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erstory - Who's she?
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| Books by Helen Keller |
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Out of the Dark  (1913) |
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| Journal (1938) |
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| The Open Door (1957) |
Helen Keller
June 22, 1880 - June 1, 1968
Advocate, Activist, Author, Feminist, Suffragist, and Lecturer
As you remembered “The Miracle Worker”, the 1962 film won two Oscars. Anne Bancroft as Anne Sullivan won the Best Actress Award and Patty Duke as Helen Keller won the Best Supporting Actress Award. Unfortunately we did not know much about Helen Keller’s life beyond her teen years since the story was frozen in time about Helen Keller’s childhood life including an important part when she finally realized how to communicate in finger spelling, “W-A-T-E-R” with Anne Sullivan at the water pump.
Very disappointing, we don’t understand why we don’t learn much about her adult life and dynamically involvement in a variety of organizations to fight for what she believed in. Perhaps most people didn’t wish to embarrass us and especially children if we studied about the other side of Helen, as in her typical way, she had the courage to speak out her mind and ask tough, impolite questions. Even she joined in rallies, and marches, and met friends to discuss politics. She believed in some causes including supporting the Civil Rights, helping found the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Women’s Suffrage. In 1890, Helen learned to speak by Sarah Fuller from Horace Mann School but she used sign language, and read Braille. She loved outdoor sports – she was riding bicycle, and on horseback. She took swimming lessons and became the expert at canoeing, preferably than rowing a boat. In winter, she enjoyed skating. She played the checkers game by feeling over the checkers – that black ones were flat; and white ones were round on top. Based on some articles in the Silent Worker newspaper, she admitted that she was sorry about not using sign language much and her speech was not great, but on her lecture tours, people claimed that her speech was good in spite of high pitch and a little awkward. In these articles of the Silent Worker, Helen and Anne Macy were invited to the Deaf Los Angeles Ladies club at the Tea Room but no one was there to welcome them. Because of the philosophy on Manual Alphabet of the deaf and sign language, one deaf woman did not encourage the deaf community to meet with Helen. There were several articles to state that the deaf community was not pleased with Helen Keller’s involvement with people who supported Oralism including especially her best friend, Alexander Graham Bell. Helen had a great sense of humor and imagination, as some people were surprised to meet her in real person like tall, dark and beautiful woman. Her height was five (5) feet and seven (7) inches. At college, Helen Keller wrote a 7,500 word essay titled, “Optimism” to reflect the goodness that she saw in her life. She studied German, Latin, Greek, and French except mathematics and physics before her graduation. She was a first deaf and blind woman to graduate cum laude from Radcliffe College in 1904 with BA degree at the age of 24. Helen had not lived comfortably due to financial problems so she began a four year performance tour with Anne Sullivan in vaudeville shows in 1919. During their tour, she met some celebrities; Charlie Chaplin and Harpo Marx. Helen borrowed some books about socialism from John Macy who became Anne Sullivan’s husband as she admired him for his belief in socialism. That was how she joined in the Socialist Party in MA as she read Marx and Engels in German Braille. She wrote some essays including, “How I Became a Socialist”. Like a typical person’s disillusioned belief in the progress of the early 20th century, Helen believed that socialism was only an alternative to the capitalism of sweatshops and child labor. Moreover, she campaigned and supported some working classes from 1909 to 1921. Like some famous people who were suspected to be members of the Communist Party, the FBI kept track on Helen’s activities to record about 45 pages in her file. (See the FBI files.) Right after her graduation, she received an offer of $3,000 as her first income earning from Ladies Home Journal to write the “Story of My Life” to publish in five monthly installments in the magazine. With John Macy’s help to negotiate a contract, Helen published a first book, “The Story of Life”, an international bestseller, in more than 50 languages that still remain in print 100 years later. Please feel free to read the first book for free at the Helen Keller—In Her Own Words, the 100th Anniversary of The Story of My Life web site . She fell in love with Peter Fagan at the age of 36 when Peter worked with her as a temporary secretary. Unfortunately, Helen’s mother found some flaws in Peter and had intervened their romance. However, Peter was away on his assignments as journalist as time went by and Helen did not hear back from him. She decided to abandon her hope for love as she did not wish to become a burden on any man with her disabilities.
In 1920’s, she moved to Queens, NY from MA, and then continued on her lecture tours about her experiences, feminism and socialism. Anne Sullivan and Helen traveled across the entire world to over 39 countries and made a few trips to Japan where she was a favorite among the Japanese people. She met ten (10) U.S. Presidents from Gover Cleveland when she was 7 years old to Lyndon B. Johnson. For letter correspondences, she contacted eight (8) U.S. Presidents including Franklin Roosevelt about the newly Social Security Administration. Also, she met the Queen at Buckingham Place, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Henry Ford. As being an actress for a short time, Helen performed by herself in third act for adulthood after on the stage there were two of three acts including childhood and maidenhood at the Lyric Theater in New York. However, she resigned when she was unwilling to appear in the theater where it was closed to some actors who were on strike. She joined the actors’ strike parade to support their cause. When one of her books, “Out of the Dark” was burned by Nazis in 1933 because of socialism, Helen sent her letter of response to Nazi young German people. After Helen began joining in some organizations for socialism, blindness, and some disabilities including deafness, she refocused on women’s issues. Therefore the women’s suffrage became an important part in her life as she believed women had the rights including equality about some concerns on public policy involving family, children’s role in labor, food production, and national policies including war. It was believed that Helen was a first deaf and blind suffrage woman. She joined the Women’s Suffrage march in Washington, DC and gave her speeches at various Women’s clubs, organizations and a member of Advisory Council of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage. Her good friend, Mark Twain named two most interesting characters of the 19th century, Napoleon and Helen Keller. Helen founded several organizations including Helen Keller International and American Foundation for the Blind. With saddening, her files including essays, photos, manuscripts and letters were destroyed at the World Trade Center during the September 11 attack. Helen decided to retire from public life after she had a stroke. She had her last public appearance at the Lions Club, Washington, DC in 1961 and at that same time she met President John Kennedy. Helen was being elected to the Women’s Hall of Fame at the World Expo Fair in 1965. In her whole life, she wrote 12 books in total plus essays, letters, and articles. There are several web sites for further reading.
Helen passed away during her nap at Arcan Ridge in Easton, CT due to arteriosclerosis heart disease (blood clot blocking the artery vein) on June 1, 1968. She was cremated in Bridgeport, CT. Her memorial service occurred at the St. Joseph’s Chapel, Washington National Cathedral, Washington, DC. (Notice the media reported the wrong location about Westport where she died since most people did not realize that Helen Keller had a post office box for mailing address only in Westport but she lived in Easton nearby.)
Helen Keller's Birthplace
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