The Origins of Orientation and Mobility: From Symbolism to Safety

The origin story of Orientation and Mobility (O&M) could easily be the plot of a Hollywood film—complete with heroes, hardship, and hard-won innovation. It begins with blind veterans returning from World War II, men who came home with the same belief in democracy and equality that had sustained them in combat. This time, however, they were fighting for a different freedom: the right to walk safely and independently in a sighted world.

Their struggle reshaped the field of blindness education, not through sentiment or symbolism, but through an insistence on real, physical safety.

From Symbol to Safety: The Lions Club Cane

Imagine the opening scene: young blind veterans navigating busy American streets, waving short white-and-red canes—the Lions Club cane. This cane was designed as a signal, not a safety device. Its purpose was to alert sighted pedestrians and drivers to the presence of a blind traveler. As Martin and Kleinfelder (2008) explained, “When the blind person crosses a street let him extend it so that everyone can see and be aware of his blindness.”

What the Lions Club cane could not do was detect curbs, steps, drop-offs, or obstacles. Holding the cane tip off the ground meant the traveler would not know where the curb was until it was struck by a foot. Veterans quickly understood the implication: they were still unprotected. Many rejected a tool that merely labeled them as blind without preventing injury, and they demanded something better.

Pictured below, a man and a woman demonstrate the Lions Club 'street crossing technique'. Note that by holding the short white cane in the air, they will be unable to know the exact location of the up-curb until they find it with their feet, a tripping hazard.

Man and woman crossing the street holding up and waving their Lions Club Canes

The Longstanding Dangers of Walking Blind

This demand was not new. For centuries, blind people had been expected to move independently without adequate protection. In his autobiography To Catch an Angel, Russell (1962) recalled venturing out alone as a twelve-year-old student at the New York Institute for the Blind in 1936—without any cane at all:

“Stumbling over curbs and running into lampposts… after banging into nine hundred baby carriages, we finally made our way to the dime store.”

For Russell and his peers, collisions were normalized. Injury was accepted as an unavoidable cost of independence. This mindset reveals how unsafe mobility had long been woven into expectations for people born blind.

Russell described learning to navigate the New York City subway without any means of detecting hazards. Orientation—knowing which doors opened where, recognizing curves in the tracks, and interpreting bells—was manageable. Sudden injury was not:

“Sometimes we made mistakes… In some places there was a gap of ten or twelve inches between the train and the platform, and ignorance or carelessness frequently resulted in a bruised shin or a twisted ankle…” (Russell, 1962, p. 66).

The boys often blamed themselves, calling these injuries carelessness or bad luck. What went unacknowledged was the absence of a tool that could have warned them, in advance, of where the drop-off actually began.

Touch: The True Foundation of Independent Mobility

Walking is a sensorimotor act. It depends on sensory input and motor control working together. Sighted travelers rely on continuous visual information about the path ahead. Blind travelers must receive that information through touch.

A proper mobility tool translates tactile feedback from the ground to the brain. It functions much like Braille—except that a misread signal can result in serious injury. Knowing exactly where a curb, step, or drop-off begins is not optional; it is essential to safety.

Judy Dixon, blind since birth, did not begin using a long cane until graduate school. In 1980s Washington, D.C., she fell through an open manhole—despite using her long cane that day and walking next to her blind husband who was using a guide dog. Her experience underscores two truths: tactile feedback is essential, and walking without vision is dangerous even for skilled travelers. Without knowing precisely where a drop-off begins or how deep it is, anyone—sighted or blind—can be seriously hurt.

For example, below is a picture of a blind High School Senior approaching a descending stair without a long cane filmed in 1966. This film was intended to highlight the progress in teaching safe mobility to blind teens, yet they show multiple examples of blind children approaching stairs without any independent, physical means to detect the exact location of the drop off. Russell and Dixon's stories illuminate for us, it is unsafe not to know exactly where and how deep the drop-off is.

Sighted or blind falling hurts!

Blind High School Student Walks Towards a drop-off and cluttered stairs (Hatlen, et al., 1966)

Why WWII Veterans Rejected “Stumble and Crash”

Blinded World War II veterans were not willing to accept what children born blind had been taught to tolerate. These men rejected the long-standing “stumble and crash” approach to mobility (Bledsoe, 2010). When told that independence required overcoming fear of injury, they refused that narrative.

The men who had helped defeat Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito had absolute faith in American ingenuity. They believed that if a problem existed, it could be solved—including the problem of unsafe blind travel.

Inventors Before Their Time: Gilbert & Levy

Decades before World War II, two blind innovators—Elizabeth Gilbert and William Hanks Levy—had already described the solution. Blinded in early childhood, they refined the use of a specially designed long walking stick that provided continuous ground feedback.

In 1872, Levy published Blindness and the Means of Its Prevention, describing a cane technique in which the tip “always examine[d] the ground before being actually trodden.” The stick was longer than a support cane, fitted with a secure handle and a metal ferrule, and swept side to side in synchrony with the traveler’s steps.

Gilbert and Levy emphasized that the cane should trace an arc wide enough to check the ground ahead of each foot before stepping forward. Though they called it a “stick,” it was a carefully designed mobility tool. Their description is the earliest scientific account of what we now call the constant contact cane technique—a method that prioritizes safe blind mobility through continuous tactile feedback.

They described the cane's shape, how to determine the correct length, and their system for systematically checking the surface

AI generated rendering of their stick, based on Levy & Gilbert's description.

"A stick about six to nine inches from the feet, the ground will always be examined before being actually trodden (p. 70).

Their stick was a well-crafted, elongated walking stick with a handle "somewhat like a hook, and sufficiently large to be grasped firmly, so that it may not easily be knocked out of the hand..." and "...suited to the height of the individual, but it should be longer than what would be used..." as a support cane. And "...it should always have a good ferrule*..." (Levy, 1872, p. 70). (*a ferrule is a metal cap or band placed on a wooden pole to prevent splitting) .

Gilbert & Levy described their long cane technique as "waving the stick alternately from right to left to correspond with the movements of the feet.” They explained that they made sure the width of the arc checked the ground ahead of the leading foot with each step (Levy, 1872, p. 70). There is no film of their cane technique, but they described the easiest, most natural way to syncopate the swinging of a long cane with one's pace.

WWII and the Formal Birth of O&M

In 1944, U.S. Army Sergeant Richard Hoover built upon Levy and Gilbert’s work while training blinded soldiers at Valley Forge Hospital. Hoover introduced a lightweight long cane and the two-point touch technique, which required users to tap the cane alternately left and right in rhythm with their steps.

In 1945, Hoover, along with Dr. Bledsoe and blinded veteran Russ Williams, formalized the first Orientation and Mobility program. The instructional sequence prioritized orientation (knowing where you are) before mobility (how to move safely)—a reflection of sighted instructors’ anxieties about getting lost, rather than blind travelers’ real fear: injury.

The long cane technique was understood to be quite difficult to master

In 1977, Bledsoe explained on John Chester's radio show “Dialogue Today,” that the two-point touch cane technique is actually quite difficult to learn and counterintuitive:

"No one picks up a cane and touches in front of the trailing foot naturally...it takes hours and hours of training."

The technique reflected military precision and drill—an understandable outcome given its Army origins. However, tapping the cane in the air provides less consistent protection than maintaining constant contact with the ground.

Research and historical accounts agree: constant contact is easier to learn, safer, and more effective (Levy, 1872; Kim & Wall Emerson, 2018; Sauerburger, 2024).

Pre-Cane Skills: A Dangerous Detour

Despite the long cane’s promise, early O&M instruction began with so-called “pre-cane skills”—body postures and hand gestures meant to protect the face or torso without a cane. These techniques offered little more than false confidence.

By the 1960s, pre-cane skills were taught to blind schoolchildren nationwide. Photographs from the era show teenagers walking unaided down hallways, praised as independent travelers. Yet without tactile feedback, every step remained a potential collision.

Blind adults who lost vision later in life gained access to long canes and O&M training. Children born blind did not. They were deemed too young, too delayed, or insufficiently motivated. Their injuries were interpreted as personal failure rather than evidence of missing tools.

In this 1965 picture below, we see a high school boy who is blind walking down the middle of a school hallway without any protection at all. The caption of the picture indicates that this blind high schooler's ability to walk unaided was heralded as safe and confident moving by a blind child. The terrible irony is that no matter how safe it looks to sighted people, there is nothing safe about a blind child who can't see moving through space unprotected.

Reclaiming the True Purpose of Mobility

The long cane and guide dog transformed independent travel for blind adults. But the history of O&M is incomplete without acknowledging who was excluded: blind infants and toddlers still expected to explore the world without protection.

This history makes one principle unmistakably clear. The long cane’s greatest contribution was not its shape, but its provision of constant tactile feedback. That principle—safety first—must extend to all ages.

Today, innovations such as the Pediatric Belt Cane embody this same insight. They restore safety through touch, allowing even the youngest blind children to explore, learn, and move independently.

Safety is not the enemy of independence. It is its foundation.

References

Ambrose, G. (2000). Judith Dixon Oral history transcript (Interviewed on

1/6/2000).

Bledsoe, C.W. (2010). Originators of orientation and mobility training. In W.

Wiener, R. Welsh, & B. Blasch, (Eds). Foundations of Orientation and Mobility:

Volume II Instructional Strategies and Practical Applications (3rd Ed) (pp.434-

485). AFB Press.

Bledsoe, C.W. (1952). Resistance. C. Warren Bledsoe Manuscript Collection, AER

O&M Division C. Warren Bledsoe Archives, museum of the American Printing

House for the Blind, Louisville, KY.

Chester, John, (1977). “Dialogue Today” C. Warren Bledsoe Manuscript

Collection, AER O&M Division C. Warren Bledsoe Archives, museum of the

American Printing House for the Blind, Louisville, KY.

Hatlen, P. & Wurzburger, P., Collins, R, & Kellis, T. (1966). Film entitled From

Here To There. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X58hWwXd8XI&ab_channel=annetucson (Accessed May, 21, 2024).

Kim, D. S., & Wall Emerson, R. (2018). Obstacle detection with the long cane:

Effect of cane tip design and technique modification on performance. Journal

of Visual Impairment & Blindness (Online), 112(5).

Levy, W. H. (1872). On the Blind Walking Alone, and of Guides” (pp. 68-76) in

(W. H. Levy) Blindness and the Blind: A Treatise on the Science of Typhlology.

London : Chapman and Hall

https://archive.org/details/blindnessblindor00levyiala/page/n5/mode/2up

Russell, R. (1962). To Catch an Angel: Adventures in the World I Cannot See.

Vanguard Press.

Sauerburger, D. (Accessed May, 19, 2024) www.sauerburger.org/nodetect.htm