INSPIRATION: The Life of Helen Keller
March 21 — May 15, 2004
Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama, and died on June 1, 1968. Following Anne Sullivan's death in 1936, Helen Keller moved with her companion, Polly Thomson, to Arcan Ridge, Westport, Connecticut, where she lived until she died. The urn holding her ashes is located in the National Cathedral, Washington, DC.
Struck by a "strange" disease, diagnosed as brain fever, at the age of nineteen months, Helen Keller become both deaf and blind. In 1887, when Helen Keller was seven years old, Anne Sullivan began training her. Miss Keller entered Cambridge Massachusetts School for Young Ladies in 1896. In 1900, at the age of twenty, she enrolled at Radcliffe College where she graduated cum laude in 1904 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Fifty years later, in 1954, Radcliffe granted her its Alumnae Achievement Award
Helen Keller received honorary degrees from both Harvard, in 1955, and the University of Glasgow, Scotland, in 1932. She also received honorary degrees from the University of Delhi, in India, and from universities in Berlin, Germany, and Witwaterstrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
She visited with every President who held office in the 1880's and 1890's and with President Eisenhower in 1954, and President Kennedy in 1961. Other notables include Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1955, Prime Minister Nehru in 1955, and George Bernard Shaw in 1932.
Throughout her lifetime Helen Keller received the following rewards:
- Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964, America's highest civilian award.
- Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor in 1952
- Order of the Southern Cross from Brazil
- Order of the Sacred Treasure from Japan
- Order of the Golden Heart from the Philippines
- America's Award for Inter-American Unity
- National Humanitarian Award from Variety Clubs International
She wrote her autobiography, "The Story of My Life," while at Radcliffe. It was published in serial form in the Ladies' Home Journal, as a book in 1902.
Helen Keller received an Oscar in 1955 for her film biography, The Unconquered, later renamed Helen Keller in Her Story. In 1955 the film won an Oscar, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science award as the best feature-length documentary film of the year.
ANNE SULLIVAN
Mrs. John A. Macy
Anne Sullivan was born on April 14, 1866, at Feeding Hills, Massachusetts. The daughter of Irish immigrants, she was half-blind herself as a child. Educated at Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts, she joined the Keller household on March 3, 1887, where she was referred to as "Teacher." Miss Sullivan is credited with working the miracle of "awakening" Helen Keller's mind.
In 1905 she married John A. Macy, an eminent literary critic. Her ashes are in the National Cathedral, Washington, DC.
POLLY THOMSON
Polly Thomson, a native of Scotland, joined the Keller family in 1914, as an assistant to Anne Sullivan. Miss Thomson is credited with introducing Helen Keller to the theatre.
Polly Thomson died at the age of seventy-five in 1960. Her ashes are in the National Cathedral, Washington, DC.
Nella Braddy Henney's book, Anne Sullivan Macy: The Story Behind Helen Keller, written in 1934, resulted in The Miracle Worker, performed on television by Playhouse 90 in 1957. The story interprets the first meeting between Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan. In 1955 a full-length drama production of the story opened on Broadway. It later became a movie starring Anne Bancroft as Anne Sullivan and Patty Duke as Helen Keller, both who won Oscars for their performances.
Photos and facts were provided by the American Foundation for the Blind, ""AFB Fact Sheet About Helen Keller and their website www.afb.org.
For more information please visit the following sites :
www.afb.org
www.helenkellerfoundation.org
