Helen Keller… how much do you really know about her?

[By Mina Krishnan]

How much do you really know about her?

She was born in 1880 and lived in America; became deaf-blind at a young age; was taught to communicate by Anne Sullivan; then devoted her life to helping others; became a devout Christian; is an inspirational figure of optimism, goodness and ‘triumph over adversity’; died in 1968.  But is that all there was to her?

Unlike many American Christians she was also a member of the Socialist Party of America and of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW); an outspoken pacifist and anti-war campaigner; a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union; wrote for the socialist paper New York Call; was kept under surveillance by the FBI for her left-wing politics and support of communism from the 1930s into the 1950s; donated to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); protested against the deportation of immigrants for their political beliefs; was a close friend and supporter of controversial birth-control advocate Margaret Sanger; campaigned for women’s suffrage, labour rights and social equality.

She was the first deaf-blind person to receive a Bachelor of Arts which she achieved at Radcliffe College Massachusetts, having learnt how to communicate with the world from her teacher and friend/companion Anne Sullivan. She went on to become a world-renowned lecturer, author, public speaker and activist for blind people’s rights. She was the Nelson Mandela of her day – everyone wanted to meet her or be seen with her.

And did you know…

-her uncle wanted her shut away in an institution, out of sight (a common fate for many disabled children at that time) but her aunt persuaded the family otherwise

-they initially approached Alexander Graham Bell (mostly famous now  for inventing the telephone) for advice. He directed them to the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston, which is where Anne Sullivan was recommended for the position of Helen’s teacher. Anne had spent her childhood in the workhouse, having been rejected by her family because of her disability.  Far from the image of Helen being utterly dependent on the self-sacrificing Anne, it seems both depended on each other for a way of life.

-throughout her life Helen was put under a tremendous pressure to conform to the non-disabled world; a lot of effort was put into educating her into being, to all intents and purposes, a hearing/seeing person – at least in appearance

-she learned to speak in order to communicate with the hearing/seeing world as she wanted to spend her life improving social conditions; she was rarely allowed to be in contact with other deaf/blind people.  Although her education was viewed as a miraculous triumph, she reported her years at college as a time of great loneliness and exclusion

-up until early adulthood, she was usually photographed in right profile as her left eye ‘looked blind’; it was later replaced with a glass one for both medical and cosmetic purposes

-the book of political essays Helen had written was burnt by the Nazis in 1933, and when she was told of the book burnings, she said: “Tyranny cannot defeat the power of ideas.”

Of course you can find some this on the internet, but not all the information you’ll find on there is reliably accurate, it needs a lot of cross-referencing and you’ll need to visit the RNID library to read/borrow her autobiography, see a couple of her letters, discover other selected works by and about her, her political and personal life. There is a recent book on her secret love affair.

In the RNID Library we have:

-A small, dedicated Helen Keller collection

–A couple of her letters in the archive

-Journal articles such as:

Helen Keller: rethinking the problematic icon – Crow, L – Disability & Society, 2000, 15(6), 845-859 (online)

-Helpful librarians who can assist you in searching for further information about her and many other subjects…