William Bell Wait

Wait developed a keen interested in raised letters and tried to devise a tangible printing and writing system. He later developed the New York Point System in which points were used to represent letters or their sound. This system contained "twenty-six capitals, twenty-six small letters, numerals, punctuation marks and short forms for diphthongs, triphthongs, syllables and for words and parts of words in common use."[4] He was awarded medals at the Chilean Exposition and International Exposition in 1873 for these accomplishments.[3] Before his death Wait oversaw the adaptation of his point system to more than twenty different languages, including Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese and Chinese.[5]

He followed his inventions with a tangible musical notation system in 1872. He completed the Kleidograph in 1894. This machine is much like a typewriter which could be used for embossing the raised letters of the New York Point system unto paper. He invented the Stereograph. This machine was used for metal plate embossing, to facilitate bulk printing of books for the visually impaired. He received the John Scott most deserving Medal from the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia in 1900 for his inventions. He later developed a printing press which used a breakthrough process which allowed for embossing on dual sides of a book page. He also formulated more economic and durable methods of book binding, reducing the long-term costs of printing.