In 1929, Dorothy Eustis founded The Seeing Eye and revolutionized life for the visually impaired. In 1921 the Philadelphia native moved to Switzerland and opened a dog kennel for the selective breeding of German Shepherds. In 1927, she wrote “The Seeing Eye,” an article about a German school that trained dogs to help blind veterans. As a result, Morris Frank, who was blind, contacted Eustis. In 1928, Frank traveled to Switzerland to receive and learn how to work with a specially trained dog, Buddy. In 1929, the Eustises returned to the US and established The Seeing Eye, a school to train dogs in Nashville, Frank’s hometown. The school permanently moved to New Jersey in 1932. Dorothy Eustis passed away in New York in 1946. By then, The Seeing Eye had provided over 1300 blind indivuduals with Seeing Eye dogs.

 

 

 

Works Cited:

• This article is excerpted from the NWHM Spring 2003 Newsletter
• Image from Living on Earth and World Media Foundation
  

 

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