Alfred L. Elwyn

Alfred Langdon Elwyn (9 July 1804 – 15 March 1884) was an American physician, author and philanthropist. He was a pioneer in the education and care of people with mental and physical disabilities. He was one of the founding officers of the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind in 1833 and founded the Pennsylvania Training School for Feeble-Minded Children in 1852. The community of Elwyn, Pennsylvania and the Elwyn Institute are named in his honor. Early life and education Elwyn was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire to Thomas and Elizabeth Sherburne Langdon Elwyn. His grandfather was John Langdon, the 2nd governor of New Hampshire. Elwyn graduated from Exeter Academy in 1819 and Harvard University in 1823. He read medicine with Dr. John Gorham in Boston and in 1826 traveled to London, Edinburgh and Paris. He returned to the United States in 1829 and received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1831 but never practiced medicine. On January 31, 1832, he married Mary Middleton, daughter of James Mease and granddaughter of Pierce Butler of South Carolina. Together they had a son and daughter. Career Elwyn was one of the founding officers of the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind in 1833. He traveled to Boston for a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1849. He had promised to take a letter from Rachel Laird, a blind girl living in Philadelphia, to Laura Bridgman, who was a famous blind deaf mute in Boston. Bridgman was studying at the South Boston Institute for the Blind, and while there Elwyn visited a classroom for mentally disabled children run by teacher James Richards.