>-----
>
>"The Imprisoned Guest: Samuel Howe and Laura Bridgman, the
>Original Deaf-Blind Girl"
>By Elisabeth Gitter
>
>"The Education of Laura Bridgman: First Deaf and Blind
>Person to Learn Language"
>By Ernest Freeberg
>
>Natalie Angier, science writer for The Times and author of
>"Woman: An Intimate Geography" reviews these two books about
>Laura Bridgman, who was, in the second half of the 19th
>century, "one of the most famous females in the world, her
>every action celebrated in newspapers, ladies' magazines,
>the writings of Charles Dickens." But by the time she died
>in 1889, she was almost totally forgotten, her
>accomplishments eclipsed by those of Helen Keller.
>
>Gitter, a professor of English at John Jay College of the
>City University of New York, and Ernest Freeberg, an
>assistant professor of humanities at Colby-Sawyer College in
>New Hampshire, give us very different takes on the
>intertwined stories of Bridgman and Samuel Howe, her
>teacher. "Gitter emphasizes the emotional relationship
>between teacher and pupil, while Freeberg focuses on Howe's
>war against the religious orthodoxy of his time and his
>attempts to use Laura as cannon fodder," writes Angier.
>http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/05/27/reviews/010527.27angiert.html?0525bk
>
>-----