7 The 100 Most Influential Inventors of All Time 7

written with a simple instrument, that met the needs of

the sightless. He later took this system, which consists of

a six-dot code in various combinations, and adapted it to

musical notation. He published a treatise on his type system

in 1829, and in 1837 he published a three-volume Braille

edition of a popular history schoolbook.

During the last years of his life Braille was ill with

tuberculosis. His system had been immediately accepted

and used by his fellow students, but wider acceptance was

slow in coming. The system was not officially adopted by

the school in Paris until 1854, two years after Braille’s

death. A universal Braille code for the English-speaking

world was not adopted until 1932, when representatives

from agencies for the blind in Great Britain and the United

States met in London and agreed upon a system known as

Standard English Braille, grade 2. In 1957 Anglo-American

experts again met in London to further improve the system.

A century after his death, Braille’s remains (minus his

hands, which were kept in his birthplace of Coupvray)

were moved to Paris for burial in the Panthéon.

Cyrus McCormick

(b. Feb. 15, 1809, Rockbridge county, Va., U.S.—d. May 13, 1884,

Chicago, Ill.)

C

yrus Hall McCormick, an American industrialist and

inventor, is generally credited with the development

(from 1831) of the mechanical reaper.

McCormick was the eldest son of Robert McCormick,

a farmer, blacksmith, and inventor. McCormick’s education,

in local schools, was limited. Reserved, determined, and

serious-minded, he spent all of his time in his father’s

workshop.

The elder McCormick had invented several practical

farm implements but, like other inventors in the United