Joel W. Smith

Teacher at the Perkins Institution for the Blind who invented Modified Braille — also called American Braille — in 1878, refining Louis Braille's six-dot cell for the US market. Matters to this vault as the third named competitor in the 1871-1932 "War of the Dots," previously present in the vault's account of that war only as an unattributed system name ("Modified American Braille followed in 1878").

References

• claim-war-of-the-dots-competing-braille-systems-1829-1932
• claim-1871-1932-braille-standards-war-fought-institution-by-institution-not-fixed-lines
• Captures: 10-inbox/raw/2026-08-22-do-current-us-state-level-nemeth-vs-ueb.md