Snapshots in History: June 27: Remembering Helen Keller
(1930 Newsreel Footage – Anne Sullivan and Helen
Keller)
(Helen Keller Speaks Out)
On June 27 and beyond, take a moment to remember Helen Adams Keller (Born:
June 27, 1880; Died: June 1, 1968), American political activist, pacifist,
suffragist, author, lecturer, advocate of the disabled, and champion of
deaf-blind people. Helen Keller lost her hearing and sight at 19 months of age
from either meningitis or scarlet fever. Keller was the first deaf-blind person
to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree, graduating from Radcliffe College in 1904 at
24 years of age. Mark Twain, an early admirer, introduced Helen Keller to
Standard Oil magnate H.H.
Rogers and his wife who paid for her education at Radcliffe College. Helen
Keller is best known in tandem with Anne Sullivan, who
helped Helen to communicate with the outside world by initially spelling words
into Helen’s hand. Prior to Radcliffe College, Helen attended one school for
blind people and two schools for deaf people as well as the Cambridge School
for Young Ladies.
Keller learned to speak and gave many lectures and
speeches over her life. She learned to “hear” people’s words by reading a
person’s lips with her hands by using her sense of touch. Helen Keller also
learned to communicate with Braille and Sign Language.
In the broader world, Helen Keller is less
well-known for her political activism, including her membership in the Socialist Party
of America and the Industrial
Workers of the World (or “Wobblies” – which held its founding convention from June 27
to July 8, 1905), and for her help in founding the American
Civil Liberties Union in 1920. In
1915, Helen Keller, along with George Kessler, a survivor of the Lusitania
sinking, founded Helen Keller International, dedicated to preventing blindness and
reducing malnutrition in the world with work occurring in 22 countries,
including 13 in Africa, 8 in the Asia-Pacific region, and the United States.
Consider the following titles for borrowing from
Toronto Public Library collections:
Helen
Keller [Rebel Lives] / Helen Keller et al., 2003. Book. Adult Non-Fiction.
Read about Helen Keller’s support of socialism, the
IWW, and pacifism during World Wars One and Two. Read also what author Mark
Twain and socialist leader Eugene V. Debs had to say about Helen Keller.
Helen
Keller: selected writings / Helen Keller, Kim E. Nielsen (ed.), 2005.
Academic Kim E. Nielsen grouped Keller’s writings on
a chronological basis with emphasis placed on the 1924-1945 and 1945-1960
writings when Keller was focused on advocacy for disabled people on a global
basis.
Light
in my darkness [2nd. Ed., rev. and enl.] / Helen Keller, 2000.
Book. Adult Non-Fiction.
Keller supported the religious teachings of Emanuel
Swedenborg and of the New Jerusalem Church.
The
story of my life [Restored ed.] / Helen Keller, 2003. Book. Adult
Non-Fiction.
This 100th anniversary edition covered
the early years of Helen Keller’s life up to 1903 during her time at Radcliffe
College.
Also available in eAudiobook
(unabridged), eAudiobook
(unabridged), and eBook
formats.
The
world I live in / Helen Keller, 2003. Book. Adult Non-Fiction.
Helen Keller outlined how her senses, sensations and
imagination fit in with her perception of the world.
Helen
Keller: a life / Dorothy Hermann, 1998. Book. Adult Non-Fiction. Click here
for more copies.
Biographer Hermann peeled away the public’s
perception of Helen Keller as a champion for the deaf-blind to examine other
facets of this complex individual as a writer, a lecturer, and a socialist. The
author also looked at Keller’s positive character traits of strength, kindness,
courage, intelligence, and stoicism along with the negative ones:
vindictiveness and pettiness.
The
miracle worker / William Gibson, 20002. Book. Adult Non-Fiction.
Read playwright William Gibson’s dramatization of
Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan’s relationship.
The
radical lives of Helen Keller / Kim E. Nielsen, 2009. Book. Adult
Non-Fiction.
Nielsen examined the limited effectiveness of Helen
Keller on political matters in contrast to her championing of the deaf-blind.
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