Howe, Samuel Gridley (1801-1876), was an American social and political reformer. He went to Greece in 1824 to help the Greeks fight a war against the Ottoman Empire. He served in Greece as a soldier and surgeon and helped give relief to the war-torn people. Howe returned to Boston, his hometown, in 1830. In 1832, he became the first director of the New England Institution for the Education of the Blind (now Perkins School for the Blind), the first such institution in the United States. Howe directed the school for the rest of his life.
Howe also helped fellow reformer Horace Mann in Mann’s fight for better public schools, and Dorothea Dix in her campaign to improve conditions in mental hospitals. Howe and his wife, Julia Ward Howe, edited The Commonwealth, an antislavery newspaper. Howe also helped rescue fugitive slaves and raised money to keep Kansas from becoming a slave state. He served in the federal government both during and after the American Civil War. Howe was born on Nov. 10, 1801, in Boston. He died on Jan. 9, 1876.
