Helen Keller: A Champion of Education and Advocacy
Helen Keller (1880-1968) was an American educator, advocate for the blind and deaf, political activist, lecturer, and author. Stricken by an illness at the age of 19 months, Keller was left blind and deaf. Despite these challenges, she became an inspiring figure who championed the rights of people with disabilities and advocated for social justice. Her story is a testament to the power of determination, hard work, and imagination in overcoming adversity.
Early Life and the Onset of Disability
Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama, to Arthur H. Keller and Katherine Adams Keller. Her father had served as an officer in the Confederate Army during the Civil War and later became the editor of a weekly local newspaper, the North Alabamian. Keller was born with her senses of sight and hearing and started speaking when she was just 6 months old, and started walking at the age of 1.
However, at just 19 months old, Keller lost both her sight and hearing. In 1882, she contracted an illness-called "brain fever" by the family doctor-that produced a high body temperature. The true nature of the illness remains a mystery today, though some experts believe it might have been scarlet fever or meningitis. Within a few days after the fever broke, Keller's mother noticed that her daughter didn't show any reaction when the dinner bell was rung or when a hand was waved in front of her face.
As Keller grew into childhood, she developed a limited method of communication with her companion, Martha Washington, the young daughter of the family cook. The two had created a type of sign language. By the time Keller was 7, they had invented more than 60 signs to communicate with each other. During this time, Keller had also become very wild and unruly, she would kick and scream when angry and giggle uncontrollably when happy. She tormented Martha and inflicted raging tantrums on her parents. Many family relatives felt she should be institutionalized.
The Arrival of Anne Sullivan: A Turning Point
Looking for answers and inspiration, Keller's mother came across a travelogue by Charles Dickens, American Notes, in 1886. She read of the successful education of another deaf and blind child, Laura Bridgman, and soon dispatched Keller and her father to Baltimore, Maryland to see specialist Dr. J. Julian Chisolm. After examining Keller, Chisolm recommended that she see Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, who was working with deaf children at the time. Bell met with Keller and her parents and suggested that they travel to the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston, Massachusetts.
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There, the family met with the school's director, Michael Anaganos. He suggested Keller work with one of the institute's most recent graduates, Sullivan. On March 3, 1887, Sullivan went to Keller's home in Alabama and immediately went to work. She began by teaching six-year-old Keller finger spelling, starting with the word "doll," to help Keller understand the gift of a doll she had brought along. Other words would follow. At first, Keller was curious, then defiant, refusing to cooperate with Sullivan's instruction. When Keller did cooperate, Sullivan could tell that she wasn't making the connection between the objects and the letters spelled out in her hand. Sullivan kept working at it, forcing Keller to go through the regimen.
As Keller's frustration grew, the tantrums increased. Finally, Sullivan demanded that she and Keller be isolated from the rest of the family for a time, so that Keller could concentrate only on Sullivan's instruction. They moved to a cottage on the plantation.
In a dramatic struggle, Sullivan taught Keller the word "water"; she helped her make the connection between the object and the letters by taking Keller out to the water pump, and placing Keller's hand under the spout. While Sullivan moved the lever to flush cool water over Keller's hand, she spelled out the word w-a-t-e-r on Keller's other hand. Keller understood and repeated the word in Sullivan's hand. She then pounded the ground, demanding to know its "letter name." Sullivan followed her, spelling out the word into her hand. Keller moved to other objects with Sullivan in tow. By nightfall, she had learned 30 words.
Sullivan started with the techniques developed by Perkins’ first director, Samuel Gridley Howe, when he worked with Laura Bridgman 50 years earlier. She fingerspelled the names of familiar objects into her student’s hand. She also innovated by incorporating Keller’s favorite activities and her love of the natural world into the lessons. Keller enjoyed this “finger play,” but she didn’t understand until the famous moment when Sullivan spelled “w-a-t-e-r” while pumping water over her hand. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten-a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that “w-a-t-e-r” meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! …Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. Keller wrote of the days that followed, “I did nothing but explore with my hands and learn the name of every object that I touched; and the more I handled things and learned their names and uses, the more joyous and confident grew my sense of kinship with the rest of the world.” Sullivan finger-spelled to her constantly and coached her in the give-and-take of conversation.
Anne utilized protactile sign language, which is orientated by touch and is used on the body, and experiential learning techniques to bring the power of words to Helen’s fingertips. Her methods are still implemented today. Before Anne could begin teaching Helen, she needed her young student to obey her. The two moved from the main house to a nearby cottage, where Anne began her work. In her letters to her friend Sophia Hopkins, Anne described this time with Helen, saying, “To get her to do the simplest thing, such as combing her hair or washing her hands or buttoning her boots, it was necessary to use force, and, of course, a distressing scene followed…I saw clearly that it was useless to try to teach her language or anything else until she learned to obey me. Once they respected one another, Anne signed words into Helen’s hand. On April 5, 1887, Anne’s pupil unlocked the secret to language. In a letter to Sophia, Anne recalled how Helen confused the words “mug” and “milk” with the verb “drink.” Anne said, “She didn’t know the word for ‘drink,’ but went through the pantomime of drinking whenever she spelled ‘mug’ or ‘milk.’” As Helen washed up that morning, she pointed to the water and patted Anne’s hand, asking for its name. “Then it occurred to me that with the help of this new word I might succeed in straightening out the “mug-milk” difficulty,” Anne said. At the pump-house, Helen held her mug under the spout as Anne pumped water and spelled the word into Helen’s palm. “The word coming so close upon the sensation of cold water rushing over her hand seemed to startle her,” Anne said. Dropping the mug, Helen’s face brightened as she spelled “water” several times. She realized that everything has a name, and she was determined to know what each object was. Anne didn’t follow a curriculum while teaching Helen. Many lessons were outdoors as Helen thrived using her other three senses of touch, smell, and taste. In a letter to John Hitz, Anne wrote, “Words were learned as they were needed. In the same note, Anne mentioned the power of experiential learning. Outdoor lessons about trees, flowers, and animals are effective in helping students learn language because these topics are all things children love and are curious about. Anne gave Helen ample opportunity to engage with her surroundings and allowed her to find excitement in obtaining new knowledge.
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Their relationship lasted for 49 years, from 1887 until Sullivan's death in 1936. In 1905, Sullivan married John Macy, an instructor at Harvard University, a social critic, and a prominent socialist. After the marriage, Sullivan continued to be Keller's guide and mentor. When Keller went to live with the Macys, they both initially gave Keller their undivided attention. Gradually, however, Anne and John became distant to each other, as Anne's devotion to Keller continued unabated. After several years, the couple separated, though were never divorced. In 1932, Sullivan experienced health problems and lost her eyesight completely. A young woman named Polly Thomson, who had begun working as a secretary for Keller and Sullivan in 1914, became Keller's constant companion upon Sullivan's death.
Formal Education and Academic Achievements
In May of 1888, Sullivan brought Keller to Perkins School for the Blind in Boston, where a new world of friendship began. “I joined the little blind children in their work and play, and talked continually. I was delighted to find that nearly all of my new friends could spell with their fingers. Oh, what happiness! To talk freely with other children! After that visit, Keller spent nearly every winter studying at Perkins: “In the school where Laura Bridgman was taught I was in my own country.” Keller studied French, arithmetic, geography, and other subjects. In the fall of 1891, Keller wrote a story she called “The Frost King” as a birthday gift for Anagnos. Delighted, he published it in the Perkins alumni magazine. Soon Anagnos was informed that Keller’s tale was very similar to a previously published story. The accusation of plagiarism was extremely wounding to the 11-year-old girl and her teacher. In 1892, Keller and Sullivan left Perkins and did not return. Fortunately, Keller later forgave Perkins for her unhappy experience. In 1909, she donated many braille books to the Perkins library.
In 1890, Keller began speech classes at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf in Boston. She would toil for 25 years to learn to speak so that others could understand her. From 1894 to 1896, Keller attended the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf in New York City. There, she worked on improving her communication skills and studied regular academic subjects.
Around this time, Keller became determined to attend college. In 1896, she attended the Cambridge School for Young Ladies, a preparatory school for women. As her story became known to the general public, Keller began to meet famous and influential people. One of them was the writer Mark Twain, who was very impressed with her. They became friends. Twain introduced her to his friend Henry H. Rogers, a Standard Oil executive. Rogers was so impressed with Keller's talent, drive, and determination that he agreed to pay for her to attend Radcliffe College. There, she was accompanied by Sullivan, who sat by her side to interpret lectures and texts. By this time, Keller had mastered several methods of communication, including touch-lip reading, Braille, speech, typing, and finger-spelling.
In 1896, Helen went to the Cambridge School for Young Ladies, run by Arthur Gilman. Attending his school helped Helen prepare for her college entrance examinations. She was admitted to Radcliffe College in 1899. Nowadays, colleges just send out acceptance letters, but many years ago, they used to give out certificates of admission. Here is the one Radcliffe College sent Helen in 1899.
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In 1904, at the age of 24, Keller graduated, cum laude, from Radcliffe College, becoming the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Literary Works and Public Life
With the help of Sullivan and Macy, Sullivan's future husband, Keller wrote her first book, The Story of My Life. Published in 1903, the memoirs covered Keller's transformation from childhood to 21-year-old college student. In 1902, a year before her graduation, Helen successfully published her first book, The Story of My Life. John Macy, an editor and instructor at Harvard University, edited the book, and Helen dedicated it to Alexander Graham Bell, who had helped so much with her education. The book received great reviews, including one from Mark Twain.
Keller saw the power in sharing her ideas with the world through writing. She authored more than a dozen books and 400 essays to share her experiences and progressive viewpoints. Her most popular book is “The Story of My Life,” which was translated into 50 languages and remains in print today.
Keller wrote a total of 12 published books and several articles. One of her earliest pieces of writing, at age 11, was The Frost King (1891). There were allegations that this story had been plagiarized from The Frost Fairies by Margaret Canby. At age 22, with help from Sullivan and Sullivan's husband John Macy, Keller published her autobiography, The Story of My Life (1903). It recounts the story of her life up to age 21 and was written during her time in college. In an article Keller wrote in 1907, she brought to public attention the fact that many cases of childhood blindness could be prevented by washing the eyes of every newborn baby with a disinfectant solution. At the time, only a fraction of doctors and midwives were doing this. Keller wrote The World I Live In in 1908, giving readers an insight into how she felt about the world. Out of the Dark, a series of essays on socialism, was published in 1913. Her spiritual autobiography, My Religion, was published in 1927 and then in 1994 extensively revised by Ray Silverman, and re-issued under the title Light in My Darkness. It advocates the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, the Christian theologian and mystic who gave a spiritual interpretation of the teachings of the Bible and who claimed that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ had already taken place.
After college, Keller set out to learn more about the world and how she could help improve the lives of others. News of her story spread beyond Massachusetts and New England. Keller became a well-known celebrity and lecturer by sharing her experiences with audiences and working on behalf of others living with disabilities. She traveled to twenty-five different countries giving motivational speeches about deaf people's conditions. She testified before Congress, strongly advocating to improve the welfare of blind people.
Social Activism and Political Views
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Keller tackled social and political issues, including women's suffrage, pacifism, birth control, and socialism.
In 1915, she and George A. Kessler founded the Helen Keller International (HKI) organization. This organization is devoted to research in vision, health, and nutrition. In 1920, Keller helped to found the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). She traveled to over 40 countries with Sullivan, making several trips to Japan and becoming a favorite of the Japanese people.
Keller was a suffragist, pacifist, Christian socialist, birth control supporter, and opponent of Woodrow Wilson.
Keller, who believed that the poor were "ground down by industrial oppression", wanted children born into poor families to have the same opportunities to succeed that she had enjoyed. She wrote, "I owed my success partly to the advantages of my birth and environment. In 1909, Keller became a member of the Socialist Party of America (SPA); she actively campaigned and wrote in support of the working class from 1909 to 1921. Many of her speeches and writings were about women's right to vote and the effects of war; in addition, she supported causes that opposed military intervention. She had speech therapy to have her voice understood better by the public. Keller supported the SPA candidate Eugene V. Debs in each of his campaigns for the presidency. Before reading Progress and Poverty by Henry George, she was already a socialist who believed that Georgism was a good step in the right direction. She later wrote of finding "in Henry George's philosophy a rare beauty and power of inspiration, and a splendid faith in the essential nobility of human nature".
On January 22, 1916, Keller and Sullivan traveled to the small town of Menomonie in western Wisconsin to deliver a lecture at the Mabel Tainter Memorial Building. Details of her talk were provided in the weekly Dunn County News on January 22, 1916:A message of optimism, of hope, of good cheer, and of loving service was brought to Menomonie Saturday-a message that will linger long with those fortunate enough to have received it. This message came with the visit of Helen Keller and her teacher, Mrs. John Macy, and both had a hand in imparting it Saturday evening to a splendid audience that filled The Memorial.
Keller stated that newspaper columnists who had praised her courage and intelligence before she expressed her socialist views now called attention to her disabilities. The editor of the Brooklyn Eagle wrote that her "mistakes sprung out of the manifest limitations of her development". At that time the compliments he paid me were so generous that I blush to remember them. But now that I have come out for socialism he reminds me and the public that I am blind and deaf and especially liable to error. I must have shrunk in intelligence during the years since I met him. … Oh, ridiculous Brooklyn Eagle!
In 1912, Keller joined the Industrial Workers of the World (the IWW, known as the Wobblies), saying that parliamentary socialism was "sinking in the political bog". She wrote for the IWW between 1916 and 1918. I was appointed on a commission to investigate the conditions of the blind. For the first time I, who had thought blindness a misfortune beyond human control, found that too much of it was traceable to wrong industrial conditions, often caused by the selfishness and greed of employers. And the social evil contributed its share. The last sentence refers to prostitution and syphilis, the former a "life of shame" that women used to support themselves, which contributed to their contracting syphilis. Untreated, it was a leading cause of blindness.
International Recognition and Advocacy
In 1946, Keller was appointed counselor of international relations for the American Foundation of Overseas Blind. Between 1946 and 1957, she traveled to 35 countries on five continents. In 1955, at age 75, Keller embarked on the longest and most grueling trip of her life: a 40,000-mile, five-month trek across Asia. Through her many speeches and appearances, she brought inspiration and encouragement to millions of people.
She visited Akita Prefecture in June 1937 and asked about Hachikō, a loyal dog who searched for his deceased master for about 10 years. She began keeping Akitas as pets and introduced them to America. In 1948, she touched the re-made statue of Hachikō at Shibuya Station. The first Akita given to her was Kamikaze-Go, who was the first Akita to travel overseas from Japan and the first Akita in America. He died of an infection two months after arriving in America and Keller was given Kamikaze-Go's brother, Kenzan-Go. Keller nicknamed the dog Go-Go and they were great companions from day one.
Helen Keller became a world-famous speaker and author. She was an advocate for people with disabilities, amid numerous other causes. She traveled to twenty-five different countries giving motivational speeches about deaf people's conditions.
Honors and Legacy
During her lifetime, she received many honors in recognition of her accomplishments, including the Theodore Roosevelt Distinguished Service Medal in 1936, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964, and election to the Women's Hall of Fame in 1965. Keller also received honorary doctoral degrees from Temple University and Harvard University and from the universities of Glasgow, Scotland; Berlin, Germany; Delhi, India; and Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. She was named an Honorary Fellow of the Educational Institute of Scotland.
Keller's autobiography, The Story of My Life, was used as the basis for 1957 television drama The Miracle Worker. In 1959, the story was developed into a Broadway play of the same title, starring Patty Duke as Keller and Anne Bancroft as Sullivan. The two actresses also performed those roles in the 1962 award-winning film version of the play. William Gibson wrote a theatrical adaptation, The Miracle Worker, in 1959, which he adapted as a film under the same title in 1962. The Miracle Worker is a literature cycle of dramat…
Keller's life has been interpreted many times. She and her companion Anne Sullivan appeared in a silent film, Deliverance (1919), which told her story in a melodramatic, allegorical style. She was also the subject of the Academy Award-winning 1954 documentary Helen Keller in Her Story, narrated by her friend and noted theatrical actress Katharine Cornell; in 2023, the film was added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". She was also profiled in The Story of Helen Keller, part of the Famous Americans series produced by Hearst Entertainment. In the 1950s, when she was considered by many worldwide the greatest woman alive, Hearst reporter Adela Rogers St.
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