Everything about Julia Brace totally explained
Julia Brace was born on
June 13 1807, to a poor family in
Hartford County, Connecticut, and became
deafblind at age five from
typhus fever.
She gradually stopped speaking and developed a system of
home sign that she used with her parents. She was sent to a boarding school with hearing and sighted children before being offered a place at the Hartford Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb (now called the
American School for the Deaf), where she enrolled on
11 June 1825, two days before her 18th birthday.
During her childhood she was described as independent, inquisitive and feisty. Although she wasn't given much formal instruction, she did acquire
tactile American Sign Language from the resident deaf students and staff at the Hartford school. Despite being the only blind person there, she became a part of the school community, forming friendships (and enmities), fulfilling communal duties, and developing skills in sewing and knitting. She began to be seen as something of a celebrity and received many curious visitors — although these regular interruptions to her daily activities apparently annoyed her and she wasn't afraid, on occasion, to make her displeasure known.
Samuel Gridley Howe, educator from the
Perkins School for the Blind, began instructing the 7-year-old deafblind
Laura Bridgman, after meeting Brace during a visit to the Hartford school around
1837. After four years and much success with his young pupil, Howe returned to Hartford in
1841, bringing her with him. Although Brace was 34 years old, Howe thought he'd also like to attempt to instruct her in the English language as he'd Bridgman. On
April 6 1842, Brace enrolled as a student of the Perkins School.
Howe's 'experiment', however, proved less successful than he'd hoped, as Brace clearly preferred to communicate in
sign language, and she returned to the Hartford school after a year, where she continued to board until
1860.
She left the school to take up residence with her sister in
Bloomfield, Connecticut, where she died on
August 12 1884, aged 77.
She was buried in an
unmarked grave in the West Hill Cemetery.
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