Howe, Samuel Gridley 1801-76
US reformer and philanthropist

He was born in Boston. In the Greek War of Independence (1821-31) he organized the medical staff of the Greek army (1824-27), went to the USA to raise contributions and, returning with supplies, formed a colony on the Isthmus of Corinth. Swamp fever drove him from the country in 1830. In 1831 he went to Paris to study the methods of educating the blind, and, becoming involved in the Polish insurrection, spent six weeks in a Prussian prison. On his return to Boston he established the Perkins School for the Blind, and taught Laura Bridgman, among others. Also concerned with the education of the mentally ill, he was a prison reformer and an abolitionist, and from 1851 to 1853 edited the antislavery Commonwealth. He was the husband of Julia Ward Howe.