William Bell Wait (1839–1916) was a teacher in the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind who invented New York Point, a system of writing for the blind that was adopted widely in the United States before the

braille Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are blind, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on embossed paper or by using refreshable braille disp ...

system was universally adopted there. Wait also applied the New York Point principles to adapt them for use in over 20 languages, created a form of New York Point to notate music, and invented a number of devices to better type and print embossed material for the visually impaired.

Education and early life

Wait grew up in New York and attended the

Albany Academy The Albany Academy is an independent college preparatory day school for boys in Albany, New York, USA, enrolling students from Preschool (age 3) to Grade 12. It was established in 1813 by a charter signed by Mayor Philip Schuyler Van Rensselaer ...

and later the Albany Normal College in 1859. Subsequent to graduating he obtained a teaching position at the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind, where he spent two years. He then went on to study under Tremain and Peckham in Albany. He was called to the bar in 1862. He was acting first superintendent of the City of Kingston, N.Y. school district in 1863. In October 1863 he was appointed Principal of the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind. He served in this capacity until March 1905. He was subsequently appointed Emeritus Principal and served until his death in 1916.

Inventions

New York Point System

Wait developed a keen interested in raised letters and tried to devise a tangible printing and writing system. He later developed the New York Point System in which points were used to represent letters or their sound. This system contained "twenty-six capitals, twenty-six small letters, numerals, punctuation marks and short forms for diphthongs, triphthongs, syllables and for words and parts of words in common use." He was awarded medals at the Chilean Exposition and International Exposition in 1873 for these accomplishments. Before his death Wait oversaw the adaptation of his point system to more than twenty different languages, including Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese and Chinese.

Other inventions

He followed his inventions with a tangible musical notation system in 1872. He completed the Kleidograph in 1894. This machine is much like a typewriter which could be used for embossing the raised letters of the New York Point system unto paper. He invented the Stereograph. This machine was used for metal plate embossing, to facilitate bulk printing of books for the visually impaired. He received the John Scott most deserving Medal from the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia in 1900 for his inventions. He later developed a printing press which used a breakthrough process which allowed for embossing on dual sides of a book page. He also formulated more economic and durable methods of book binding, reducing the long-term costs of printing.

Other accomplishments

William B. Wait founded the following organizations: * American Association of Instructors of the Blind (1871) * Society for providing Evangelical Religious Literature for the Blind (1874)

Publications

William B. Wait wrote the following books: * The Normal Course of Piano Technique (1887) * Harmonic Notation (1888) * Phases of Punctography in Relation to Visual Typography, writing, printing, bookbinding, and other features (1900)
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an examination of the report of the Uniform Type Committee of June, 1913 (1915) * New Aspects of the Uniform Type Folly (1916)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wait, William Bell 1839 births 1916 deaths Creators of writing systems The Albany Academy alumni School superintendents in New York (state) People from Amsterdam, New York Educators from New York (state) 19th-century American educators 20th-century American educators