Our History
The First Decade: 1936-1945
The Carroll Center was organized in 1936 as the Catholic Guild for All the Blind. It was the central office for the parish guilds in the Archdiocese of Boston. From the beginning, voluntary support was vital, especially from the women in the guilds who raised funds to help the blind. The Guild provided financial aid, clothing, organized reading circles, employment-seeking assistance, talking books, recreational activities, and transportation. In 1938, Father Thomas Carroll became assistant director.
The Second Decade: 1946-1955
The first Community Mobility Program in the world was established at The Carroll Center in 1952 to teach safe travel skills to blind and visually impaired persons.
In 1954, St. Paul’s Rehabilitation Center was founded. It was the nation’s first comprehensive residential rehabilitation center for newly-blinded civilians, based on the successful Veteran’s Administration programs for post WW ll veterans and for which Fr. Carroll played a significant role in its development.
Fencing for the blind was one of many innovative ideas that Fr. Carroll incorporated into the rehabilitation program to help blinded persons develop balance, dexterity, and coordination necessary for cane travel.
The Third Decade: 1956-1965
Father Carroll published his landmark book Blindness, What it is, What it does and How to Live with it. (1961: Boston: Little Brown, Inc.)
Always seeking to improve the circumstances and opportunities for blind persons, Fr. Carroll founded the American Center for Research in Blindness in 1963. It called upon researchers from many disciplines to apply the latest knowledge, innovation, and inventions to assist blind persons. Without his guiding spirit, the center was unable to continue beyond his untimely death in 1971.
Also in the third decade, Fr. Carroll established Saint Raphael’s Geriatric Adjustment Center (1965) for older blind persons. This was the first known center of its kind in the world. The model for this Center differed from St. Paul’s center for newly blinded adults in a number of important ways. Admissions were weekly and the length of stay was open-ended. Fr. felt that it was important to take elderly trainees into the program whenever they felt ready. A medical director was appointed and a full time nurse was on the premises. One of the duties of the medical team was to conduct a comprehensive review of medications. At that time, before managed care, many elderly persons were often over-prescribed—sometimes with competing drugs.
The Fourth Decade: 1966-1975
The fourth decade brought the untimely death of Father Thomas J. Carroll in 1971. A pioneering leader in developing rehabilitation services for the newly blinded adult, he was at the height of his career. With his innovative approach to services gone, the blind community had lost a leader; the agency had lost its direction and momentum. The impact was profound on the agency, and there was concern about its future. In 1972 the Guild was renamed The Carroll Center for the Blind to honor Father Carroll and to keep his name and his achievements alive.
Innovation, by this time, was coming from the technology industry. The year Father died, the Optacon, a prototype reading machine for the blind, was developed. It was a remarkable breakthrough. It could optically scan standard printed material and emit signals to create a raised letter display of words through vibrations that could be read by the fingertip. It was the beginning of the introduction of adaptive technology that would eventually help blind persons live more independently but it would also challenge the need for structured programs of rehabilitation.
The Fifth Decade:1976-1985
Rachel Rosenbaum was hired as Executive Director in 1976, which would ultimately prove to be a fitting replacement for the leadership and long-time direction that Fr. Carroll had provided, bringing the Carroll Center back into the forefront of local and national leadership in the field of blindness. The Center embarked upon the renovation of its facilities to best accommodate the changing needs of the blind community. The Center sold one of its buildings reducing its 7.5 acre campus to 5.5 acres, while using the proceeds to remodel its main facility, a turn-of-the-century carriage house, for training classrooms and office use, completed in 1981.
The Carroll Center developed a new program for providing access to outdoor recreation activities and established low vision training and assessments; teaching the practical uses of remaining functional vision and the application of high magnification. Advances in optical technology and low-vision aids now enabled many visually-impaired persons to use remaining sight more effectively.
The Sixth Decade: 1986-1995
In a continued effort to bring the campus facilities up to date, a beautiful English tudor styled building was completely renovated as a dormitory residence for clients, while maintaining the charm and character of the building to become a home away from home while undergoing the process of rehabilitation.
In addition to its leadership role in the rehabilitation training of blind adults, the Center opened an Educational Services department and began providing educational support to blind children in public school classrooms throughout Massachusetts.
In line with Fr. Carroll’s tradition of developing unique opportunities for blind persons to flourish, the Center’s SailBlind Program sent a group of blind sailors to New Zealand to compete in the first Blind Sailing World Championships.
The Seventh Decade: 1996-2005
On April 24, 2002, the new state-of-the-art Technology Center opened, providing training for blind children and adults on the latest computer software and hardware for education, employment and personal use. These devices include talking computers, large-print displays, and Braille output that can be proofread by fingertip touch.
The computer revolution is providing tremendous career opportunities for blind or partially-sighted persons, and once again, the Carroll Center is on the leading edge. Blind persons are given intensive, hands-on instruction in using the latest adaptive technology.
The Eighth Decade: 2006 – Today
Be sure to read about other Carroll Center achievements.
