June 27, 2021, marks the 141st birth anniversary of American author and political activist Helen Keller. Besides writing/activism, she was a tireless force in disability rights advocacy.
Following illness, Helen suffered the loss of sight and hearing at just nineteen months old.
She would communicate using spontaneously invented “home signs” until she met her teacher and lifelong companion, Anne Sullivan, at 7. Meeting her had a profound impact on little Helen.
Through Anne Sullivan, Helen learnt the language (reading and writing). Her teacher would spell on Keller’s hand to teach her the name of objects around her.
Early Life
Her impoverished parents Thomas and Alice Sullivan escaped the Great Famine or the Irish Potato Famine in the mid-1850s.
Sullivan contracted the highly infectious eye disease, Trachoma at 5. This left her partially blind.
Sullivan’s early life can be described as Dickensian. Her mother passed away when she turned 8. Within two years, her father abandoned little Anne and her younger brother, James.
They found themselves in an almshouse in Tewksbury (Massachusetts), where she lost her younger sibling.
Growing up, she underwent several unsuccessful eye surgeries.
Following a raid at Tewksbury because of controversy involving abuse and cruelty, Anne got enrolled in the famous Perkins School for the Blind, founded by the noted physician and abolitionist Samuel Gridley Howe.
Transformative Period
Built in 1829, this school is the oldest school for the blind in the US. Noted alumni include Laura Bridgman, the first deaf-blind American child to have gained access to formal education, and Helen Keller.
Bridgman would later become a teacher and mentor to Sullivan and learnt finger-spelling from her.
While the investigation at Tewksbury was going on, a young Anne walked up to the investigating officer, Frank B. Sanborn and stated her desire to attend school.
At his insistence, she got to attend the famous school.
However, things were difficult for her. Her fellow students looked down upon her lower-class background. Thanks to her determination, she succeeded in academics.
Considered rebellious, she had a penchant for breaking the rules that almost got her expelled. Despite this, her perseverance was a topic of discussion among her teachers; Anne graduated as the class valedictorian.
Unfortunately, years of ridicule from her peers left a lasting impression.
“I was extremely conscious of my crudeness, and because I felt this inferiority, I carried a chip on my shoulder,” she would say.
Finding a Friend
Sullivan and Keller shared a close bond, even though she had an argument with her parents on slavery and the Civil War.
She altered her teaching methods to accommodate what little Helen wanted to learn.
This worked wonders- she learnt 575 words, the Braille system and the multiplication table within six months.
In 1888, Keller left for Perkins School for the Blind, which helped the school receive funding and donations as she became a public symbol.
Recognition and Death
While the fame of Helen Keller grew, people ignored her teacher, whose extraordinary life involved struggle and survival. Giving her due credit, Mark Twain called her a “miracle-worker”.
She was friends with actor Charlie Chaplin – Keller later wrote, “They had both struggled for education and social equality… Both were shy and unspoiled by their victories over fate.”
Anne Sullivan married literary critic John Albert Macy, editor and publisher of Helen Keller’s 1903 autobiography, The Story of my Life. Contrary to societal expectations, she separated from him.
Notable institutions like The Educational Institute of Scotland, Temple University and Harvard University awarded honorary degrees to Sullivan and Keller.
By 1935, Anne Sullivan had gone blind in both eyes.
She contracted coronary thrombosis in October 1936 and fell into a coma. Five days later, she left the mortal world, aged 70. She held Keller’s hand until the very end.