Visit Us Contact Search. Menu Contact. Visit Us Shopping Cart 0 items. The Homecoming Campaign Learn more. Clemens Mark Twain dubbed her a "miracle worker. Although some of her letters still exist, it is primarily through the eyes of others that we know her. Sometime after she married John Albert Macy in , the young wife burned her private journals for fear of what her husband might think of her if he should read them.
Similarly, she did not want her correspondence to be kept after her death. But for historical purposes, materials were retained, and the American Foundation for the Blind's Helen Keller Archive contains some of her letters, prose, and verse.
Jimmie Sullivan, who had a tuburcular hip, died six months later, leaving Sullivan alone. Her years at Tewksbury shaped Sullivan's personality. Although she claimed to have risen above the corruption she witnessed at Tewskbury, she experienced violent rages and terrors for the rest of her life.
She once wrote that Tewksbury left her with "the conviction that life is primarily cruel and bitter. Following her brother's death, Sullivan discovered Tewksbury's small library where she persuaded people to read to her. She longed to attend school. In , when Franklin B. Sanborn, head of the State Board of Charities, visited Tewksbury for an inspection, Sullivan boldly walked up to him and told him she wanted to go to school.
Sullivan soon found that she was socially and educationally far behind her classmates. At the age of 14, she had never attended school before and knew less than her younger classmates. Sullivan was humiliated by her lack of social skills when others learned that she had never owned a comb, wore a nightgown, or held a needle.
But Annie displayed greater maturity in some ways, having lived on her own. She hid her insecurities under a defiant attitude and showed little respect for her teachers. The school's director, Michael Anagnos, who later became a close friend, nicknamed her "Miss Spitfire. A few teachers recognized Sullivan's intelligence and tamed her headstrong ways.
Anagnos encouraged her to tutor younger students. She also underwent eye surgery that partially restored her vision. Sullivan graduated from Perkins at the age of She was the class valedictorian and gave a moving speech at commencement. In , Sullivan accepted a position as teacher to Helen Keller, a seven-year-old girl who was left blind, deaf, and mute by an illness she suffered when she was 19 months old. To prepare herself, Sullivan studied the case of Laura Bridgman, a former Perkins student who was also blind, deaf, and mute.
Bridgman had been taught to communicate through the use of raised letters and manual language. Sullivan moved into the Keller's Tuscumbia, Alabama home. She found Keller to be a spoiled and temperamental child, subject to tantrums. After a short time, Sullivan and her student moved into a garden house on the Keller property where the strong-willed teacher and student began their lifetime of interdependence. Sullivan taught Keller to obey and finally, to associate words with objects and ideas.
The moment of Sullivan's break-through with Keller, when she finally understood that every object has a name, occurred on a spring day when Sullivan pumped water from a well onto Keller's hand as she manually spelled w-a-t-e-r. The moment was immortalized in the Broadway play and film, The Miracle Worker. On March 3, , Anne Sullivan begins teaching six-year-old Helen Keller , who lost her sight and hearing after a severe illness at the age of 19 months.
Sullivan, born in Massachusetts in , had firsthand experience with being handicapped: As a child, an infection impaired her vision. She then attended the Perkins Institution for the Blind where she learned the manual alphabet in order to communicate with a classmate who was deaf and blind.
Eventually, Sullivan had several operations that improved her weakened eyesight. As a baby, a brief illness, possibly scarlet fever or a form of bacterial meningitis , left Helen unable to see, hear or speak.
She was considered a bright but spoiled and strong-willed child. Her parents eventually sought the advice of Alexander Graham Bell , the inventor of the telephone and an authority on the deaf. He suggested the Kellers contact the Perkins Institution, which in turn recommended Anne Sullivan as a teacher. Initially, the finger spelling meant nothing to Keller. Keller went on to learn how to read, write and speak. She was also a fundraiser for the American Foundation for the Blind and an advocate for racial and sexual equality, as well as socialism.
From to , Sullivan and Keller even formed a vaudeville act to educate the public and earn money.
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