James Morrison Heady was an American deafblind author. Heady authored numerous volumes of children's books and poetry and was known as the "Blind Bard of Kentucky" in the contemporaneous press. He was one of the first to campaign for books for the blind in the United States, and he designed various technologies to help deaf and blind people communicate and live more comfortably. James Morrison Heady was born on July 19, 1829, in Elk Creek, Kentucky. He was blinded in one eye as a child by a chip from a woodcutter's axe, and at sixteen, he lost sight in the other while playing with a classmate. Heady lost his sight at the age of sixteen and spent a year at the Kentucky School for the Blind before moving on to the Ohio State School for the Blind for an additional fourteen months. He learned to read embossed text and created a "talking glove," a cotton glove with the letters of the alphabet written in numerous locations on the hand, allowing him to communicate with pals through tactile spelling. He was mostly self-taught by reading books and amassed one of the greatest private collections of raised-type books in the United States. Heady formed several friendships with other deafblind persons, including Helen Keller and Laura Bridgman.