[NFB-Krafters-Korner] Notes from tonights chat

[Jill Rossiter]

Blindness equality achievement month

Crafting our place in history

 

All information shared has been researched by Peggy Chong, the blind history
lady.

To read more of Peggy's works go to Smashwords
<https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/622573> - The Blind History Lady
Presents; The First Things I Learned - a book by Peggy Chong

 

 

Shoemaking

 

For more than a century in the united states,  before schools for the blind
or training programs existed shoemaking and repairs was thought to be a good
profession for blind men.  

The blind shoemaker typically was taught by family or friends.  At that
time, it was thought that a job where by the customers came to the home for
services was safer than working away from ones home.  

Jacob Hartman 1784-1873 was the son of a Pennsylvania shoemaker.  He was
blinded at age 4 when his little brother 3 stuck an awl in Jacob's eye.
Jacob's father taught him to make and repaitr shoes by age 12.  This way he
had a trade which would  support him and a wife and family if he should
leave the family farm.  Jacob did marry and have children and adopt children
from the community who needed a home.

In the 1850's and 1860's shoemaking was taught at many state  sponsored
schools due to successful blind individuals such as Jacob Hartman.

 

One very successful blind shoemaker was William Newton 1877-1938.

William was blinded at age six when thrown under a wagon and run over. 

William had very little education due to the lack of opportunities for the
blind at that time.  By 1897 when classes for the blind were added at the
USDB, William was twenty. Being one of the first blind students, William had
few academic classes. For the next seven years, William attended school as
many months of the year as his mother could afford him being gone from the
family farm near Vernal, Utah. He learned some raised reading, but mostly
focused on shoemaking, rug, and basket weaving.

In June of 1905, he graduated from the program and returned to Vernal. The
previous two years, while at home, he made shoes and boots, selling them to
neighbors when not working as a roustabout or a day laborer for nearby
ranchers and farmers. With younger brother Isaac, who William taught to make
shoes, they opened a small shoe factory. The brothers did better than
expected their first few years. William's dreams of self support were in
sight. 

 

When the Western Association of the Adult Blind, a group made up of
primarily blind men and women, secured passage of legislation to open two
Utah state sponsored workshops to teach trades to those losing sight as
adults, they approached William to teach shoe making in one of the shops.
Although he wanted to enhance the opportunities of other like him, his
business in Vernal was growing and he wanted to stay near family.

 

Isaac and William purchased a large brick building in town. The back of the
building was a spacious, well-lit work area and the front of the building
was the store front, that also doubled as a work area for those assigned to
assist walk-ins. 

 

They hired a half-brother, then a few women from the town. Modern stitching,
sewing, and cutting machinery was purchased in 1908. In 1909, they added the
making of saddles and horse harnesses. Soon more than twenty women worked
for the Newton Brothers Co. in a staff ranging around thirty. Newton
Brothers were known for hiring women in non-traditional jobs without
training. William wanted to train new employees to his standards. He did not
want habits from other shoe manufacturers to upset the unique, nonvisual
procedures he set up to best suit himself. 

 

As the business grew, William took on management responsibilities and the
purchasing of goods. He was able to tell the grade of the leather by touch,
better than the sighted staff could with their eyes. His real love was
making boots, particularly the special orders for the hard-to-fit foot.
Special orders came from across Utah and neighboring states as their
reputation of quality, nice-looking, footwear for even large/wide feet grew.
He could place a tack on the sole of a boot with his large hands and hammer
it in faster, with only one or two swings, than anyone in the shop. 

 

Although the shop closed in the 1950's, one can still find boots and saddles
made by the Newton Brothers Co. over the internet. William, himself made
over 5,000 pairs of shoes and boots during his more than 30 years in
business. 

 

 

ack about 130 years ago, in West Virginia, one sound we might look for was
the town's fiddler. This month, I want to tell you about a blind man who not
only was the town's fiddler, but the man you sought out to buy your fiddle.

 

Thomas J. Doolittle was born July 18, 1853, in Fairmont, Marion County, West
Virginia, the son of George and Mary Doolittle. George was a carpenter, very
handy with tools and built among other things, houses in the Marion County
area. George taught his son, Tommy, how to use woodworking tools from a
young age. 

 

Tommy was blinded at age 19, reason unknown. As an adult, he had little in
options for any blindness training. The school for the blind opened at
Romney in 1870. It is unlikely that Tommy or his family knew of the school
when he was blinded and was too old to enter, even as an adult student. No
surviving records about Tommy indicate he ever learned to read and write in
a format for the blind. 

 

On the family farm, Tommy had a workshop where he built and repaired
anything. There were no lamps for light in the shop, so others sat in the
dark, talking to Tommy as he worked. Sometimes he built or repaired
furniture for family and friends. In the shop he made dressers, chests, and
tables. Some of his pieces are still in the possession of the Doolittle
family today. Something always needed repair around a farm and Tommy was the
man for the job.

 

Providing one's own music was essential in the mountains of West Virginia.
Tommy made his own fiddles, guitars, and dulcimers for himself and later for
others. These included children's sized instruments.  He used tools readily
available to him as a farmer or he modified what he had at hand to create
the tools he needed.

 

The fiddles were made of mostly pine and yet, they had a smooth sound. Many
of his instruments had a larger than usual fingerboard. Some asked Tommy
what the technique was for getting a good sounding instrument from rough
wood. Tommy claimed it was his secret. Some tell that Tommy kept his wood
for his instruments in the creek on the farm before working with the wood.
Removing the wood from the creek, Tommy let it dry and then whittled, bent,
or cut the wood to measure. Later his instruments were made with poplar and
cherry wood. No two were the same. 

 

His instruments were meant for the mountain musician with little money. They
may not look as "pretty" as a Stradivarius, Yet several of his instruments
are being played almost 100 years after Tommy's death. 

 

Where or how Tommy learned to play music is not known but learn he did. He
began playing the fiddle for family and friends. By the late 1880's he had a
traveling show that toured around the several county areas.  Fairmont was on
a rail line, providing transportation to communities further than a
comfortable ride on horseback.

 

He played at Brown's Hall in Tunnelton and other theaters and dance halls.
The Teachers Institute hired him to play for opening day ceremonies at their
annual conventions. There is no indication he left the state to perform.  By
the early 1900's he was recorded as playing the church organ for
performances in churches and to accompany local choirs, meaning he mastered
the piano and the valve systems of the average church organ.

 

Tommy entered contests for fiddle-playing and music, often winning. In 1908,
he won first prize at a fiddle contest in Morgantown highlighting dozens of
the area's finest fiddlers. The prize was a gold top cane, the fashionable
men's walking stick for the time. Many blind men did use the fashionable
walking cane in the way many blind people today use the white cane
associated with the blind. If Tommy used the walking stick like the white
canes of today there is no record of it.

 

After the death of his parents, Tommy lived with his sister Elvira and her
family by 1900. As he grew older and when traveling was not an option, he
played the fiddle on the streets of Fairmont for contributions. Some today
would call this begging, but at the time, few families had radios or record
players in the home. Street musicians were as welcomed back then as music in
our cars or stores. 

 

Many hired him for their parties, programs, and entertainments because of
hearing him on the streets. He traveled with his younger brother Luther,
almost 20 years his junior, making up part of his entertainment entourage.
Luther was also a fiddler and played other string instruments. 

 

At the end of his life, he was a master of building eight types of violins.
He was credited with making dozens of mandolins, guitars, and dulcimers. 

 

Tommy died May 1, 1929. Today, those who own and play Tommy's fiddles,
invest in the repair and preservation of his instruments to play in the many
folk festivals of West Virginia.