Name/Title
BasketContext
Sitting atop the armoire in the Cochran Girls Bedroom is a large wicker basket, given to the Museum by the Cochran family, that recalls the site's historical connections to basket weaving. After Neill-Cochran House Museum site was constructed in 1856, its first tenants were students and teachers of the newly established Texas Asylum for the Blind (now known as the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired).
The Asylum for the Blind was a progressive initiative, but it functioned within the framework of 1850s Texas, which was a slave state. The state did not own slaves, but they leased out enslaved people from Austinites to work at the school. One enslaved boy named Lam, who was 10-12 years old at the time, taught wicker basket weaving to the visually impaired students.
Our display of this handmade wicker basket honors the memory of Lam and other enslaved workers who lived and worked on the property. It also reminds us that a disability such as blindness, then, as well as now, presents overwhelming challenges but that the human will to survive and thrive can also create beauty.Acquisition
Accession
2010.01Source or Donor
Mrs. Everett Dayton Bohls (Mary Jewell Cochran)Acquisition Method
Gift