Etta Josselyn Giffin

Giffin was born in Newark, Ohio, and raised in Ottawa, Kansas.^[1][2]

Giffin was the first director of the National Library for the Blind in Washington, D.C. Beginning in 1897 with basic braille texts and a reading room at the Library of Congress,^[3] she built a large and diverse collection of materials and established an entertainment schedule, including public readings, game tables with adapted cards and boards,^[4] and musical concerts, including works and performances by blind musicians and composers. She raised funds,^[5] and hired blind braille copyists to transcribe audio materials.^[6][7] The reading room was closed in 1911,^[8] and the library was incorporated as an independent organization in 1912, with Giffin as its director.^[9][10][11]

Giffin gave a lecture about her work at the American Association of Workers for the Blind, held in Boston in 1907.^[12] She was a delegate to at least five International Conferences on the Blind, in Brussels (1902),^[13] Edinburgh (1905), Manchester (1908),^[1] Vienna (1910),^[14] Cairo (1911),^[15][16] and London (1914).^[17][18] "I am happy to state that practical aid for the blind is finding its way rapidly into all parts of the world," she told a newspaper in 1911 on her return from Cairo.^[19] During and after World War I, she arranged for recreational and rehabilitation materials to be provided to military hospitals for American soldiers blinded in battle.^[6]

• "Reading Room for the Blind, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C." (1907)^[12]
• "National Library for the Blind" (1925)^[20]

Giffin died in 1932, two days before her 69th birthday.^[21] She was the subject of a posthumous biography, Etta Josselyn Giffin: Pioneer Librarian for the Blind (1959) by Victoria Faber Stevenson, with an introduction by Helen Keller.^[22]