance. Often these museums
knew very little about their intended audience. Early projects
were very much hit-or-miss, learn-as-you-go experiments. Funding
was insecure. However, touchable facilities did_ succeed. They
were popular with blind and sighted persons alike, so much so that
numerous museums now have entire halls and galleries which invite
touching. This section will describe the pioneering museum efforts
for the blind.
One inspired early figure was Allen Eaton, who assembled two
collections of what he termed "objects of beauty"—one from the
world of nature, one from the world of man. His research in the
1950s was funded by a grant from the Office of Vocational Reha-
bilitation (prior to 1965 there was no National Endowment for the
Arts or National Endowment for the Humanities to fund such projects)
Eaton made his collections available to numerous blind groups and
was heartened by their response. He published his findings in
1959. At the time of his death in 1962, Eaton was involved in
drawing plans for a permanent touch gallery at the North Carolina
Museum of Art (Switzer, 1976a, p. 53). His dreams came Into
fruition with the opening, in 1966, of the Mary Duke Biddle Gallery
for the Blind at that museum. It was the first permanent American
24
 25
tactile gallery for the blind (Educational Facilities Laboratories
& National Endowment for the Arts, 1975, p. 22).
Funds for this endeavor came from the estate of a wealthy
philanthropist, Mary Duke Biddle. In the early stages of planning,
the North Carolina Museum of Art invited blind children to partic-
ipate in a pilot study at the museum. From this planners learned
some simple facts: (1) blind students have considerable ability
to make connections among their various fields of study (the
incident in which the blind boy recognized scrimshaw occurred
in this session); (2) blind children use words like "see" and
"look" quite easily; (3) only a small number of people can be
touching an object at one time (Stanford, 1966, p. 21; 1976, pp.
5-6).
The Mary Duke Biddle Gallery was designed for the blind
visitor to be self-sufficient from the moment he enters the door.
A wall near the entrance bears a relief map of the gallery as well
as instructions in braille. Inside, objects rest upon cork-
covered counters which are edged by a two-inch guide rail. Braille
labels can be felt inside the railing. The gallery's focus at
its inception, and continuing until the present day, is art history.
Its original exhibition contained sixty-three sculptures ranging
in time from the Stone Age until the twentieth century: a Luristan
bronze ornament (ca. 8000-10,000 B.C.), an Etruscan idealized male
nude, a Greek marble head, a Gothic wooden figure of Mary Magdalene,
etc. (Stanford, 1976, p. 12). Said Mary Switzer of the Vocational
Rehabilitation Commission, who strongly supported the project.

One of the most important factors in the success and accept-

ance of the Mary Duke Biddle Gallery was its explicitly stated
policy that "No work of art will be purchased, borrowed, or
accepted as a gift that does not meet the same high standards
as required in museum galleries for the sighted" (1976b, p. 64).

Originally the gallery was intended to house a permanent collect!on

of sculpture for the blind.
 26
More than most people, blind people depend on familiarity with
their surroundings to put them at comfortable ease; so blind
visitors to the gallery need to be able to recognize "old
friends" among art objects available for their enjoyment
(Switzer, 1976b, p. 66).

However, the gallery soon expanded into two rooms: one to accom-
modate special exhibitions and another with selections from the
permanent collection (Mary Duke Biddle Gallery, 1969). The gallery
also contains a library of art history books transcribed into
braille.
Although the bulk of its collection is sculpture, the gallery
provides learning experiences in other media. Brightly colored
paintings hang under intense lighting (Educational Facilities
Laboratories & National Endowment for the Arts, 1975, p. 22).
Beside the bust of Abraham Lincoln stands a braille transcription
of the Gettysburg Address. Sound was incorporated from the begin-
ning: Beethoven's Eroica to supplement Bourdelle's Mask of Beetho-
ven, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture with the bust of Napoleon, record-
ings of his own voice with the bust of Winston Churchill (Stanford,
1976, pp. 10, 49). African tribal music enhanced a display of
African artifacts. At one time the gallery displayed musical
instruments from throughout the world.

Frequently during this show blind visitors would form combos

to play various instruments, especially the Indian sitar.
On one such occasion, one young man played a harmonium from
India, while another played a melodion from Russia, and other
blind visitors accompanied them on gourds from Peru and a
marimba from Africa (Stanford, 1976, p. 47).

The Mary Duke Biddle Gallery was designed as a special facility

for the blind. It was open to sighted people, but only during cer-
tain times each week (Stanford, 1966, p. 21). However, the Mary
Duke Biddle Gallery soon learned what other tactile galleries
would be forced to realize: the sighted public enjoys, and benefits
from, tactile galleries fully as much as do the blind. Expansion
of the Mary Duke Biddle Gallery was funded in 1969 by a grant from
 27
HEW (Stanford, 1976, p. 35). By 1975 the gallery was serving
between 15 and 20 percent of North Carolina's twelve thousand
visually impaired people; equally significant, it attracted more
than ten thousand sighted visitors per month (Educational Facilities
Laboratories & National Endowment for the Arts, 1975, p. 22).
The Mary Duke Biddle Gallery sees far more public use today than
when it opened in 1966. Sighted preschoolers explore the gallery
as an introduction to the museum. One exhibition was created,
over a period of six months, by patients from an institution for
the criminally insane (Calhoun, 1974, p. 38).
A tactile gallery of equal renown with the Mary Duke Biddle
is the Lions Gallery of the Senses, housed in the Wadsworth Atheneum
of Hartford, Connecticut. It was originally conceived as a "touch-
and-see" facility for the blind. However, a pilot study recommended
integrating sighted and unsighted audiences in order to insure full
use of the program.

It was considered unrealistic to assume that a larger percentage

of the legally blind would visit a gallery, even a gallery
directed especially to them, than the 8% of the state's popu-
lation who regularly visit the museum (Mulcahy, 1978, p. 14).

Connecticut at that time had only thirty-two hundred blind persons

(Calhoun, 1974, p. 36). The facility opened to the public in 1972.
It is funded largely by a contribution of twenty thousand dollars
a year from the local Lions Club (Mulcahy, 1978, p. 14).
The Mary Duke Biddle Gallery had approached art historically,
attempting to provide an overview of world culture through repre-
sentative art. In the Lions Gallery the emphasis was different.

Since most unsighted people have little exposure to art

and art history, we felt that a broader, multisensory approach
would be more effective. Unsighted people should be introduced
to the vocabulary of space, form, and composition before they
are assaulted by the chronology of art history (Mulcahy, 1978,
p. 14).

The opening exhibition, entitled "Dialogue for the Senses," con-

tained curtains of suspended metal beads through which visitors
 28
passed. Once inside, they moved through a pegboard nautilus and
brushed against columns of contrasting textures: fur covered,
spongy, and rigid. One column emitted soft bubbling sounds. A
large mosaic was composed of quartz, meteorites, and fossils.
In one spot an electronic device emitted sounds in response to
the amount of motion it perceived. Sighted visitors were encouraged
to wear blindfolds, and many were quite intrigued by the sensations:

CTheyJ were invariably surprised when they encountered the

space visually. Few had encountered all that was there and,
generally, the area had been sensed by most as larger than
it actually appeared to the eye. Visual recognition proved
a far more abstract interpretation of form than tactile dis-
covery (Calhoun, 1974, p. 39).

Since its opening the Lions Gallery has held several exhibi-
tions per year. Unlike the Mary Duke Biddle Gallery, it rarely
uses braille labels, believing that these detract from spontaneity
of response. One example illustrates the point. An exhibition
called "Chair" contained, among other displays, the command module
seat of astronaut Scott Carpenter. Most visitors found this chair
distinctly uncomfortable until they learned its Identity; then
they enjoyed it (Calhoun, 1974, p. 40).
The Lions Gallery encourages experimentation, and the public
has responded enthusiastically.

The Gallery's visitors seem particularly receptive to art

experiences that differ from the traditional and that are
open to alternative approaches to interpretation (Cans, 1978,
p. 3 ) .

The response from professional artists has also been heartening.

Intrigued by nonvisual perception, artists have developed

special shows in aural sculpture, kinesthetic movement, sensory
environment, participatory playground and soundscape (Educa-
tional Facilities Laboratories & National Endowment for the
Arts, 1975, p. 24).

Among the more notable exhibitions has been "Sensations in

Sculpture" by Harry Bertoia, containing metal rods, fine steel
 29
threads, suspended brass bars, and a gong activated by visitors.
Another musical exhibition was "Sound Sculpture" by the Baschet
brothers Francois and Bernard. This displayed futuristic harps,
chimes, and drums, plus a "crystal harmonica" played with moistened
fingers (Lions Gallery of the Senses, 1978). Blind people actually
helped to create the exhibitions "I Am Not Blind" and "Exhibition
as Process," which will be discussed in a later section.
The Lions Gallery has experienced the recurrent museum problem
of reaching the homebound. Forty-seven percent of Connecticut's
legally blind population is over age sixty-five; for most of these
transportation is a problem (Mulcahy, 1978, p. 16). With a grant
from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lions Gallery devel-
oped two shows entitled "Woodworks" (sculpture) and "Paperworks"
(relief printmaking). "Paperworks" stemmed from a feeling of the
staff that visually impaired people should experience some portion
ot the multitude of two-dimensional objects in the museum.

Since many museum collections are primarily two-dimensional

in nature, people with visual handicaps need some contact with
those objects or they are not being brought into much of the
museum. The approach was through the process of making prints
—there was a lot to be learned about different kinds of papers,
inks, and techniques, all of which could be very accessible to
blind and visually impaired visitors (Gans, 1978, p. 4 ) .

Significantly, both "Woodworks" and "Paperworks" included outreach

kits which were made available to schools, community centers, and
homebound people. These contained small works (wood puzzles and
prints), tools, raw materials, and documentation of artists at
work (Mulcahy, 1978, p. 16).
The Lions Gallery is hosting some fourteen hundred visitors
a month, about 10 percent of whom are handicapped (Calhoun, 1974,
p. 36; Mulcahy, 1978, p. 15). Besides the visually impaired, the
gallery accommodates mentally retarded persons, hearing impaired,
physically handicapped, children with learning disabilities, and
outpatients from mental institutions (Mulcahy, 1978, pp. 15-16).
Several handicapped people, including a young blind woman, serve
 30
as volunteers. Because some of the regular Atheneum docents did
not feel comfortable working with handicapped persons, the Lions
Gallery now has its own separate volunteer group of twelve people.
The Lions Gallery receives heavy traffic in school tours, but only
fifteen persons are permitted inside at one time. When large groups
must be divided, volunteers conduct sensory awareness experiences
and theater games with those awaiting their tour (Mulcahy, 1978,
p. 16).
At approximately the same time as the opening of the Lions
Gallery, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Art created the
Nevil Gallery. Constructed in 1971, the facility was open only to
the blind and to an occasional kindergarten class—it served a mere
four hundred persons per year (Educational Facilities Laboratories
& National Endowment for the Arts, 1975, p. 20). This policy of
restricted admissions proved unpopular. Blind people demanded the
right to visit other parts of the museum, and as a result the educa-
tion department now schedules special tours for them (National Arts
and the Handicapped Information Service, 1977, p. 9). In addition,
there are outdoor bronzes and architectural pieces which may be
touched by all visitors. In the Nevil Gallery the majority of
current users are sighted (National Arts and the Handicapped Infor-
mation Service, 1977, p. 9 ) . A carpet trail guides the visitor
to sculptures resting upon rotating pedestals of adjustable height.
Labels are provided in English and braille. As does the Mary Duke
Biddle Gallery, the Nevil Gallery offers both permanent and changing
exhibits. It also stages a yearly exhibition of sculpture by the
blind.
Large galleries such as the Lions and Mary Duke Biddle received
healthy amounts of publicity. They consequently became famous.
However, during this period other museums were experimenting in
providing services for the blind—many of their efforts antedating
the opening of the major galleries. In 1960 the Pennsylvania State
Museum assembled a traveling exhibit for the State Association for
the Blind; later members of the Association visited and toured the
 31
museum. For the exhibit the Association's secretary chose twenty
items which appealed to him. These were arranged in a tall, wedge-
shaped plywood case. The interest level of various objects was
instructive. One object which received considerable attention was
a clay cuneiform tablet.

Many had expected the tablet to be larger, not realizing that

such tablets are found in a variety of shapes and sizes. . . .
Objects with movable parts like the pistol, the powder flask
with its measuring device, the telegraph key, and the cavalry-
man's spur were very popular. The popularity of the latter
surprised me. Everyone has heard about spurs, but most blind
people have never handled them (Kinsey, 1961, p. 27).

Also surprising was the fascination in a fossil brachiopod, 250

million years old.

Mr. Quay told us that the texture of the brachiopod was not
significantly different from that of a piece of cement. The
interest is due to their antiquity and to the forces of nature
responsible for preservation (Kinsey, 1961, pp. 27-28).

During the museum tour the visitors were divided into small groups
with one docent for every three or four blind persons. At one point
the group stopped at a row of antique automobiles.

One ex-engineer, who had suspected that his afternoon might be

wasted and was skeptical of the whole tour, came out of it with
grimy hands after having thoroughly examined motors, wheels, and
grease fittings. Later he admitted that he had enjoyed himself.
To once again become involved in an activity he had once engaged
in seemed to give him much satisfaction (Kinsey, 1961, p. 28).

The Salt Lake City Art Center inaugurated a program for the
blind in 1964. Rather than set aside a special gallery, the Center
intended to include blind persons in regularly scheduled exhibitions

as simply another segment of the community, one hitherto exclud-

ed. They would be encouraged to enjoy objects of fine arts and
crafts not^ selected for exhibition on the basis of their poten-
tial appeal to the blind, but chosen by an outside juror em-
ploying the usual criteria (Haseltine, 1966, p. 12).

Docents were thoroughly briefed on twenty-two items of pottery,

jewelry, weaving, metalwork, and woodcarving. However, blind
 32
persons were not limited to these; they received permission to touch
almost all art objects on display. In this pilot program, as well
as in later exhibitions, the museum found most workable a two-part
program. First docents passed around small objects to visitors
seated at a table. Then the group adjourned to the galleries for
a walking tour among pieces too large to be moved (Haseltine, 1966,
p. 13).
The Overbrook School for the Blind in Philadelphia determined
to assemble its own "touch-and-learn" museum after an unsettling
experience. Once in the early 1960s, a teacher was reading a story
to the children about a little mouse. The children laughed and
giggled, but when asked how large a mouse was, they indicated sizes
ranging from half an inch to several feet. Realizing the need for
concrete tactile experiences, school officials appealed to the public
for donations, enlisting newspapers, radio, television, and scouts.
One man donated a full-sized suit of armor. Calls to manufacturers
brought a variety of exhibits.

We received exhibits about aluminum, asbestos, cork, gelatin,

wool blankets, pencils, electric bulbs, telephone cables, iron
and steel, coal and coke, fibers and fabrics, papermaking, and
newspaper printing (Freund, 1967, p. 223).

High school science fairs proved a good source for exhibits, while
the University of Pennsylvania donated a human skeleton. With their
assembled materials, the school was indeed able to create meaningful
tactile experiences.
In Britain a number of museums experimented with the idea of
a special handling table for the blind. The Gloucester City Museum
utilized a space created by the removal of two cases, coaxing speci-
mens from various museum departments. Ultimate selection was based
on sturdiness, tactile interest, and safety: a stuffed hare, fossil
ammonite, crystal, Bellarmine jug, copper kettle. Paleolithic hand
ax, fragments of Roman pottery, and an Incised medieval floor tile
(Watkins, 1975, p. 29). A carpenter constructed a segmented frame
to lay on the table. The area welcomed sighted visitors, providing
 33
labels in print and braille. But—

Sighted people have such an interred feeling that museum ob-

jects should not be touched that fully half of the visitors to
the museum walk all round the table carefully looking, and not
touching, despite a large notice inviting them to handle
(Watkins, 1975, p. 30).

To the disappointment of its founder, after an initial flurry of

excitement in the handling table, interest waned rapidly. He says.

In view of the small number of blind visitors it may seem to be

a futile effort, but as long as the table is there, so also is
the opportunity for blind people to gain something from a visit
to the museum (Watkins, 1976, p. 47).

The Jewry Wall Museum in Leicestershire traces human history

from the Stone Age until the Middle Ages. It has a few objects on
open display which may be touched by all visitors: Roman mosaics,
milestones, working querns. In order better to accommodate its
blind visitors, the museum resolved to provide a handling table,
drawing upon objects not found on open display. Ultimate selections
included several axes, a spear, sword, razor, and torque bracelet
(Jones, 1976, p. 49). A local radio enterprise for the blind ad-
vised using tape recorded labels Instead of braille, because many
visually handicapped people do not read braille. The tactile ob-
jects are stored in a specially designed box. When a blind visitor
arrives at the museum, an attendant removes the top and front of the
box and places it on the table. Below is a typical passage from the
tape.

The object you have is a flint hand ax from Paleolithic

or Old Stone Age times. Move it around until the large end
fits comfortably in your hand—the point should be more or less
at right angles to your palm. This is how the tool was used;
it had many purposes: chopping, smashing, digging.
Feel the rough point and the cutting edges made by chipping
off small fragments of the natural flint until the correct
shape was achieved. Of course, the edges would have been much
sharper thousands of years ago. When you have finished handling
the ax, replace it in Compartment One and remove the object in
Compartment Two (Jones, 1976, p. 51).
 34
All of these early museum programs shared a concern for the
blind. Planners were well intentioned, but they did little to make
blind visitors feel welcomed and accepted. Instead, visually handi-
capped persons were set up as curiosities who were deemed to require
specialized facilities. A randomly selected, disjointed collection
could well seem patronizing to them. Galleries which would evolve
and survive, such as the Lions Gallery and the Mary Duke Biddle
Gallery, soon found that they must open their doors to all visitors
and must integrate the blind with them. A wave of tactile galleries
followed their efforts. Many of these new galleries did not design
specifically for the blind.

More Special Galleries

The programs described above were some of the earliest ef-

forts to bring blind people into contact with museums. The influ-
ence of these pioneers can be seen in the proliferation of museum
"touch-and-see" and "tactile" galleries during the past decade.
Significantly, nearly all of these are open to the general public
as well as to the visually impaired; many planned to include sighted
people from the beginning. Museums with a tactile gallery are
discovering that it frequently becomes the most popular area of the
museum. This section will describe some major efforts in the direc-
tion of increased touchability.
The Museum of the City of New York created one of the first
permanent tactile areas in the country, a period room which opened
in 1959—seven years before the opening of tlie Mary Duke Biddle
Gallery. Originally intended as an exploratory area for visiting
school groups, this exhibit recreated the life of a seventeenth-
century Dutch family living in New Amsterdam. It housed manikins
dressed in reproductions of period clothing and a large number of
actual antiques: brass milk jug, leather fire bucket, candle mold,
butter churn, pewter dishes, cupboard, bed, Dutch free-standing
closet (kas), bed warmer, foot warmer, wooden ice skates, wooden
 35
shoes, shoulder yoke, quill pen, and horn book (Nielsen, 1978;
Pinney, 1959, p. 341). In selecting objects for the exhibit, the
museum was limited to what was available. Demands for historic
accuracy were necessarily eased.

Not all of these Cobjectsl are of the seventeenth century;

many are of the eighteenth, but the important thing to the
children is that they are old and they are real (Pinney, 1959,
pp. 341-42).

And how have these objects fared after nearly twenty years of con-
stant handling? The museum still has the original core of items.

Body oils have not damaged the wooden objects at all. Those
objects that have suffered most have been the metal ones. The
door in the foot warmer has been opened and shut so many times
that the hinges are all but destroyed, and it has been necessary
to wire the door shut. The same is true of the cover of the
bed warmer. Wooden items have been chipped, requiring either
sanding or the filling in of chipped spots with "plastic wood"
(Nielsen, 1978).

A visit to this room is the most popular part of tours for

schoolchildren and handicapped groups. Docents also offer demon-
strations to children and their parents on Saturdays and during
school vacations. The room has been especially meaningful to
disadvantaged children, boosting their self confidence and their
standing amid peers.

The child newly come to New York, from rural Spain or Hungary
or Italy or Greece or Puerto Rico or our own Deep South, who
has seen and used a churn or candle mold and who, up to this
time, may have been ignored by his classmates, now becomes
important because he has actually handled such objects and
knows about them (Pinney, 1959, pp. 346-47).

The Historic New Orleans Collection has several fully fur-

nished homes which permit hands-on experiences. It was easy to
adapt these to a tour by visually handicapped visitors during a
convention. Says a staff member:

The blind visitors were appreciative but wanted no exceptions

made for their handicaps other than those absolutely necessary.
. . . With the limits on their experience resulting from blind-
 36
ness, they were extremely grateful for any and all ways of ac-
quiring knowledge. They seemed to resent any kind of "coddling"
(Leaman, 1978).

The J. B. Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky converted

a basement storage space into a touch-and-see gallery open to the
public. It contains ten low freestanding pedestals defined by
pools of carpet. In addition to the basic collection of sculpture,
there are displays of graphics including bright prints (Educational
Facilities Laboratories & National Endowment for the Arts, 1975,
p. 23),
The Indianapolis Museum of Art has a tactile gallery dubbed
the Artery which displays textiles, metalwork, ceramics, wood-
carving, and stone sculpture (National Arts and the Handicapped
Information Service, 1977, p, 13). Blind persons who wish to
explore other galleries of the museum are provided surgical gloves
for touching (Christmon, 1978).
The South African National Gallery in Johannesburg opened
a touch section in 1972, According to museum officials, 65 percent
of the blind population of the Cape has made use of the Touch
Gallery (Eastwood, 1976, p. 39). However, the gallery was not
designed as a special space for the visually handicapped.

While the Touch Gallery provided a venue for the sculpture

exhibitions for the blind and for the regular art classes, its
establishment was not intended to segregate the blind from the
sighted public. . . . In fact, it was believed that sighted
visitors would also benefit from the new venture by freely
sharing in the pleasures of touching the objects on display.
This belief is being fully justified (Rowland, 1973, p. 119).

The opening of the Touch Gallery featured objects of con-

trasting texture from the spheres of nature, commercial manufacture,
and art. Some examples are a bird egg, scrap metal, a sculptural
form, and a tribal mask. In a darkened room, sighted persons were
invited to examine tliese items without the aid of vision. Reports
the museum, "Everyone was enthralled" (Rowland, 1973, p. 119).
Wlien the Minneapolis Institute of Arts received a grant from
 37
the Minneapolis Foundation to make the museum more accessible to the
visually handicapped, it turned to blind persons for advice. The
responses are relevant to other museums undertaking such projects.

Everyone consulted has insisted that a separate tactile

gallery is undesirable. They would find this type of gallery
another separation of the blind from the general community and
the fact that sighted people also would use the gallery a mere
cover for patronizing attitudes toward the blind (Minneapolis
Institute of Arts, 1974a).

The museum arranged an experimental installation in order to test

various methods of display. Several blind and partially sighted
people were invited to experience the exhibits and to respond to
them. They panned a plexiglass supercube filled with art as a
complete disaster: due to glare, they could hardly see anything in
it (Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1974b). Other features, however,
were more favorably received. For the exhibition a monocular
device had been adapted to allow back projection of slides onto a
small screen. Simple controls varied light and image size. All
three partially sighted persons were able to see the slides quite
well and reported that the device helped them to see details and
areas of canvas otherwise out of range (Minneapolis Institute of
Arts, 1974b). The visitors considered taped narration to be very
important and wanted the tactile spaces to be integrated into the
general museum. Surprisingly, they also wanted braille identifi-
cation of objects. Said the project director.

Previously I had been led to believe that many regarded this as

undesirable, largely on the grounds that this would emphasize
blindness as something special in the galleries. But the same
people who most emphatically urged that the gallery space be
Integrated into the museum also were most emphatic in their
desire for Braille designations. . . . A Braille catalogue of
the tactual material was thought to be useful but not a real
substitute for Braille designation of objects (Minneapolis
Institute of Arts, 1974b).

Ultimately the tactile area was placed in an introductory

gallery by the entrance. For the benefit of the partially sighted.
 38
twelve-inch plastic Frensel lenses were placed on a number of plexi-
glass cases; these have been widely used and praised (Downs, 1975).
Braille labels and telesonic scripts identify each piece of sculp-
ture, A sample script appears in Appendix A. It is interesting
in light of a previous discussion about the difficulty of conveying
implied motion through touch.
Despite the wealth of foreplannlng, the Minneapolis Institute
of Arts did not escape disappointments common to other museums.
Response from handicapped people was limited. During the first two
and one-half months the gallery was open, only fifty blind people
attended; twenty-five of these came on opening night (Downs, 1975),
Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History created a tactile
gallery entitled "The Place for Wonder." This is a room divided
into four sections representing the museum's four fields of inquiry.
A zoology section contains mounted birds, animals, skeletons, and
shells; a botony section has seeds, branches, and wood panels from
around the world; a geology section has rocks, minerals, and fos-
sils; and an anthropology section currently features tools, clothing,
toys, and musical instruments from South America (Field Museum of
Natural History, 1978). Visitors are welcome to take drawers from
cabinets and to examine their contents independently. Museum offi-
cials report remarkably little theft, despite some forty-seven
thousand visitors in 1977 (Scholl, 1978). Braille labels identify
major areas of the room. As did the Minneapolis Institute of Arts,
the Field Museum consulted blind people in the planning stages of
the project. Persons responding said that they would prefer having
the gallery open to everyone—"and so it is" (Scholl, 1978).
The American Museum of Natural History in New York is one of
several museums to create a "discovery room." (Other major efforts
can be seen in the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada and the National
Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian.) Renovating an old
meeting room, staff members of the American Museum provided a ramped
entrance and carpeted stepped platforms to serve as seats. Objirts
donated by various curators decorate the room: turtle shells, tribal
 39
masks, a caribou head that was mounted amid foliage to appear as
though looking through a window. Actual discovery boxes were put
together by members of the museum's education staff; the central
concerns were minimum labeling and maximum use of the senses. Some
sample boxes and their contents are listed below.
Skull
Human skull, mirror, label
Eskimo
Toy sled, mittens, snow goggles, ulu, doll, mukluks, toss-
and-catch game, photo panel of Eskimo today, label tags with
photo of each object
Sandbox
Direction book; samples of sand from Hawaii, local beaches,
and Bahamas; quartz, garnet, coral, magnet, magnifying viewer,
spoon, tray
What Is It?
Four raw materials and four final products: chicle, cork,
cacao, and rubber with clues; Chiclets, corks, Hershey bar,
and rubber ball under covers (Arth & Claremon, 1977, p. 175)

Use of the discovery room is limited to twenty-five persons

at a time. People must obtain a ticket and wait for a turn. Ac-
cording to officials, visitors typically exhibit some hesitation
when they enter; they gingerly touch the freestanding objects, then
sit down. In some instances parents prevent children from touching
anything in the room. Then word gets out that a discovery box can
be had for the asking, and this produces a chain reaction. Parents
become as involved as children. Officials say that objects are
almost always handled carefully and returned to the correct com-
partments (Arth & Claremon, 1977, p. 174).
The discovery room operates as a public facility on weekends.
On weekdays it becomes an experimental teaching area for special
groups—especially the visually handicapped. Discovery room plan-
ners spoke early with visually handicapped individuals; their
experience repeated that of the Field Museum and the Minneapolis
Institute of Arts.
 40
Organizations working with the visually handicapped stress that
they do not want a special space; we were discouraged from de-
veloping a room for the blind." Instead, we were urged to
develop a space that would be accessible to both visually
handicapped people and the sighted. The Discovery Room pro-
vides such a setting (Arth & Claremon, 1977, p. 179).

All label information is copied in braille, and some labels are

printed in large type for those who can use them. Visually impaired
youngsters respond enthusiastically to the discovery room experi-
ence.
This section has provided an overview of museum tactile areas.
They reveal breadth and innovation and have been heartily received
by the public. Tactile museum experiences deserve further investi-
gation as well as further development. Perhaps, as some museums
are finding, experiences do not have to be in a "special area" of
the museum.

Educational Programs

'Jith an obligation to serve the public and with the belief

that collections are a public trust, museums are becoming increas-
ingly involved in education. Innovative educational ideas appear
almost daily. Not surprisingly, a number of museums have attempted
to include blind patrons in their educational efforts. This sec-
tion will survey such attempts. Because of the extensiveness and
rapidly changing state of mus.^um education, this can be no more
than some samples.
In the New Orleans Museum of Art, Bonnie Pitman-Gelles created
a two-part program for visually handicapped youngsters. The first
was a tour of the museum's permanent collections. The museum did
not have a tactile gallery but did have certain objects which could
be touched with the assistance of docents. Additionally, the edu-
cation department maintained a collection which could be handled
during programs. All were original works of art—African masks,
pre-Columbian vases, etc. Using the inquiry method, Pitman-
Gelles 's program combined the "unique qualities of a real object,"
 41
an awareness of the senses, and the interrelationship between the
museum experience and the child's everyday life (Pitman-Gelles,
n.d.-a). An art object was identified by walking around it, ex-
ploring open and closed spaces, and identifying textures; by
handling; and by examining purposes, reasons, and uses. Taped
music from various periods and cultures supplemented the experi-
ence.
The second effort was a summer program for children which
encouraged them to discover space and sculpture through the use
of body movements. Beginning in summer 1975, the program involved
thirty children between the ages of six and sixteen. Half of
these were blind, half sighted. They met twice weekly for a two-
to-three hour session, with a focus on perception of the senses.
Children expressed themselves through body movements, by handling
objects from the collection, and by relating the museum experience
to nature and to their home environment. They explored qualities
of sound, texture, motion, rhythm. As typical activities, partic-
ipants were asked to bring a favorite object from their bedroom;
they created a collage of sound, texture, and basic shapes; made
a mobile, formed a body sculpture, and investigated energy in
nature: seasons, tides, ice, rain, day, night (Pitman-Gelles, 1975).
The New Orleans Museum of Art expanded this pilot into a
regular program called Summer in the City. Consisting of three
2-hour visits, the program involves perception games, handling of
museum artifacts, art activities, movement, and theater experiences.
Children explore the function of a museum as a preserver and exhib-
itor of works of art; they examine the museum collection, and design
their own exhibition (National Arts and the Handicapped Information
Service, 1977, p. 12).
The Boston Children's Museum is one of several American mu-
seums to have a "special needs" field trip. One morning per week
the museum closes its doors to the public and accepts reservations
from two groups of up to twenty children each. The groups include
children diagnosed variously as mentally retarded, orthopedically
 42
handicapped, visually or auditorily impaired, learning disabled,
emotionally disturbed, and multiply handicapped. Most of the groups
come from segregated, self-contained classrooms—a situation museums
will be seeing less frequently as mainstreaming laws take effect.
The Boston Children's Museum utilizes a corps of college
interns to provide one-to-one staffing. Most of the exhibits are
participatory in nature, creating an ideal exploratory environment.
Because choices can be overwhelming to handicapped youngsters, the
staff is trained to allow each child to explore on whatever level
seems appropriate to his needs. The group is met at the door and
paired individually with interns; the program supervisor remains
on hand for intern support and to observe interactions which will
be discussed later in support meetings. According to museum offi-
cials, the program has numerous visible benefits, not the least of
which is growth among the interns themselves.

Some of the interns have had previous experience, some have

not. Some are terrified, others are not. Regardless of their
backgrounds, they all grow, and most do superbly. . . . This
experience allows them to realize that some children have
special needs instead of feeling that terrifying handicaps
have children somehow attached to them (Children's Museum in
Boston, n.d.).

The Indianapolis Museum of Art has several programs for handi-

capped children. Prior to a school visit, a docent goes to the
classroom to build rapport and to introduce the museum. This
"pretour" may include slides, artifacts, games, and the presentation
of new words (Indianapolis Museum of Art, n.d.). The actual museum
visit incorporates improvisational theater and perceptual games.
Literary quotes and cassettes of music enhance the presentation of
art: for example, a cassette for medieval work contains Gregorian
chants and early French and English folk tunes (Christmon, 1978).
One of the most successful devices with blind children at this
museum has been "clue boxes." These attempt to describe a painting
through tangible object clues—which may be literal or symbolic in
meaning. For instance, a clue box for an eighteenth-century paint-
 43
ing of Sir Brooks Watson contains 1) a white wig; 2) a heavy gold
chain (worn around his neck to indicate that he is Mayor of London);
3) a piece of white material with lace edging (cuffs); 4) a piece
of black velvet with gold brocade bands (his robe of office); 5) a
piece of rust velvet with big buttons (his coat); 6) a paintbrush
(it is a painting); 7) a black drapery tassel (the background);
8) an ornate mirror (the picture frame); and 9) a package of L'Eggs
with one white knee sock (Watson lost his left leg to a shark off
Cuba). Each child receives one object to examine in a quiet area
of the museum. For sighted children, the objects serve as indi-
cators to help identify a "lost" painting in the galleries. For
blind children, they provide a tactile description of the work
(Christmon, 1978).
The publicity for such programs is important. Obviously,
handicapped people will not visit museums if they-do not know that
facilities are available. In an informational brochure distributed
to the public, the Indianapolis Museum of Art makes it clear that
such persons are welcome and will be accommodated. The wording of
this brochure appears in Appendix B.
When the Roaring Brook Nature Center of Canton, Connecticut,
desired to accommodate handicapped children, the director drew upon
his previous experience. He had once designed a nature trail open
only to the blind. After some initial interest, attendance waned
rapidly, because most blind people wish desperately to be accepted
as "normal" and because few can read braille (Educational Facil-
ities Laboratories & National Endowment for the Arts, 1975, p. 25).
At the Roaring Brook Nature Center, the new trails contain numerous
tactile displays. Eighteen programs are available to school groups
with such titles as "Preparing for Winter," "Adaptations," "Signs
of Life in Winter," "Discovering with Your Senses," and "Ecological
Succession" (Children's Museum of Hartford & Roaring Brook Nature
Center, 1979). Says Jay Kaplan, present director:

Visually handicapped individuals are already relying on their

senses, and therefore, they are not hesitant to use them to
 44
explore. . . . I believe that the program is successful because
we treat these visitors much as we do our visitors who possess
normal sight (1978),

A companion institution to the Roaring Brook Nature Center,

the Children's Museum of Hartford also operates an extensive school
program. It welcomes handicapped children both from special schools
and mainstreamed into regular classes. The museum combines a plan-
etarium, salt water aquarium, live animal collection, ethnological
and historical materials, and a special participatory exhibit en-
titled Your Heart, The Pump of Life. Blind children may feel models
of the solar system during planetarium sessions. Programs such
as "Our Old Relatives" (reptiles) and "in the Dark" permit handling
of animals, while "Cultures Around the World" encourages students
to handle and examine ethnological clothing, crafts, and household
goods (Children's Museum of Hartford & Roaring Brook Nature Center,
1979). Staff members put together loan boxes for use in pre- and
postvisit activities.
In the Nordiska Museet in Stockholm, blind children once
participated in a week-long program in which they dressed flax,
combed wool, spun fiber, and wove cloth. Staff member Anne Hansson
—herself blind—is working to establish a regular program at the
associated outdoor museum, Skansen. When the program is imple-
mented, blind children will be able to handle objects, dress up
in clothes of different periods, feel old buildings, and "experi-
ence their special milieu" (Hansson, 1976, p. 36). Recognizing
the problem of transportation, the Nordiska Museet provides out-
reach programs. Anne Hansson presents lectures illustrated with
objects on a choice of five topics: (1) Popular Art and Magic,
(2) The Lapps, (3) Hygiene in Olden Times, (4) Nordic Folk Art,
(5) History of Coffee Drinking in Sweden (Hansson, 1976, p, 35).
The Historical Museum in Stockholm adapted its school kits for
blind use, with information on tape about objects contained in
the box. These are freely loaned to schools, associations for
the blind, and interested individuals.
 45
A handful of museums is experimenting with studio art for the
blind. The Philadelphia Museum of Art conducts classes for visually
handicapped adults. Called "Form in Art," the project began as a
pilot study in 1972. Students experiment with many different media
to decide in which one they feel most comfortable. Classes meet
weekly the first year, monthly the second year. Says the project
coordinator.

They gradually build the confidence and courage necessary for

self expression and work hard at overcoming the fear that it
will not look "right" to those who are sighted. Time spent
in the museum galleries helps to facilitate this learning
process. . . . fHereH one thing becomes apparent—each piece
is unique and valid because it is the personal statement of
the artist (Bar, 1978).

This echos conclusions by Yasha Lisenco:

The sighted writer frequently measures tlie worth of the artis-

tic product by how closely the work approaches visual realism
(1971, p. 4 ) .

Lisenco believes that a dependency is

often forced upon the blind person by the attitudes of the

sighted. . . . In the area of art, this need and dependency
may, unfortunately, involve a reliance on others for aesthetic
judgments (1971, p. 21).

Museum collections have value for the blind beginning artist be-
cause he sees that there is no "correct" technique or style.
Hopefully, he thereby gains the assurance to follow his own incli-
nations and not to seek approval from sighted mentors.
In 1977 the Genesis Gallery in New York became the first
private gallery to welcome the unsighted (National Arts and the
Handicapped Information Service, 1977, p. 15). Artist Xavier
Medina-Campeny expressed a particular interest in working with
blind people. During a one-man show of his work, children from
Brooklyn's Industrial Home for the Blind were invited to tour the
museum. They touched sculptures and read labels in braille while
the artist explained each piece individually. The following year
 46
(1978) the same children were invited back for a new show of
Medina-Campeny's sculpture. This time they brought their own
clay figures from home, so that he could see the work that they
had done (Kivelson, 1978). Part of the proceeds from this second
show were donated to the Industrial Home for the Blind.
Medina-Campeny also visited a Day Center where he had the
opportunity to meet elderly blind persons doing sculpture of their
own. In return, these senior citizens attended the 1978 show at
the Genesis Gallery to renew their friendship and to see his work
— a n example of museum involvement with the elderly, the oft-
forgotten audience. One of the elderly blind persons was 82-year-
old Benjamin Apicello, who discovered stone sculpture at the age
of 76. A newspaper account described his encounter with Medina-
Campeny.

As the two men hovered over the table, Apicello explained

to Medina-Campeny how he envisions the piece he is now working
on. "Here this bump, this will be a bird's head," he says, as
his hands move over the stone. "The beak will be open like
this, going upwards, singing."

Medina-Campeny's rejoinder was, "It's so powerful" (J. Snider, 1977).

The National Gallery of South Africa offers studio classes
for blind adults in conjunction with exhibitions. A springboard
for this was the 1973 exhibition "Duo," which coordinated sensa-
tions of sound and touch—a harpsichord, for instance, accompanied
an ethereal bronze portrait with a flattened face (Eastwood, 1976,
p. 40). Blind Xhosa adults were urged to incorporate background
music or original song while they molded clay. These students
were soon weaving a rich African melody complete with various
harmonies. One of the first clay sculptures to emerge was "a
basket containing open-mouthed flowerlike forms which were later
explained as musical sounds" (Eastwood, 1976, p. 41).
Special programs such as these are usually considered the
province of large museums. However, even small museums can use
their resources to create educational experiences. A father once
phoned the University of Illinois Museum of Natural History to ask
 47
if the museum would provide a tour for a group of blind children,
including his own son. Museum officials uneasily replied that most
exhibits were behind glass and they could not disassemble these and
have sheets of glass lying about the floor. There were a few large
mounted animals on open display, and the museum offered to assist
the children in touching these. As a facility primarily serving
the university community, the museum did not have special programs
for the blind (Henriksen, 1971, p. 27).
The father replied that he did not expect the museum to open
cases, but only to describe, explain, and answer questions. On the
tour the children were interested but "something was missing."
Then, upon approaching the large mammals,

we noticed an exciting change in the youngsters. The children

were busily discovering things that we take for granted. They
were amazed by the size of the animals and the differences in
the shapes of the horns. They were impressed with such obvious
features as the bison's hump, but also noticed the subtle dis-
tinctions of the hair textures of the animals (Henriksen, 1971,
p. 27).

The group next entered the preparation room where exhibits were
designed and assembled. This had become a repository for all sorts
of outworn, duplicate, unwanted items. The children responded to
the properties of crystals, fossils, and animal teeth. They were
especially delighted by an owl feather.

They tickled their noses, laughed, and reacted like children

who had been given a wonderful gift. We pointed out how light
the feather was, how it meet with wind resistance when they
moved it through the air. We explained how birds use their
feathers to fly (Henriksen, 1971, p. 28).

When it came time to leave, each child was handed a gift from
among specimens without data: a fossil, shell, or mineral. Since
that time the museum has given tours to several mixed groups con-
taining both blind and sighted children. All participants are al-
lowed to touch objects, a special privilege accorded them because
there are blind children in the group. The museum realized that it
did, indeed, have resources with which to serve its handicapped
 48
audiences.
Another university museum, the University of British Columbia
Museum of Anthropology, offered a tour to a group of blind children
ages six to fourteen. The museum education staff felt strongly
that a unifying theme was needed. They chose the Western Red Cedar,
a tree used by Northwest Coast Indians for a variety of domestic
and ceremonial objects. The children were met at the bus and taken
first to a living cedar tree, where they felt its distinctive bark
and foliage. Next they entered through the carved cedar doors of
the museum. Sitting in a circle, they passed around various parts
of the tree: wood, bark, boughs. A docent told a story about a
raven—one of the sly trickster figures in Northwest Indian lore.
Staff members next discussed how to handle objects, then led chil-
dren in small groups to a table with baskets, bowls, mats, masks,
musical instruments, and apparel. One of these artifacts was a
Northern Chilkat blanket with a raised woven design. Many children,
remembering the low relief carving on the museum doors, found the
presence of the same type of design on the blanket of great inter-
est (Rogow & Rowan, 1978, p. 41).
After inspecting the objects, the children again sat on the
floor and indulged in a small feast of fresh berries and ice cream.
Staff members told them about the use of berries by coastal Indians.
Museum staff gained several insights from this tour experience:
(1) Being rushed or forced to touch something can be very disturbing
to blind children. (2) Whereas a sighted child can see the next step
in an exhibit, a blind child cannot. He needs to be briefed about
what is going to happen. (3) Children should enter an exhibit in
small numbers and have personal attention (l^ogow & Rowan, 1978,
p. 41).
This section has attempted to illustrate the variety of museum
educational programs. Planning for the handicapped is still a wide-
open, experimental field. Laws mandate only that museum programs
be accessible; these examples offer ways to satisfy the letter (as
well as the spirit?) of the law. The fact that museum professionals
 49
are frequently surprised by reactions of blind people suggests that
we do not have sufficient knowledge about blindness. Also, it is
striking that participants in most published programs have no limi-
tations except visual ones. Yet the majority of blind people are
over age sixty-five, and the majority of blind children have multi-
ple handicaps. What are we planning for these?

Part of the General Public

In 1972 the American Foundation for the Blind issued an exten-

sive policy statement concerning museum services for the blind.

Specialized gardens, trails, or museums often carry a psycho-

logical impact that is distasteful to the blind or otherwise
visually impaired person who has a consciousness of the dignity
of self. . . . Whether the blind person is accompanied or alone,
it is unnecessary to have any special design specifically for
the blind and visually impaired in the surroundings as long as
the areas are safe for everyone. . . .
The American Foundation for the Blind reaffirms its belief
that the basic aim of all services for a blind or visually
impaired person is to assist him to lead a full and normal
life as an integral part of society.
Therefore, the Foundation strongly approves of services,
activities, and benefits which recognize the special needs of
blind and visually impaired persons, but disapproves of any
such activity which perpetuates misconceptions and stereotyped
thinking and tends to set blind or visually impaired persons
apart from the rest of the community.

The National Federation of the Blind, the largest membership organ-

ization of blind persons with over fifty thousand members, adopted
a similar resolution in its 1976 convention:

. . . this organization [will], in the future, actively

oppose the granting of Federal funds to those museums which
continue to exclude or segregate blind visitors, and actively
support and encourage the efforts of those museums which genu-
inely strive to treat blind persons as normal visitors.

There is a lesson to be learned in this. Museums have, with

the best intentions, concentrated their services for the blind on
special tactile galleries and special educational tours. But
spokesmen for the blind do not want this kind of segregation.
 50
Museums need more accessible exhibits .and programs which are open
to the general public, which blind persons can visit as part of
that general public. How shall museums provide this? It is a
unique and complicated challenge. One small facet of the problem
is the issue of touching: if only blind people touch an object,
it is not likely to suffer damage; if everybody handles it, it is
far more vulnerable.
A few museums have a head start in receiving visually handi-
capped persons as part of the general public. The National Air
and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., a division of the Smithsonian
Institution, has a coordinator of programs for the handicapped who
is himself blind: Harold Snider. Snider champions the idea of
working directly with consumer organizations for various handicapped
groups.

Going to the NFB TNational Federation of the BlindD meant

taking a chance on alienating agencies that work for the blind
and view the federation as radical. But I thought that the
NFB's aid was important because the federation has an affirm-
ative attitude toward blindness. "Blindness is not a physical
handicap. The handicap of blindness is the attitude of society
toward the blind," says Dr. Kenneth Jernlgan, president of NFB
(H. Snider, 1978, p. 8).

The National Air and Space Museum which emerged from such
consultations is probably the most accessible cultural facility in
the United States. It has puppets to explain technology, partici-
patory displays, multimedia communications, and artifacts which
encourage the visitor to feel. All people may touch the Apollo
Command Module which carried the first men to the moon; in addition,
there are models of this spaceship and other large exhibits for the
benefit of visually impaired visitors. The museum offers tape
recorders, cassette tours, and a list of touchable exhibits in
braille, large print, and tape. A free informational brochure is
also available in each of these media. Visually impaired people
may borrow booklets of raised line drawings to aid in gaining
perspective of large or nontouchable exhibits. Elevators have
 51
braille markings, while wheelchairs have clamp-on mirrors to aid
people with little or no head movement. Near the information desk
is a large plexiglass model of the building with galleries marked
in print and braille. The museum shop sells the official Smith-
sonian guidebook in braille and tape for the same price as the
regular print edition. Blind persons are welcome to check out
museum outreach boxes (National Arts and the Handicapped Infor-
mation Service, 1977, pp. 6-7; Rosenbaum, 1978; H. Snider, 1977,
p. 20; 1978, pp. 7-11).
The National Air and Space Museum seems to enjoy the luxury
of an unlimited budget. How many museums can afford such special-
ized equipment as a laser cane ($2,350), a sonic guide ($2,350),
or an OPTACON ($3,000)? (H. Snider, 1978, p. 11). Costs aside,
such planning and publicity are unquestionably successful. The
National Air and Space Museum is receiving record crowds. Of the
first five million visitors, 3 percent were visibly handicapped
(National Arts and the Handicapped Information Service, 1977, p. 7).
Some few exceptional museums have such an extreme multisensory
environment that they have little trouble accommodating the blind.
The Brooklyn Children's Museum rests under a pagoda-shaped trolley
kiosk. Children descend through a "people tube"—actually a steel
water culvert—to various levels defined by platforms. Through the
center of the culvert runs a stream with a water wheel, swing gate,
sluiceway, hydraulic turbine, Archimedes' screw, and sailboat pool.
Says Lloyd Hezekiah, museum director.

The original intent was to create an extraordinary learning

place . . . where children could feel that something had been
created especially for them (cited in Kohn, 1978, p. 82).

The museum was designed "not specifically for children's handicaps

but to celebrate the mobility of all children" (Educational Facil-
ities Laboratories & National Endowment for the Arts, 1975, p. 12).
The various landings investigate themes of Self, Earth, Air,
and Fire. The "Self" level contains equipment to bolster the self
image of a disturbed or insecure child, Ucvv he may explore his
 52
biological self using a fiber-optic probe (a video magnifier that
peers inside ears, eyes, mouth, and head) or an audio exploration
probe (a microphone that amplifies the sounds of speech, heart,
and breathing). Children experience anthropology by shaking rattles
of primitive cultures, banging on a real jungle telegraph. Other
sections of the museum contain windmills that pump water, wind
generators that fly kites and operate a calliope. Air pressure
lifts raise children from one level to the next; every level except
the roof is served by elevator. There are also greenhouses, solar
generators, ripple tanks, and musical instruments. Outside, the top
of the building is dotted with free forms for climbing, bleachers
for an open air theater. Inside, at the bottom, are workshops,
darkrooms, laboratories, and exhibit storage (Educational Facil-
ities Laboratories & National Endowment for the Arts, 1975, pp.
12-14; Kohn, 1978, pp. 82-83).
San Francisco's Exploratorium is one of the most compelling
multisensory experiences in the world. An "enchanted tree" turns
sound impulses into a branching display of pulsing hues. Sunlight
is broken by prisms into abstract murals; in another area, padded
sticks furiously pound a drum once an hour. A vacuum cleaner hose
has been bent into a U-shape with an earpiece at each end to illus-
trate how one locates sound, while a ball balanced in a vertical
airstream demonstrates the Bernoulli effect (the same phenomenon
which causes lift in an airplane's wings). Says director Frank
Oppenheimer,

A place like this undoes a lot of preconceived notions about

science. Visitors react so strongly to these phenomena that
they try to find explanations for themselves and the people
they're with (cited in Kohn, 1978, p. 81).

Especially significant to blind visitors is the Tactile

Gallery, a labyrinth of eleven completely dark chambers through
which one must find his way using only the sense of touch. Persons
walk, crawl, climb, and slide; float in a sensation like swimming,
and sometimes are suspended. Staff members report that blind and
 53
sighted persons are equally uneasy when entering the gallery; but
once inside, blind people seem to find the experience more humorous
than other people do (Joseph, 1979). The Tactile Gallery has fans
also among mentally retarded and emotionally disturbed users.
Less than one percent of these persons respond by withdrawal or
emotional outburst; instead, they return again and again to enjoy
the sensations within (Educational Facilities Laboratories &
National Endowment for the Arts, 1975, p. 28). One especially
intriguing exhibit is the tactile tree, which offers a gamut of
touch sensations: bark, foliage, fur-lined hole, a branch that
sneezes at anyone who ventures too close. The Exploratorium does
not use braille, but instead employs roving "explainers" who assist
general visitors and school groups.
A number of museums in Britain have created multisensory
environments for the general public. At the Commonwealth Institute,
American Museum at Bath, Geffrye Museum, and others, visitors have
tlie opportunity to dress up in costumes, taste relevant recipes,
and handle museum objects. The Glanely Gallery of the National
Museum at Cardiff uses various floor textures to suggest the terrain
of Wales, The National Museum of Wales at St. Pagans is experi-
menting with reproducing the sounds of old musical instruments.
A gallery in the Museum of Mankind conveys the atmosphere of an
Arabian city through ground textures underfoot, close proximity
of buildings, music in the background, smell of fresh herbs, and
touchable objects in shops (Heath, 1976, pp. 57-58; Watkins, 1976,
p. 46).
There is some disagreement within the museum profession whether
museums should follow such directions as discussed above. Is a
museum a playground or a serious learning environment? Is its
purpose to entertain or to educate? Can a visitor have fun and
still learn? These questions are not totally resolved. Says Pat
Mulcahy of the Lions Gallery of the Senses,

Several of the earlier exhibits in particular tended to

identify the gallery in the minds of some visitors as the "museum
 54
for the blind" or as a "children's fun room." This is not un-
common in museums that have initiated participatory programs.
There are museum professionals as well as visitors who disagree
with this kind of involvement, and the debate is likely to
continue (1978, p. 17).

One way to welcome blind people as part of the general public

is to create multisensory environments for all visitors. But there
are other ways in which museums can aid integration. They have the
facilities to create exhibits which explore aspects of blindness,
thereby increasing public awareness. The Lions Gallery of the
Senses once held an exhibition by Les Levine entitled "I Am Not
Blind": this consisted of taped interviews, videotapes, and photo-
graphs of nine visually handicapped individuals, presenting blind-
ness as a physical state but not necessarily a state of mind (Gans,
1978). In another Lions' exhibit, "Exhibition as Process," blind
and sighted people worked together to arrange an art show, collab-
orating on every step from selection of subject matter to interaction
with the public. Attitudes, feelings, and responses of artists and
planners were recorded; these were compiled in a catalog which accom-
panied the exhibition (Gans, 1978).
The Boston Children's Museum constructed a special exhibit
entitled "What if I Couldn't" to correct misconceptions about handi-
caps and to allow people to explore their own feelings. There were
six areas of exploration: visual impairments, auditory impairments,
physical handicaps, learning disabilities, emotional disturbance,
and mental retardation. Each area simulated the handicap to varying
degrees of severity, then displayed remedial devices. Remedial
devices were included because nonusers sometimes find them mysteri-
ous or frightening; by actually handling them, they would gain
increased familiarity. Graphics for children and adults were
paired with facts to correct misconceptions. Texts encouraged
the reader to imagine himself as a person with the disability.

They stressed the ability of the person to cope with his envi-
ronment, learn, work, have fun, and have relationships with
others. The adult text especially attempted to deny commonly
 55
held stereotypes about a particular disability (Kamien, n.d.,
P- 1 ) .

The visual impairment section contained the following appli-

ances and three-dimensional items:
- A series of three lenses simulating 20/80, 20/200, and 20/400
vision
- A desk containing
. A Perkins brailler with directions for use
. Large print and braille children's books
. A brailled alarm clock, ruler, map, dominoes, playing cards
- Blind walk, a railing with textured walls and blindfolds

- A prescription cane mounted on the wall

Below is a partial listing of objects in other sections.

Auditory impairments
- A series of tapes simulating gradations of hearing loss
- Hearing aid mounted on the wall
- Sign-language and fingerspelling film cassette viewer
Learning disabilities
- A "mirror box" causing left/right perception problems in writing

Emotional disturbance
- A series of four sets of puppets with scripts to act out short
plays about anger, grief, and "differentness"

Mental retardation
- A photo mural of pictures of children who are retarded and a
series of questions and answers in an imaginary exchange between
a nonretarded and a retarded child

Physical handicaps
- A wheelchair environment with four different floor coverings
and a ramp
- A try-on section with mirror which included a walker, braces,
crutches, and a child's prosthetic arm (Kamien, n.d., pp. 1-2)
 56
Handicapped children enjoyed demonstrating use of these de-
vices to their nonhandicapped companions. "Our experience with a
Perkins brailler was that blind kids felt that they had real ex-
pertise with such exhibition material and were quite confident and
proud" (Kamien, 1978). The reaction of the public is also instruc-
tive to museums.

The public interest in and response to this exhibit has been

gratifying. We believe that we have indeed touched upon an area
that people want and need to be educated about. The exhibit
, . , appeared to be a very supportive environment for children
with special needs and their families (Kamien, n.d., p. 2).

This section completes the survey of voluntary museum efforts

to accommodate visually impaired people. Some efforts have suc-
ceeded, some have failed, while some have languished. ^-Jhat are the
reasons why?

Retrospect: What Have We Leanted?

Before drawing guidelines for museum services for the blind,

one needs to evaluate past efforts. The most successful programs
have been the flexible ones, those willing to build upon their
experience. Some issues regarding museum programs admit no easy
answer: they are still hotly debated among professionals in the
field. Such unresolved issues, too, will be discussed here.
An important principle regarding museum planning for the hand-
icapped—perhaps the cardinal principle—is integration. Visually
handicapped individuals do not want special facilities for their
exclusive use. The consultant advice received by the Minneapolis
Institute of Arts typifies that of countless other museums.

They were without exception adamant that these spaces be inte-

grated as much as possible with sighted visitors rather than
as a blind or tactual gallery that sighted people can also use
if they want to (Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1974b).

Both of the major national organizations for the blind have issued
statements opposinj^ segregated facilities. The HEW regulations
 57
regarding the implementation of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
require programs for the handicapped in "the most integrated setting
appropriate" (U.S. Sec, of HEW, 1977, p. 22681). If museums persist
in segregated facilities, they are likely to face a legal challenge.
Laws do not require physical access to every item in the museum's
collection, but they do require a good-faith effort to expose blind
people to the breadth of the museum. Essentially, what most blind
people want is more touch and auditory exhibits for the general
public that they can use as part of the general public.
In planning for inclusiveness, museums will do themselves a
favor. The potential audience of an "exhibit for the blind" is
discouragingly small, when one considers that most blind people
are over age sixty-five, most blind children have multiple handi-
caps, and many blind children are being mainstreamed into regular
classes. The majority of visually handicapped individuals are not
blind but have some residual vision. They may well resist facil-
ities labeled "for the blind." Speaking in regard to outdoor
museums and nature trails, Jonathan Schwartz says.

All would benefit from a trail system designed with visually

impaired persons in mind. Most of these people probably do
not think of themselves as "impaired" and would not use a trail
"for the blind" (1977, p. 55).

And~

Instead of contributing to the integration of the visually

impaired into society, such a trail would continue to keep
them separate. The visually impaired have enough trouble with
the attitudes of many of the sighted as it is, and do not need
to be set up as curiosities at the nature center (1977, p. 54).

Even in the largest tactile galleries in the country, facili-

ties which have long welcomed and included the public, attendance
figures for the blind are disappointing. Only 400 to 500 visually
Impaired people visit the Lions Gallery of the Senses each year,
while in 1977 the total attendance figure was 32,000 (Gans, 1978,
p. 3; Mulcahy, 1978, p. 17). The Mary Duke Biddle Gallery averages
200 visually impaired and 10,000 sighted visitors per month (Toll,
 58
1975, p. 461). Actually, these galleries are more to be congratu-
lated for their total attendance than disappointed by the partici-
pation of the blind. Even among sighted people, fewer persons visit
museums than stay away. Why should we expect the visually impaired
population to be different? As long as publicity is adequate,
museums have done their part. The important thing is that facil-
ities are available, and that visually impaired individuals know
they are available.
Of course, an unknown number of visually impaired people wish
to attend museums but cannot because of ambulatory or transportation
problems. Outreach programs are a logical solution for this. In
order to serve their community, museums must find where such people
are and what needs they have.
Most professionals who have planned programs for the handi-
capped emphasize the importance of working with actual blind people.
Such consultants are in a position to know, of course, the needs and
resources of the community. By expressing the wants of the local
populace, they can help museums solve some of the controversial
issues discussed below. Activist organizations of the handicapped,
such as the National Federation of the Blind, are likely to be more
helpful to museums than charitable agencies. Speaking in regard to
charitable agencies, Harold Snider says,

The advice which has been given has sometimes been either
meaningless, self-serving, or ludicrous. Agencies and chari-
table organizations, however well-intentioned, may provide
services for the handicapped but they cannot speak adequately
on their behalf (1977, p. 19).

When Snider went instead to activist organizations such as the NFB,

he found that "these groups are delighted that they are at last
being allowed to speak for themselves." They provided advice,
speakers, consultants, and public information.
Among museums with accessible exhibits for the blind, there
is some controversy concerning the use of braille labels. The Mary
Duke Biddle Gallery uses them to identify the object and provide
 59
background information. The Lions Gallery of the Senses rarely
uses labels, maintaining that labels interfere with the aesthetic
response.

Information imparted before the experience biases the experi-

ence, and label reading, including braille labels, is a
deterrent to direct exposure (Calhoun, 1974, p. 38).

In this regard, it is interesting to recall the experience of

the Minneapolis Institute of Arts: the majority of blind consultants
requested braille labels. What should museums do? The answer
depends upon the purposes of the museum exhibit and the wishes of
the potential audience. Braille labels may call attention to blind-
ness in the museum. But for blind persons who are literate in the
system, braille is a major means for making facilities accessible.
Museums need to learn what percentage of the local visually impaired
population can read braille, and what percentage would use braille
labels.
Some museums have experimented with blindfolding sighted
visitors in order to put them on "equal footing" with the blind.
This has encountered mixed results. The Lions Gallery discontinued
the feature after some early shows in which blindfolds were used
on a trial basis.

We found it is impossible to approximate blindness in the time

it takes to go through an exhibition, and sympathy is not the
gallery's purpose. Children in particular regarded the gallery
visit as a "funhouse" event if blindfolded. This undercuts the
gallery's real intent, and we now use normal museum lighting
(Mulcahy, 1978, p. 15).

On the other hand, the South African National Gallery was heartened
by an exhibit which precluded use of eyesight.

Everyone was enthralled. In a darkened room those with sight

were invited to handle a few of the objects without aid of
vision. The idea was not to simulate the experience of the
blind (any such attempt would have been misleading), but to
focus attention on the tactile features of the various natural,
industrial, and art objects (Rowland, 1973, p. 119).

Likewise the Roaring Brook Nature Center of Canton, Connecticut,

 60
uses blindfolds as a means of encouraging sighted children to
perceive with other senses.

At first, the children are nervous, silly, and want to peek

from beneath their blindfolds. Within five minutes, however,
they are using these other senses (Kaplan, 1978).

Obviously, a decision about blindfolds depends upon local museum

circumstances. Blindfolds can be used successfully, as a means to
heighten awareness of sensory stimuli. Blindfolds are not, and
should not be presented as, a surrogate experience of blindness.
The issue of "children's funhouse" invites further discussion.
For some professionals and visitors alike, a multisensory museum
experience (such as San Francisco's Exploratorium) is on par with
a carnival. Is the purpose of a museum to educate or to entertain?
Is it both, and can both occur concurrently? In the opinion of the
author, a museum's role is to preserve for human beings their nat-
ural and cultural heritage, and to offer educational opportunities.
Education can be enjoyable, and educational facilities can and
should be accessible. But museums must keep a firm hand on their
direction and goals. If they do so, novel sensations will not
become an end in themselves.
Some museums which have planned facilities for the blind find
their visitors complaining that the experience is too tame. There
is inherent conflict in plans to design concurrently for physical
and visual handicaps. Wheelchairs require a smooth surface with
a gradient of no more than 5 percent (Beechel, 1974, p. 21), but
blind persons can handle much rougher terrain. It is not, accord-
ing to 88 percent of Orientation and Mobility (0 & M) instructors
surveyed, necessary to provide special paving for the visually
impaired.

Any visually impaired person who has undergone 0 & M training

— a n d those who have not are probably not going to show up at
a nature center without at least one sighted companion—can
easily "shoreline" his or her way atound a Liall as long as
there is a definite distinction between the trail surface and
the surrounding vegetation (Schwartz, 1977, p. 55).
 61
Railings should be provided only at danger spots along the trail
— a policy that has been followed by many outdoor museums for years,
whether the trail is for use by the visually impaired or the sighted
(Schwartz, 1977, p. 55). Length of the trail need not concern
planners: lack of vision does not imply lack of stamina. Elimi-
nating all "danger" is likely to make the experience seem lifeless
and patronizing. According to Thomas Cutsforth, the resourcefulness
that develops out of meeting challenges is an important component
of self esteem (1933/1951, p, 135). A path which is safe for the
sighted is safe for the visually impaired.

The visually impaired have, with the help of 0 & M training,

mastered the streets of our busiest cities. They can certainly
handle a nature trail (Schwartz, 1977, p. 60).

Likewise, the interiors of museums do not automatically need guide

ropes or rails, l-lany blind persons using canes are quite good inde-
pendent travelers.
But as with other issues, there are two sides to this problem.
Do museums join the clamor for mobility training in order to abjure
their own responsibility for providing accessible facilities?

In regard to blind persons, the requirements for accessibility

are underdeveloped and generally misunderstood. Perhaps be-
cause the blind are instructed—frequently with remarkable
success—to compensate for the loss of sight by using certain
orientation and mobility techniques amounting to a near science,
there has been within the community of blind persons and pro-
fessionals who serve the blind neither a clear consensus on
accessibility nor an urgency to address the issue. . . . The
most urgent and consistently advocated solutions to the problems
of accessibility for the blind are better orientation and
mobility instruction and improved electronic or biomedical
sensory aids (Duncan, Gish, Mulholland, and Townsend, 1977,
p. 442).

Apparently there are few architectural modifications which blind

people expect society to make. Their strongest barriers in museums
are psychological, not physical.
No issue cuts more to the heart of museum concerns than arti-
fact safety. An obvious way to make exhibits accessible is to
 62
permit handling, but handling exposes artifacts to danger. What is
the solution? No principle can be offered which is applicable to
all situations, except to note that professionals almost unanimously
oppose reproductions.

Reproductions cannot be used successfully. The blind person

possesses an acute sense of touch, so that he may even be sensi-
tive to gradual distinctions that a sighted person might not
even see. Reproductions create little interest since the sur-
face and texture lack the critical quality that an original
work possesses. , , .
The purely psychological experience of having in one's
hand an original object, whether it is 6,000 years old or ten
years old, is vastly important to blind people who are trying
to compensate for physical disability (Stanford, 1976, pp. 6-7).

I far prefer using actual artifacts to reproductions mainly

because of the needs of the blind to be on an equal basis with
sighted visitors (Leaman, 1978),

Reproductions are not suitable for developing understanding

through a tactile response nor are they able to convey the
aesthetic experience (Eastwood, 1976, p. 42).

The importance of having originals cannot be overestimated.

. . . It is a fundamental principle, maybe the fundamental
principle (Switzer, 1976b, p. 64).

Despite the problems Involved in using original works of

art, the Lions Gallery seldom uses reproductions. The success
of a facility like this depends on adherence to standards of
excellence comparable to those of the museum as a whole. It
is demeaning to assume that unsighted people cannot appreciate
original works of art (Mulcahy, 1978, p. 15).

In making decisions such as these, museums should consider the

track record of touchable exhibits. The Dutch period room in the
Museum of the City of New York has experienced only minor damage
in twenty years of handling (Nielsen, 1978). The most serious
incident ever to occur at the Lions Gallery took place when over-
zealous visitors damaged Harry Bertoia's delicate sounding sculp-
tures. "They forgot that these pieces are works of art as well as
sound producers and tried to play them for maximum volume" (Mulcahy,
1978, p. 15). Some visitor education might have made all the
 63
difference here. When sculpture is exhibited, there is the issue
of patina: it does come off, but it can be replaced. The Mary Duke
Biddle Gallery advises artists that constant handling will alter
the surface of their work—it has never found an artist to object,
but always warns the artist in writing (Reid, 1978, p. 13).
Common sense can avoid many pitfalls. If artifacts are
placed on a sturdy base, they will not tip over when jostled.
Washing facilities, white cotton gloves, and tactile demonstrations
will all help. The Indianapolis Museum of Art hesitated to require
gloves for touching art, but has found that blind visitors are not
upset by this condition (Christmon, 1978).
At the Mary Duke Biddle Gallery, and elsewhere, brightly
colored paintings hang under intense lighting. But paintings—and
almost all museum artifacts—are damaged by prolonged exposure to
intense lighting. Should they be sacrificed for the educational
benefit of a few—or preserved for posterity unused (and unknown)?
This question does not have an answer. Museums must decide on a
case-by-case basis. They are NOT required to expose all their
collections to handling. But they must continually seek ways of
fulfilling their dual, ambivalent role: preserver and purveyor
of art.
 CHAPTER III
TO UTILIZE OUR RESOURCES

This chapter forms what is, in effect, the conclusion of

this paper. Drawing upon the foregoing material, it offers general
principles for museums undertaking to welcome visually impaired
people. Chapter IV presents a specific application of these con-
cluding principles.

Guidelines for Museum Staff

Ideally, all museum staff will have the opportunity to attend

a seminar or workshop which explains the dynamics and needs of
blindness. Lacking such an opportunity, they may find the discus-
sion below helpful, but a workshop should be provided if at all
possible. One specialist suggests that such a session include films
about visual impairment, public information packets, demonstration
of sighted guide techniques, a nontechnical discussion of "what a
blind person sees," and a brief description of kinds of modifica-
tions that are most valuable to the visually impaired and why
(Duncan et al., 1977, p. 443). The National Federation of the
Blind or other organizations will often provide both speakers and

materials.
In the book Stigma (1963), Erving Goffman offers insights
about handicaps which may prove enlightening to inexperienced
museum staff. Goffman defines stigma as any attribute that is
deeply discrediting. There are two types of stigmatized persons:
the discredited, whose stigma is immediately perceivable or already
known by those present; and the discreditable, whose stigma is not
readily apparent but which can be damaging if revealed (pp. 3-4).
Examples of the former, or discredited stigma, are being black or
64
 65
crippled or disfigured. Examples of the second, or discreditable,
are being homosexual, having a prison record, or belonging to an
unusual church.
Goffman's major point is that stigma is not a person but
a perspective. Everyone is stigmatized in some situations and
"normal" in others. Persons with differing stigmas behave in
appreciably similar ways; a person who is stigmatized in one regard
possesses all the normal prejudices held toward those who are
stigmatized in another regard (p. 138). Stigma management is a
general feature of our society, a process occurring wherever there
are identity norms (p. 130).
For the discredited person, the major problem is one of
tension management—an encounter with a "normal" will be marked
by tension on both sides. The discredited person is afraid he
will be seen and defined solely in terms of his handicap, while
the "normal" is in something of a double bind: if he shows direct
sympathetic concern, he may come across as overbearing and solic-
itous, while if he ignores the handicap, he may forget and make
impossible demands. Museum docents often betray their uneasiness
in such situations by guarded references, a fixed stare elsewhere,
artificial levity, and compulsive loquaciousness.
For the other type of stigmatized person, the discreditable,
the problem is not tension management but information control.
How many people know his secret? Can he hide it? In a museum a
visually impaired person may bump into things rather than ask for
help or take a chance of being called blind. Because of the great
rewards in being considered normal, almost all persons who are in
a position to pass will do so on occasion by intent. A person
with a mild handicap may disassociate himself from fellow sufferers.

The stigmatized individual exhibits a tendency to stratify

his "own" according to the degree to which their stigma is
apparent and obtrusive. He can then take up in regard to
those who are more evidently stigmatized than himself the
attitudes the normals take to him. Thus do the hard of hearing
stoutly see themselves as anything but deaf persons, and those
with defective vision, anything but blind (p. 107).
 66
The stigmatized person is expected to help others toward a
tactful acceptance of him. Blind people are taught to face the
other person directly when speaking or listening. Often blind
persons wear dark glasses not for their own comfort but to prevent
embarrassment among their associates at the sight of facial disfig-
urement. The handicapped person is expected to be grateful for
any kind of attention conferred by his "betters"—"betters" are
those who do not share his handicap (Kriegel, 1969, p. 430).
Little wonder that organizations of the handicapped increasingly
refuse to observe such niceties of etiquette!
In a museum, the crux of successful interaction lies in
perceiving the visitor as a complete human being—not as "the
blind man." Staff should not respond solely in terms of the hand-
icap.

This displeasure at being exposed can be Increased by the

conversations strangers may feel free to strike up with him,
conversations in which they express what he takes to be a
morbid curiosity in his condition or in which they proffer
help that he does not want or need (Goffman, 1963, p. 16).

This cry for human acceptance is eloquently expressed by Leonard

Kriegel, a polio victim who can speak, as it were, "from the field."

Voyeurism is the normal's form of nonlnvolvement. The experi-

ence of being the recipient of unasked-for attention is as
common to cripples as it is to blacks. Each is asked to show
those aspects of his "condition" that will reinforce the nor-
mal's assumptions about what the cripple (or black) feels like,
what he wants, and what he is. . . . Almost everyone did
things for me—except, of course, to see me. For to have seen
me would have entailed recognizing my existence as an individ-
ual m£, that kind of personal encounter that results in a
striding away of stereotype and symbol and a willingness to
accept the humanity of the other, at whatever personal cost
(1969, p. 422).

The following suggest ways in which staff can help a visually

handicapped visitor feel welcome in a museum.

- Address him directly. Say "Hello, it's ." He cannot

see who you are.
 67
- If you are not sure how to help a blind person, ask him.
- Gently touching his elbow will let him know you are addressing
him.
- Do not expect to converse through an intermediary. Say "What
do you want?"—not "What does he want?"
- Wlien speaking to a blind person, face him directly. If your
gaze wanders, your voice will also.
- Never grab a blind person by the arm. He cannot anticipate
your movements if you do so.
- Offer an elbow when helping a blind person walk. He will
follow one step behind, responding to your movements as a dance
partner does.
- Warn of obstructions and changes such an an imminent curb or
stair.
- Let him know when you are approaching or leaving.
- When showing a blind person to a chair, place his hand on
the chair back. He will then be able to seat himself.
- Blind persons should be told to use both hands when touching.
- Realize that tactile exploration is slower than visual appre-
hension. A tour by visually impaired visitors will require more
time than the same tour by sighted persons.
- Guides should be flexible and attuned to individual needs.
It is recommended that one guide accompany no more than four or
five visually impaired people (Reid, 1978, p. 13).
- Arrange for all persons in a group to touch an object at the
same, or nearly the same, time. Line-up situations are fatiguing
and disheartening.
- Feel free to use v/ords such as "look," "see," "sunlight,"
"color." Blind people have been raised in our culture, and they
speak its language.
- Do not avoid descriptions of visual stimuli. A blind artist
expressed his reaction to such description:

Since I had vision as a child, 1 still retain very vivid and

fresh memories of color sensations. . . . When I approach a
 68
work of art, in addition to examining it tactilely, I like to
ask what use the artist has made of color: what colors . . .
and in what combinations. Therefore, 1 am able to add another
dimension to my visualization of the piece, and increase my
enjoyment of it (Daniel Tang, cited in Lions Gallery of the
Senses, 1977, p, 6 ) ,

- Do not judge work by a blind artist according to visual

criteria. Tactual aesthetics are different.
- Never force a person to touch something. This can be disori-
enting and upsetting. Partially sighted people may regard not
having to touch as a status symbol.
- Be aware of the needs of partially sighted people. They
sometimes move quite close to an object in order to see it.
- Respect desire for independence. "Blind people do appreciate
the opportunity to be Independent and may prefer to be left undis-
turbed after initial familiarization" (Heath, 1976, p. 58). The
guide should state that anyone who wants assistance should ask
for it.

Blind people differ from other people only in visual acuity.

If they are treated as individuals, they will respond as such.

Guidelines for Museum Planners

Whereas the preceding section was applicable to all museum

staff, this section is addressed to management: those who plan
museum exhibits, programs, and policy. Their decisions determine
the direction the museum will take and the degree of accessibility
to be attained.
There are a number of devices which open museum facilities
to visually handicapped people. Many require very little expense,
needing instead some imagination and a diligent, committed staff.
The following measures are possible in almost any museum.

- Make museum literature available in braille, large print,

and cassette.
- Consider braille labels on exhibits. Even though only a
 69
minority of visually impaired people read braille, it conveys a
great deal of information to those who are literate in it. Ele-
vators and directional signage should be marked in braille.
- Provide a cassette tour of the galleries for the blind per-
son who wishes to visit independently. There is some disagreement
concerning what this tape should contain. Some contend that it
should provide only a reading of exhibit labels, in order to make
the blind person's experience as close as possible to that of the
general visitor (H. Snider, 1978, p. 9 ) . Others believe that the
tape should contain traveling instructions (Schwartz, 1977, p. 55;
Toll, 1975, p. 462). Consult with local Orientation and Mobility
counselors before making a decision on this point. Some visually
impaired people can navigate totally unaided. Tapes are usually
worded on the assumption that a blind person is using a cane, but
many rely on guide dogs, photosensitivity of epidermal cells, or
other systems to perceive obstacles.
- Have lists of touchable exhibits available to blind persons
and their companions. An example, from the Field Museum of Natural
History, appears in Appendix C.
- Provide a touchable model of the museum building and gal-
leries. This serves the same purpose as an orientation map does
for sighted visitors. Plexiglass is a good material to use; such
a model can often be made by the exhibit department. Besides
locating exhibits, the model should indicate all facilities: rest-
rooms, telephone, lunchroom. A numerical scale is not necessary
if there are windows, doors, and stairs to indicate proportion.
- Create more touch and auditory exhibits. All audiovisual
presentations are good. It is a mistake to believe that if a blind
person cannot perceive the visual portion of a presentation, the
audio portion has no meaning (Smithsonian, 1977, p. 128).
- Consider touchable models of large or nontouchable exhibits.
Although Cutsforth's admonitions about the limitations of models
are valid (see Chapter I of this paper), such models are better
than complete inaccessibility.
 70
- Some museums provide raised line maps and drawings to put into
perspective nontouchable exhibits. A blind person must have special
training before he can read such drawings (Toll, 1975, p. 462).
Consult local handicapped people to learn if raised line drawings
would be useful in your area.
- Consider slides of artwork for partially sighted visitors.
At the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, slides were enthusiastically
received. Persons with tunnel vision, in particular, would benefit
from a small hand-held viewer.
- Offer use of flashlights to visually impaired people.
- Provide chairs and cane rests in areas where exhibits may be
handled.
- When designing exhibits, note that white lettering on a dark
background is most legible. Colors with differing gray values are
helpful: persons who are color blind can often distinguish dif-
ferent grays.
- Portable recorders need to have shoulder straps so that both
hands are free for viewing.
- Consider white cotton or surgical gloves for objects other-
wise untouchable.
- Offer tours for special groups on request. As closely as
possible, these tours should approximate those given to nonhandi-
capped audiences. Tours for the handicapped should be subject to
the same regulations as other tours: advance notice, minimum and
maximum number of people, etc. (H. Snider, 1978, p. 9)
- Create outreach kits for homebound blind people. Many museums
have a school loan program; these boxes could easily be adapted for
visually handicapped use.
- Publicize. It has been shown that the number of handicapped
visitors increases as the dissemination of information increases
(Smithsonian, 1977, p. 154). All advertisements should note that
persons with handicaps are welcome in the museum and that provisions
are available for their use. Provide announcements to national
consumer organizations such as the National Federation of the Blind
 71
and to local libraries for the blind and physically handicapped.
Many cities have closed circuit radio reading services for the
blind. If a museum prepares televised advertisements, include
handicapped persons (perhaps some in wheelchairs) among the visitors
being filmed.

Costs are, of course, a major concern to museum planners.

There are several ways to minimize these. Local blind people may
be able to steer museums to bargains available in the community.
In many cities there are voluntary organizations which will tran-
scribe materials into braille free of cliarge. Check with the
Kiwanis Club, American Red Cross, or Jewish synagogue. The least
expensive method for duplicating tapes is to ask regional libraries
for the blind and physically handicapped for help.* Additionally,
regional libraries may loan cassette tape players and earphones,
provided museums do not charge for their use (H. Snider, 1978,
p. 10), To duplicate braille materials in small quantities (such
as handouts for school groups), arrange access to a Thermoform
machine. Thermoform is a process in which a heated plastic sheet
is pressed, through suction, against a braille or raised line
drawing so that the contours and raised dots are imprinted in the
plastic sheet. The agencies mentioned above may have Thermoform
equipment available; if not, check with the school district's
department of special education. Should large numbers of copies
be needed, the cost of commercial reproduction of braille is com-
parable to the costs of ordinary printing (H. Snider, 1978, p. 9 ) .
Museums with funds for architectural renovation may wish to
consider the following, adapted from Duncan et al., 1977 and Schwartz,
1977. All of these factors will make the museum environment more
comfortable to visually impaired users.

*In Texas write to Division for the Blind and Physically

Handicapped, Texas State Library, P.O. Box 12927, Capitol Station,
Austin, TX 78711.
 72
Indoors
- Provide doors wide enough for a person and guide dog to pass
through side by side (forty-eight inches).
- All glass doors should have some marking identifying them as
doors. Decals at face and chest level will accomplish this.
- Reduce glare and reflection through the use of matte surfaces.
- Avoid blinking lights.
- Use lighting to accentuate stairs, handrails, decision-making
points, restroom fixtures.
- Provide handrails on both sides of stairs and ramps. These
should extend one foot beyond the top and bottom of the stairs or
ramp, and ends should turn downward or inward.
- Provide tactile identification on doors leading to stairways
or ramps.
- Mounted exhibits should have no sharp edges because persons
with partial vision may get extremely close.
- There should be no wall protrusions at all. Necessary equip-
ment (fire equipment, drinking fountains, telephones) should be
recessed.
- Audible elevator signals can sound once for up direction,
twice for down.
- Signs on restroom doors should be markedly different for men
and women to allow for easy identification by persons with low
vision. The simplest method is to place male and female cutouts
slightly raised off the door.
- When tactile print lettering is used, it needs to be at least
1/64 inch off the background surface. Concave letters are more
understandable than convex ones.

Outdoors
- Trail surfaces should be clearly defined.
- Tactile warning signals should identify approaches to picnic
areas, telephones, drinking fountains, and trash barrels.
- Mark interpretive sites by a change in trail surface. An
 73
easy way to do this is to dig a small trench across the trail and
to fill it with gravel.
- Hanging objects should have markers warning blind persons of
their position and extent. When an object hangs more than twelve
inches into the travel path, there needs to be something for a cane
to contact.

Museum planners have the unhappy burden of legal responsi-

bility. This particularly affects decisions concerning artifact
use. Museums are enjoined both to make objects accessible and to
preserve and protect them as a public trust. Decisions concerning
handling should consider fragility, rarity, and replaceability, as
well as the adamant consensus that blind people need access to
original artifacts. When a museum borrows for a tactile exhibition,

it should be clearly understood that every care will be taken

to ensure the safety of the work but that something odd or
extraordinary may occur and the gallery (museum) cannot be
responsible beyond a certain point (Reid, 1978, p. 12).

The Atheneum's standard loan policy has a clause covering contin-

gencies from handling. Other museums may need similarly to protect
themselves.

As respects insured property exhibited in the Lions Gallery

of the Senses it is understood that and agreed that this policy
does not insure against loss or damage caused by wear and tear,
latent defect, gradual deterioration, or depreciation resulting
from the handling of the insured property. Lender agrees that
in the event of loss or damage, recovery, if any, shall be
limited to such amount as may be paid by the insurer, and the
lender hereby releases and agrees to hold the Atheneum harmless
from any and all liability in connection with the objects lent
hereunder (cited in Mulcahy, 1978, p. 15).

As a matter of fact, tactile exhibitions have had a remarkable

success record, with almost no purposeful damage. But it is unreal-
istic to expect that deterioration will not occur. As professionals
we know that handling is not in the best interests of museum arti-
facts.
It is management personnel who set the psychological tone of
 74
a museum, and the sincerity of their efforts to accommodate the
handicapped will be known. It has been mentioned before that
museums should consult actual handicapped people; this injunction
is repeated here. Museums should confer with local blind people
and with national consumer organizations.* Staff members may gain
insights from visiting special education classes or from attending
consciousness-raising seminars. In the end preparing for the
handicapped is not impossible or formidable—if we see them not
as an imposing monolith but as what they actually are: people,
persons whose faculties have been impaired.

*In Texas the National Federation of the Blind may be con-

tacted via the following addresses:
Glenn M. Crosby, President
National Federation of the Blind of Texas
1010 Ashland
Houston, TX 77008
Eura Mae Harmon, Chapter President
National Federation of the Blind
1418 S. Eastern
Amarillo, TX 79104
 CHAPTER IV
A PROGRAM

Early parts of this paper explored psychological aspects

of blindness, demography, legal factors, and prior museum experi-
ences in planning for the handicapped. There are lessons to be
gained from all of these approaches. Chapter III attempted to
synthesize them into general guidelines for museums undertaking
to increase accessibility. General guidelines must stand the test
of specific application, and it behooves the author to apply them
to an individual circumstance. This chapter offers suggestions
for a program at the Museum of Texas Tech University, an insti-
tution with which the writer was associated for a two-year period.

Modifications of the Museum

of Texas Tech University

The Museum of Texas Tech University, as its name implies, is

part of a large university. The museum forms a division of the
Graduate School, with a program in museum science leading to the
degree of Master of Arts. In addition, it operates an extensive
tour program in conjunction with the Lubbock Independent School
District, providing tours to every grade level kindergarten through
twelve. Situated in the high plains of West Texas, the museum
takes as its theme "Man and the Arid Lands." There are actually
two closely-allied components: (1) an indoor museum with exhibits
in natural science, anthropology, history, and art, and with a
planetarium; and (2) the Ranching Heritage Center, an outdoor museum
with structures moved from all parts of Texas to illustrate the rise
of the ranching industry. Both permanent and temporary exhibitions
are to be encountered inside the museum building. The Moody Plane-
75
 76
tarium offers public shows which change monthly.
Few blind persons visit the museum, but for those who do,
there are a respectable number of exhibits already accessible.
A large rock with petroglyphs steers visitors into a geology section
containing a fossil mammoth skull and a skull cast of Tyrannosaurus
rex—all of which may be touched, A children's exhibit offers
several items for exploration and manipulation: a hinged wooden
skeleton, wooden dinosaur puzzles, and animal bones chained to a
base. In the anthropology section few exhibits may be touched,
but the main foyer of the museum offers a chuckwagon, windmill,
and open exhibit of cast iron utensils and a branding iron. In
the Hall of Food and Fiber—a section devoted to the beef and
cotton industries—one encounters a wealth of audiovisual material.
Push buttons activate manikins which appear as though talking
(actually via filmstrips projected onto their faces) while back-
ground slides coordinate with the narrative. These manikins portray
a cowboy and a cotton farmer. Other audiovisual presentations
concern Dr. Mark Francis, who discovered that ticks were the carrier
of Texas cattle fever, and Joseph Stevens, pioneer in the develop-
ment of hybrid sorghums. In the Hall of Food and Fiber the follow-
ing objects may be touched: wagon v;heel, wooden barrel, cowhide,
mounted longhorns, barbed wire, branding iron, boll weevil catcher,
hoe, cotton scales, irrigation tube, cotton gin, and spinning
j enny.
The Ranching Heritage Center offers even more tactile and
auditory stimuli. All architectural features may be touched, illus-
trating a variety of construction materials: there are log cabins,
a stone house, dugouts, frame buildings, and a picket and sotol
dwelling with grass roof. Each is furnished with objects typical
of its period. Visitors may enter several buildings and explore
interior furnishings; open structures include a cramped cabin
believed to date from the Texas Republic and a dugout which served
as a cowboy line camp. Other buildings may be entered with docents
on special tours. An induction loop system, soon to be installed.
 77
will present relevant "audiodramas" in each building.
Thus, the museum is not wholly inaccessible to blind visitors.
But parts of it are. Below are suggestions for improving the recep-
tion accorded visually handicapped persons.

- Provide braille editions of museum, ranch, and planetarium

handouts,
- Place a raised model of museum galleries in the main museum
building, a relief map of outdoor structures at the Ranching
Heritage Center.
- Create a touchable relief map of the Caprock and the Llano
Estacado. These are important geological features in the Lubbock
region.
- Create models of architecture and architectural features.
Blind people do not have access to chimneys, roofs, and many other
parts of the Ranching Heritage Center.
- Display for touching the tools used in construction of
Ranching Heritage Center buildings: broad ax, adz, froe, etc.
- Provide a list of touchable objects in regular print, large
print, and braille.
- Create a cassette tour which reads museum labels.
- Identify glass doors (of which the museum has many) with
decals.
- Place raised male and female figures on restroom doors.
- Arrange slides of artwork for persons with limited visual
range. These can be projected in the museum's audiovisual room.
- Include in the planetarium touchable models of the solar
system and galaxy shapes.
- Mark interpretive sites at the Ranching Heritage Center by
shallow trenches filled with gravel.
- Introduce more sounds and smells at the Ranch, perhaps on a
seasonal or rotating basis. Smells might Include (1) cedar, smoke,
hot sausage, and roast chestnuts in the early log cabins of East
Texas; (2) sage and other smells of the prairie; (3) hay, ^,rains.
 78
and fresh leather in the barn; (4) smoked ham in the meat cooler.
Sounds might include (1) Spanish and Anglo lullabies in El Capote;
(2) German folk music in Hedwig Hill; (3) cowboy yarns and ballads
in the dugout; (4) nineteenth-century dances at Las Escarbadas.
- Create tactile outreach kits. Below are some possibilities
which relate to the museum's theme.
1. Cowboy—bandana, tin cup, spur, muffin pan or skillet,
chaps, slicker, lariat
2. Llano Estacado geology—rocks, minerals, fossils
3. Cotton—raw cotton, processed cotton, various cotton fabrics
4. Plains Indians—coup stick or gourd rattle, eagle feather,
projectiles, swatch of buffalo hide
- Allow children to recreate experiences of early inhabitants:
grind corn with mano and metate, card wool, etc.
- Arrange for loans of tectile exhibitions from other museums.
- Create more touchable exhibits. The possibilities are limit-
less here; the following are merely "brainstormed" suggestions,
1. Biology. The museum has extensive biological collections.
Most biological specimens can be replaced if damaged through han-
dling, while historical and anthropological specimens cannot.
2. Plainview, Clovis, and Folsom points. All of these signif-
icant projectiles of early man occur near Lubbock.
3. Crystal shape and symmetry. The museum currently has a
crystal exhibit, but it is behind glass.
4. Pioneer fabrics: homespun, muslin, silk, buckskin. Point
out imperfections in handwoven fabrics.
5. Cotton: raw, processed, waste products, various cotton
fabrics. Cotton is a major industry of the South Plains, and the
variety of cotton materials is surprising.
6. Plains Indians. Tactile material is badly needed here, but
much of the museum's collection is too fragile to permit handling.
Possibilities: gourd rattle, eagle feather, buffalo hide.
7. Qashqa'i (a diorama currently in the museum concerning
nomads of Iran). Provide a swatch of thick handwoven wool.
 79
8. Quilts. Use raised-line models of patterns and squares of
material. This exhibit could explore questions of aesthetics: Is
this a good design? Why? What qualities make a good design? What
makes this swatch of cloth feel (or not feel) good? Discuss bal-
ance, softness, smoothness, roundness.
9. Sand. Use braille or raised letters and have touchable
samples of sand from various locations in the world. Investigate:
What makes sand? Why do these samples differ from each other? Why
do deserts have a lot of sand? What uses exist for sand? Include
samples of sandpaper and other abrasives. Sand is largely quartz.
Provide touchable specimen of a large quartz crystal and a model
of molecular structure.

Actually the Tech Museum, like other museums, can do much to

accommodate blind people for minimal expense. The key is imagi-
nation. Undoubtedly not all of the above suggestions will be
implemented, but they will hopefully prove springboards to more
and better ideas among others.

A Ranch Tour for Blind and Sighted Children

Introduction

This tour is designed for a mixed group of blind and sighted

children of upper elementary age (grades 4 to 6). A visually
handicapped child will participate in all activities alongside his
sighted classmates. However, the tour can also accommodate groups
in which all participants are blind or sighted. The previsit and
postvisit activities are optional, depending upon the needs of the
teacher.
Concepts
Two main concepts are stressed in this tour.
1. Environment
All people share common needs for food, clothing, and shel-
ter. The way that they meet these needs depends upon their
environment (i.e., they have only certain materials with
 80
which to work; they will want cool houses and clothing in
warm climates, snug houses and clothing if the climate is
cold). How do the houses and objects at the Ranch reflect
the environment faced by pioneers? Were they good solutions
to the problems?
2. Tactile sensations
What do objects and surfaces at the ranch feel like? How do
we describe tactile sensations? (e.g., hot, cold, slippery,
wet, hard, heavy, porous, pliable, round, etc.). How do
these qualities reflect their environment?

Previsit Activity

This serves to introduce the concepts of tactile sensation

and environmental adaptation. Students will touch everyday objects
from classroom and home such as chalk, ball, brick, silk fabric,
etc. Teacher may wish to blindfold children to eliminate visual
stimuli. Ask the following questions: What does this object feel
like? What makes it feel that way? Do we like the way it feels?
Why? Was it made to feel that way on purpose? For what reason?
What else feels this way? What would the opposite feeling be?
What are some objects which feel the opposite? What are they used
for?
Try to expand tactile vocabulary—most persons know only a
few words to describe tactile sensations. Bring a familiar object
to class and ask children to describe it. Write all adjectives
on the blackboard, then point out which words are visual, auditory,
tactile, olfactory. The vast majority of all adjectives which we
use are visual.

Tour

Docent will briefly introduce tour as follows: We are going

to explore old buildings in which early ranchers lived. Each of
you is an explorer. See what you can learn about why people built
houses like this. \^\y did they h.iv(^ the objects which we find
 81
inside? Wliere did they get them? What did they use them for?
Depending upon the wishes of the teacher, sighted children
may or may not be blindfolded; students may work individually or
in pairs.

El Capote
This log cabin is believed to date from the Texas Republic,
1836-45. It was located near San Antonio, a region with plenty
of water and trees. During the Texas Republic roads were poor;
there were no trains, and goods were shipped by oxcart from the
Gulf Coast or Rio Grande. Such transportation was expensive and
slow. Settlers kept their personal possessions to a minimum.
Few owned many manufactured goods; instead, they made their own
furniture and clothes by hand. The fireplace was used for cooking,
warmth, and light. The East Texas frontier was an insecure place
during the Republic. There were continual reappearances by
Mexican bandits, Mexican armies, and Indians.
Ask children to explore the architecture.
What is this cabin made of? Why?
Wood was abundant in East Texas because there was an abun-
dance of rain. It is an easy material to work with, much
lighter than stone. However, it rots.
Feel the corner joints. How were they made? Do they fit to-
gether tightly?
The logs have been cut flat on their vertical sides but they
are still round on top. Can you think of any reason for leaving
them round?
For one thing, it saves labor. More Importantly, rounded
tops will shed rain—an important factor in preventing rot.
Feel the corner stones. Why are they there?
The stones kept the first layer of logs from contact with
the damp ground.
Why is the fireplace so big?
It was used for cooking, heat, and light.
Why is it lined with stone?
Wood burns.
 82
The porch faces south. Can you think of any reason for this?
In Texas, the prevailing summer breezes are southwesterly
A house facing south will be cooled by them. In winter the
south exposure will garner the sun's heat.
Would this house keep out rain? Bugs? How long do you think
it would last?
The walls, roof, and floor of log cabins required periodic
repair.
Why are there so few clothes and pieces of furniture?
Settlers could bring little with them and had to make most
things for themselves. They kept their personal possessions
to a minimum.
How many people do you think lived here?
As many as ten people might share a cabin this size. During
the day they rolled up their bedding and piled it in a
corner.
Would you like to live in this cabin? Why?
Would you like to live in East Texas? Why?

Hedwig Hill
The Hedwig Hill cabin was built by German immigrants in the
vicinity of Fredericksburg, Texas. German immigrants were famous
for their clean homes and their craftsmanship. The log sections
of Hedwig Hill were built first, the stone lean-to rooms added
sometime later. The open passageway running north-south was called
a "dog run" because dogs preferred to sleep there in warm weather.
Stand in the dog run. Is it cool here? Why? Why do you suppose
the cabin was built with a dog run?
Dog runs formed a kind of primitive air conditioning. In
summer the family dining table was moved out here also.
Why were the log sections built first, the stone sections later?
Log rooms can be built quickly when a family is in need of
shelter. Stone rooms are more durable, but they take time.
While building the stone rooms, the family had the log
quarters to sleep in.
Stand in the storeroom. Is it cool here? Why?
Stone insulates better than wood. Stone rooms are cooler in
summer, warmer in winter.
 83
Why would pioneers want the storeroom cool in summer months?
So food would not rot. They had no refrigeration.
Feel the wood furniture. What does it feel like? What makes
it feel that way?
The surface is smooth and finely finished—an example of
German craftsmanship.
Feel the mattress. What do you think is in it?
This mattress is stuffed with feathers—a luxury on the
frontier. Often mattresses were stuffed with corn shucks
or dried moss.
Upstairs there are more rooms which were used for sleeping
quarters. Do you think the people who lived here were richer
than those in El Capote?
They were!
How many people do you think lived here?
During the period of Martin occupancy (1855-60), there were
two parents, six children, and a live-in teacher.

Matador Half Dugout

As people moved onto the plains of West Texas, wood was no
longer plentiful. Neither was stone. Railroads were being built
west after the Civil War, and they could carry milled lumber. It
was the dream of many families to have a frame house of nicely
sawed boards. However, until they could afford this (and until
the railroads pushed far enough west), they had to make do with
the resources of the land. Most pioneers to West Texas lived in
a dugout for at least a year. As the name implies, this dwelling
was "dug out" into a hillside or rise of land. Walls were built
to greater height by sod or whatever stones or logs the settlers
could acquire. The logs in the walls of this dugout were dragged
by horse team from a creek three and a half miles distant. They
were from cottonwood trees, a poor building material which warps
easily.
This dugout has been furnished as a cowboy line camp. Large
ranches such as the Matador stationed cowboys at intervals along
their holdings, providing a dugout or other equally crude shelter.
 84
The job of cowboys stationed here was to "ride fence": patrol sec-
tions of the ranch, mend fences, treat injured animals, shoot pred-
ators, and prevent rustling. It was a lonely life. Often in winter
a cowboy was up before dawn. He returned in late afternoon to
prepare his own supper—canned corn or tomatoes, perhaps; coffee,
dried beef. To pass time cowboys read any reading material they
could lay their hands on—sometimes newspapers over a year old.
They carved the walls with their brands and sweethearts' initials.
Feel the walls. What are they made of? Why?
Building material was scarce in West Texas.
Feel the floor. What is it?
The floor is simply tamped earth.
Is it cool here? Why?
It ±s^ cool: earth insulates.
What would happen if it rained here? Snowed? What if there
were a sandstorm?
Dugouts provided little protection against storms. Rain was
the worst inconvenience: mud from the roof could drip directly
into food. Fortunately, rain was relatively rare.
What are the advantages of living in a dugout?
Availability of materials; cheap, cool quarters.
What are the disadvantages?
Bugs, lizards, sleet, rain, mud—and more!
Feel the carvings on the mantel. Can you identify them?
Some famous brands are represented.
Why do you think cowboys carved these?
Have you ever carved your initials in something?
Feel the slicker. Why does rain run off of it instead of flow-
ing through?
The slicker is oiled; oil and water do not mix.
Lift the cast iron skillet. Are there any advantages to pans
this heavy?
Feel the tin cups. Why was tin used? Is it a good material?
Tin was cheap, but it is weak and easily crushed.
 85
Feel the saddle. What is it made of? Why?
Leather was readily available from cattle. It is pliable and
could be bent into the complex shape needed for a saddle.
Feel barbed wire—would it keep cattle in? Would it hurt cattle?
Yes, sometimes it certainly did!
Why would people want to use barbed wire instead of wood for
fences?
Wood fences were used in the eastern United States. Wood
was simply too scarce and expensive in the West.
Hold the bandana—try it on—what uses can you think of for it?
Cowboys used bandanas to protect their mouths from sand or
snow, to mop sweat from their brows, insulate their necks,
blindfold a frightened horse, make an emergency tourniquet,
filter water, carry fruit, keep their faces from sunburning
while they slept—and there are still more uses.
Feel chaps. \'Jhy are they smooth in spots?
They are simply worn smooth from rubbing against horses,
brush, and ground.
Would you like to be a cowboy living in this line camp? Why?

Box and Strip House

The Box and Strip House utilizes milled lumber, but mlniiiiizes
the amount needed. Lumber was still expensive. In box and strip
construction, l-by-12-inch boards are raised vertically, their
sides touching. Over the cracks between boards l-by-4-inch wood
battens are nailed, thus creating a box with strips covering the
interstices. Although the wood use was minimal, there were draw-
backs. Such construction allows no insulation. It is said that
the walls moved in and out like a bellows in a strong wind. During
a snowstorm an occupant might wake to find streaks on his quilt
which corresponded exactly with cracks on the wall!
The Box and Strip House contains a large amount of machine-
made furniture. This reflects the rise of railroads and the spread
of mail order catalogs. By the late nineteenth century the Sears
and Roebuck catalog had found its way into nearly every ranch home.
Feel the outside walls. These are bo.irds, not logs. What is
the difference between boartls and lo)',;;?
 86
Boards are sawed rectangles. They are difficult to make with-
out machines.
Do you think the rancher made the boards himself?
He did not—they were ordered from a sawmill.
Is your house built like this? Would this house be warm in
winter?
Modern houses have more insulation.
Explore the furniture—rocker, crib, bed, etc. Have you seen
similar pieces? Does your family own some?
Because machine-made furniture was widely disseminated, much
has survived into today.
Is this house strong? Why was it built like this?
Box and strip houses were weak, but they were built because
they required little lumber.
Which house that we have visited would you most like to live in?
Why?
How is your house adapted to the West Texas environment? How
is your school adapted?

Postvisit Activities

1. Tactile description
Ask class to describe what they saw; put adjectives on black-
board. Divide adjectives according to sense used in appre-
hending them (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell). Are there
more tactile adjectives than in previous lists? Erase all
visual adjectives. Ask children to write description of tour
using only nonvisual words.

2. Likes
Ask children to bring or make other objects which feel like
objects encountered at the Ranch (smooth, rough, gritty, wet,
dusty, fuzzy, hard, firm, crumbly, etc.). The teacher may
assign each child one adjective; he will bring two or three
objects with that tactile quality.
 87
3. Vocabulary
What are the meanings of new words encountered? (Examples
might be "irregular," "malleable," "pliable.")

4. Your house
What is your house built of? What do these materials feel
like? Were they good materials to use for the climate around
Lubbock? What is good about them? What is bad about them?

5. Classroom museum
Children will create their own "touch" museum by hiding objects
of various tactile qualities in boxes. Each child feels the
object without peeking, then describes and tries to identify it

6. Change
What objects have changed in time? What causes them to change?
(weather, styles, mistreatment). Pretend you are one of these
forces that cause change and move to show what you do. (Stu-
dent may be wind, rain, sandstorm, flood, tornado, sun, earth-
quake, bulldozer, vandal, pothunter, etc. Other students will
guess what he is.) What can we do to prevent this kind of
destruction?
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Bar, S. M. Form in art. Unpublished manuscript, April 1978, avail-

able from Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th & Parkway, Phila-
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Beechel, J. Interpretive trails for handicapped persons. Inter-

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 89
Downs, J. Report and proposal for visually impaired project. Un-
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Freund, E. D. Touch and learn. New Outlook for the Blind, 1967,
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 90

"^^''S,'i97i, £(2)^6-28.' '-'-'' '-' ''^ '''-'' ^ ^ H ^

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 91

Mary Duke Biddle Gallery. The Mary Duke Biddle Gallery for the
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 92
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 APPENDIX A
AUDIOSCRIPT, MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ARTS

Icarus Master tape A, Recording //2 3:00

This small bronze represents a young man with wings attached

to his back. He is about to leap into the air and fly. It is
Icarus Making Trial of His Wings by the nineteenth-century French
sculptor Philippe Grasse,
The story of Icarus comes to us from Greek mythology. He was
the son of Daed-ilus, who built the labyrinth for King Minos of
Crete. The labyrinth was an extensive maze in which the Minotaur,
a monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man, was con-
fined. Daedalus and Icarus offended the king and were imprisoned
in the labyrinth. Daedalus, determined to escape, made two pair
of wings from wax and feathers. With these wings attached to their
backs, they flew out of prison. Before the escape, Daedalus warned
Icarus not to fly too close to the sun. But the young man, exhil-
arated by the joy of flight, went too high. The sun melted the wax
from his wings and he fell into the sea. Through time, Icarus has
remained a symbol of youthful folly.
But, for some, Icarus also has become a symbol of man's tragic
struggle against his own limitations.
This small scale bronze figure represents the moment before
Icarus leaps up to fly. The moment has a special poignancy because
we know he will fall. The strong, young, naked body is posed on its
toes. The right leg is flexed, ready to push upward from a pile of
rocks. The same sense of thrust follows through the body from the
tense left leg up the back and torso into upraised arms. The wings
are ready to beat down when he moves his arms to activate them.
There are several tactile details that add to the effect of
94
 95
this piece. The feathers covering the wings and the curve of the
wings themselves are especially interesting to touch. Moving your
open hands across the front and back of the wings to the outer tips
gives an unexpected feeling of flexibility and lift.
Also, move your fingers up the arms from the small represen-
tation of straps near the shoulders toward the hands. The position
of Icarus' hands and fingers gives a feeling of expectancy, but also
apprehension—a touch of fear.
In the smooth bronze surface of the body, the sculptor conveys
his adimiration for the youthful beauty and vigor about to perish.
Our sympathy with Icarus' effort conflicts with our knowledge that
he will overreach and fall. This Icarus is a symbol of all men
testing the limitations in which they are tragically caught.

You will find the next object by moving to your left about
three steps.
 APPENDIX B
PUBLICITY BROCHURE, INDIANAPOLIS MUSEUM OF ART

Tours for the Handicapped

Art is a special language that anyone can share. The Indian-

apolis Museum of Art offers a unique opportunity for all to learn
about works of art and the people that produced them.
Specially trained volunteer guides (docents) conduct free tours
for children and adults who are blind, deaf, or otherwise physically
handicapped. On tours for the blind, for example, some sculptures
may be touched; special gloves are provided in these cases.
Tours are also available for mentally retarded children and
adults.
Special tours for the handicapped are offered on Fridays, at
9:30 A.M. and 1 P.M. Reservations are required and can be made by
writing or calling the Education Division, (317) 923-1331, ext. 23,
at least three weeks in advance.

Pre-tours for School Groups

Each Museum tour is preceded by a classroom visit by a docent.

Pre-tours may include slides, artifacts, games, and the Introduction
of new words and phrases.
This is an opportunity for the students to share ideas with
the docent and a chance for the teacher to inform the docent of areas
of study which may be stressed to reinforce classroom learning.

96
 APPENDIX C
TOUCHABLE OBJECTS, FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Touchable Exhibit Items

For the convenience of our visitors with impaired vision, a survey

of objects freely accessible to touch is listed below.

GROUND FLOOR
Hall J Ancient Egyptians
Sarcophagus of Amenemonet, Egyptian
Sarcophagus of Pefthaukhonsu, Egyptian
Corridor between
Halls J & L Greco-Roman carved stone sarcophagus
Hall L Four Roman large storage pots or jars
Hall E Carved posts on Cameroon King's house
Place for Wonder Touchable exhibit gallery
FIRST FLOOR
Stanley Field Hall
Elephant skin samples
Dinosaur thigh bone
Hall 18 Man in His Environment
Early man and lion sculpture
Medieval swing plow
Prehistoric flint chopper
Hall 5 Pawnee Earth Lodge
Exterior
Interior

SECOI>ID FLOOR
Balcony and North and South Lounges
Portrait of Man, twenty-eight sculptures by Malvina
Ho f fman
Hall 24 Ancient Chinese Culture
Cast iron temple censer
Cast iron temple bell
Bronze drum
Hall 37 Fossil invertebrates
Fossil tree stump

97
 98
Hall 32 South China in the Ch'ing Dynasty
Stone lions
Hall 32 North Tibetan Culture
Cast iron temple bell
Jade Room Large jade specimen mounted on wall
Hall 35 Meteorite
South Lounge Mexican loom