The New England Asylum for the Blind was incorporated in Massachusetts in 1829; it opened in Boston in 1832 as the New England Institution for the Blind. It was sucessively renamed the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind in 1839, the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind in 1877, and the Perkins School for the Blind in 1955. The institution relocated in Watertown in 1912.