Guilly d'Herbemont

1. La Pratique du soudage oxyacétylénique et des Techniques Connexes 2. Fleurs des Alyscamps 3. Le désir de vivre 4. Le jardin de ta joie 5. Charmois 6. Terre vaudoise 7. Quelques poèmes

She later moved to Paris as a musician and writer. It occurred to her that blind people on the streets of Paris were increasingly endangered by the motorization of transport. The police in France used white signal sticks to regulate traffic and stop cars. D'Herbemont had the idea of putting the color white on sticks for visually impaired and blind transporters in order to draw attention to themselves. In 1930, d'Herbemont wrote a letter to the director of the national daily newspaper L'Écho de Paris. This letter was published leading to much consternation. After the letter was published, the World Blind Union recommended this innovation to be used globally to governments, and the white cane officially became the symbol of the blind. On 7 February 1931 d'Herbemont symbolically presented, in the presence of several ministers, the first two white canes. These were given to a blind soldier and a blind civilian. These were followed by the distribution of 5000 white canes to blind French veterans from World War I and blind civilians.

Before she invented the white cane, Guilly d’Herbemont was active in helping the blind community. She frequently accompanied the blind through Paris crossroads (1). In one instance, while she was helping a group of blind people to cross a Parisian boulevard, a car appeared that nearly knocked everyone down (2).This was what gave her the inspiration to come up with a tool that the blind could use in traffic. Her idea wasn’t unanimously approved at first. Some of the representatives from many associations thought that this distinctive sign would be badly perceived by some individuals that were concerned not “to post” their handicap (3). As valid of a concern as it may be, even a monumental innovation such as the white stick for the blind community was met with a lot of resistance by many. In addition, Guilly d’Herbemont’s name often doesn’t come up when we think about important innovators, or even women inventors.

Knight of the Legion of Honour (1947) Officer of the Legion of Honour Medal of the City of Paris (1976)