This article considers the ways that Enlightenment ideas and practices shaped the founding of the Norwich and Norfolk Institution for the Indigent Blind, and then analyzes the disparate approaches to the aged versus the working-age blind in its first half-century (ca. 1805–55). While we see change over time, we also find distinctive continuity in the ongoing close connections inmates kept with Norwich civic life and family and friends; this was emphatically not a closed asylum. The institution demonstrated consistent commitment to helping its pupils towards self-sufficiency, with optimism about what the blind could (literally) turn their hands to. Nonetheless, the Norwich Institution was disciplinary, actively seeking to produce docile, productive bodies among its blind pupils, both through education and through work habits. Time, labor, and moral discipline increased for pupils over the course of its first half-century, and girls and women were pushed into less economically rewarding work practices. Equally important, while it had an unwavering, humanitarian commitment to providing for the aged blind, its insistent characterization of these inmates as helpless and pitiable limited the potential of the institution to facilitate the well-being of its older residents.

本文考虑了启蒙运动的思想和实践如何塑造了诺里奇和诺福克贫困盲人研究所的成立，然后分析了在其第一个半世纪（约 1805-55 年）中对老年人和工作年龄盲人的不同方法。虽然我们看到随着时间的推移而变化，但我们也发现囚犯与诺维奇公民生活以及家人和朋友保持的持续密切联系具有独特的连续性;这绝对不是一个封闭的精神病院。该机构表现出一贯的承诺，帮助学生实现自给自足，对盲人可以（字面意思）转向的东西持乐观态度。尽管如此，诺里奇学院是纪律严明的，积极寻求通过教育和工作习惯在盲人学生中培养温顺、富有成效的身体。在其最初的半个世纪中，学生的时间、劳动和道德纪律都有所增加，女孩和妇女被迫从事经济回报较低的工作实践。同样重要的是，虽然它坚定不移地致力于为老年盲人提供服务，但它坚持将这些囚犯定性为无助和可怜，这限制了该机构促进老年居民福祉的潜力。