author
Kate M. Foley
1873–1940
A pioneering librarian, teacher, and advocate for blind literacy, she devoted her life to expanding access to education, Braille, and books. Her influential 1919 work, Five Lectures on Blindness, grew from decades of hands-on teaching and public service.
1 Audiobook
Five lectures on blindness
by Kate M. Foley
About the author
Born Catherine M. Foley in East St. Louis, Illinois, in 1873, she was blind from infancy and graduated from the California Institute for the Deaf and Dumb and Blind in 1895. Her own experience shaped a lifelong commitment to helping blind children and adults learn, read, and work with greater independence.
Foley joined the California State Library in 1914 as Home Teacher of the Blind. She taught across California, established a public-school class for blind children in Los Angeles, trained educators and volunteers in Braille, worked with blind prisoners at San Quentin, and spoke on the emerging possibilities of radio and talking books.
Her Five Lectures on Blindness was published in 1919 after lectures at the University of California. She later served in national leadership roles in blind education and was inducted into the California Library Hall of Fame in 2015, decades after her death in Los Angeles on October 7, 1940.