The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-05-09
(signal Corps photo from NEA>

Governor Edison'S letter reads in parts:
 T am sure that 1t would have giv-
 en my father great satisfaction to
 know that he had 6 share in the
 work that you are doing in utiliz-
 ing his favorite invention to bring
 the pleasures of good literature
 to those who are unable to enjoy
 such literature from silent books.
 That he realized the problem of
 the blind and the way in which
 the photograph could eventually
 be developed to i'll that need, is
 shown by his statement made in
 1878, just one year after his in-
 vention of the Tin-Toil Phono-
 graph.
 Throughout the years, as the
 Photograph was developed and
 perfected so as to better fulfill his
 early prediction, I know that he
 was stimulated by the thought
 of the happiness that could result
 from its efficient use.
 May the great work of your
 Foundation continue to develop
 and prosper"
 Dr. Robert B. Irwin, sightless Executive Director of the American Foundation for the Blind, in mak- ing the announcement said that the late Thomas A. Edison's prediction of the Taking Book to which Gov- ernor Edison refers occurred in an
 article, The Ph0mogrAph and Its Future, published in the North American Review, May 1878, which read in part:
 Books may be read by the
 chaTitably 1 n C lined professional
 reader. or by such readers es-
 pecially employed for that pur.
 pose, and the record of such book
 used in the aSylunls of the blind"
 Dr. Irwin went on to explain that the Foundation first devised the Talking books because its workers found that less than twenty-five percent of the upwards of 100000 blind people in the United States could read braille. He stated that the Foundation developed the Talk ing Book with the generous cooper ation of Mrs. William H. Moore, the Carnegie Corporation. and the late Frank L. Dyer. and that since 1884 an annual grant by Congress to the Library of Congress, which now amounts to $250. 900. has met the cost of most of them.
 Today, after they are recorded in the sound studios of the American for the Blind and by the American Printing House for the Blind, Louisville. Kentucky. the Library of Congress place s the Talking Books in 27 regional H. braries across the country which departments for the blind. Dr. Irwin explained that trained readers from stage and radio make the recording but that frequently the author of the book reads the first section of the book onto the discs In order that blind people may gain an idea of the authors per- sonality from his voice. Among the whose voice reach the blind In this way are Thomas Mann. Somerset Vaughan, Eleanor Roose- welt, Jan Struther. Christopher Morley, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Clifton Fadiman. John Kieran, Cornelia Otis Skinner, and the late Woollcott.
 The longest novel yet recorded by the American Foundation for the Blind is Toistoy's War and Peace, which to lie double-sided discs with e reading time of 6s lea hours. while the longest non-fiction is The Growth of the American Ro- public, by Samuel Eliot Morrison and Henry Steele Commager, recorded on i2e discs with . reading time Of e I-3 hours. The King James Vey- sion of the Bible, which the Foun. dalton regards as . collection of books than as a separate volume, takes up ieo double -sided discs with . reading time of s4 i-3 hours.