American Masters (1985–…): Season 36, Episode 2 - Becoming Helen Keller - full transcript

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Foundations

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The National Endowment
for the Humanities...

Bringing you the
stories that define us.

♪

-This program includes
historical descriptions

of people with disabilities that
many now consider offensive.

Viewer discretion is advised.

My name is Rebecca Alexander.

I am narrating the
Helen Keller documentary,

and I am DeafBlind myself.



I have Usher syndrome,

which is the leading cause

of DeafBlindness
in the U.S.

and around the world.

Alright.

Okay, so here...

Here's your chair.

Uh, Rick, I'm rolling.
Are you okay?

Yep.

Rebecca, when you are.

3, 2, 1...

October 7, 2009.
Washington, D.C.

A statue of Helen Keller

is about to be unveiled



inside the Capitol.

A 600-pound bronze sculpture

of a child standing

near a water pump.

That moment, made famous in

the 1962 film
"The Miracle Worker,"

was the day the DeafBlind girl

had a breakthrough
with her teacher,

Annie Sullivan.

Wa...

W-A-T-E-R.

This moment helped the world

understand that all of us,

regardless of any disability,

have a mind that
can be educated,

a hand that can be trained.

In large measure,

we travel the same highways,

read the same books,

speak the same language,

yet our experiences
are different.

In all my experiences
and thoughts,

I am conscious of a hand.

Whatever moves me...
Whatever thrills me...

Is as a hand

that touches me in the dark,

and that touch is my reality.

Keller lived to be 87.

Yet here she was

put on a pedestal
and frozen in time.

This extraordinary

person showed us the power

of a determined human spirit

and reminded all of us

that courage and
strength can exist

in the most unlikely places.

The images that

we have of Helen Keller

are a media creation.

She is a poster child.

She's too good to be true.

♪

The story,

the overcoming,
the saintly figure,

I wish we could retire that.

My primary image

of Helen Keller growing up

was from
"The Miracle Worker."

And the total complexity

of her adult life,

her learnedness, her fieriness,

her politics,
her full adult being,

all that is erased,

and what we remember
is "wa-wa."

♪

I came across

lists from 1924

of what some people called

the ten most dangerous
women in America.

And Helen Keller
was on this list.

And I actually remember

laughing out loud,

that Helen Keller was listed

as one of the ten

most dangerous women in America,

and I wanted to know why.

She was a pioneer,

and she was such a trailblazer

for so many of
these civil rights

and social movements

in ways that none of us

can really even
quite comprehend.

But she had
this innate curiosity.

The two most

interesting characters
of the 19th century

are Napoleon and Helen Keller.

Napoleon tried

to conquer the world

by physical force and failed.

Helen Keller tried
to conquer the world

by power of mind and succeeded.

♪

I was too young

to realize what had happened.

When I awoke and found

that all was dark and still,

I suppose I thought
it was night,

and I must've wondered

why day was so long in coming.

Gradually, however,

I got used to the silence

and darkness.

Helen became

blind and deaf

at a year and a half.

And so she had already had

some exposure to language,

to the world of sound and sight.

And that has important
implications for

your later educational
development.

As a young girl,

Helen used what Deaf people call

"home signs."

Helen Keller had

a sign for her mother

that looked something like this.

She had a sign for her father

that had to do with

representing his eyeglasses.

She had signs for
concrete actions

like eating and drinking,

that kind of thing.

The Kellers lived in

Tuscumbia, Alabama.

Helen's father,
Arthur, had served

in the Confederate Army

and ran a small newspaper.

They were not rich

and not sure how to
guide their daughter.

The Kellers are

working with

very little information.

They could have sent her

to a school for the Deaf

or a school for the Blind,

possibly, but that's not

an ideal choice.

Helen's mother, Kate,

was a very well-read woman.

And she at some point
when Keller was small,

read Charles Dickens'
"American Notes"

of 1842.

And in that book,

Charles Dickens talked about

Laura Bridgman,

another DeafBlind woman,

who had been educated.

And Keller's mother, Kate,

became very hopeful.

She wanted that same thing

for her child.

She had resisted the

institutionalization of Helen.

Bridgman went to

the Perkins School for the Blind

in Boston, Massachusetts,

where she learned to communicate

with fingerspelling.

The Kellers appealed

to the school's director,

Michael Anagnos.

When Anagnos gets

a letter from
Captain Arthur Keller

saying, "We have
a DeafBlind daughter.

Do you have anybody there

that could
teach her?"

Anagnos says, "Yes, I do.

It's Annie Sullivan."

When I saw

Helen Keller first,

she was 6 years
and 8 months old.

She had been blind
and deaf and mute

since her 19th month,

as the result of an illness.

She had no way

of communicating with
those around her,

except a few imitative signs

that she had made for herself.

A push meant "go,"

and a pull meant
"come," and so on.

Annie Sullivan

and Helen Keller

would be together for
the next 50 years.

They were rarely ever separated.

Anne Sullivan,

she came from this, uh...

extremely deprived background.

It was really kind of
a desperate situation.

Sullivan suffered

from trachoma...

A bacterial infection

that caused vision loss.

She was a ward of the state

and an illiterate 14-year-old

when she arrived at Perkins.

Six years later,

Annie graduated
class valedictorian.

And after a series
of eye operations,

her vision had improved.

The career

opportunities for a Blind woman

at this point in time
were incredibly small,

and then here came this letter,

seeking a teacher for

a young DeafBlind girl.

Once in Alabama,

Sullivan recorded her experience

in letters sent back to Boston.

Somehow, I had

expected to see

a pale, delicate child,

but there's nothing

pale or delicate about Helen.

She is large, strong, and ruddy,

and as unrestrained
in her movements

as a young colt.

Annie came to

the Kellers' house and said,

"Before I can teach
this child anything,

I have to make an intervention,"

as we would call it now.

The intervention is
absolutely physical.

It can't be anything else

because Helen doesn't
have language yet.

This is the shock in
"The Miracle Worker"

when it first appeared
on the Broadway stage.

It brought Helen's physicality,

it brought her body

to the center of the stage.

And she says,

"The miracle has occurred.

She will obey me."

The back of

the greatest obstacle

in the path of progress

is broken.

"No" and "yes"
have become facts,

as apparent to her

as hot and cold.

Annie taught Helen

the manual tactile alphabet.

Letter by letter,

she fingerspelled
whole sentences

into Helen's hands.

Her accomplishment

was that she made
the observation

that a hearing child
learns language

because they're
always surrounded

by language.

Once she, uh, was with Keller,

she was fingerspelling
to her constantly,

dawn to dusk,

so that Keller kind of picked up

language in a more natural way.

♪

Annie taught Helen

how to read using books

in raised print

and how to write with
a lettering system

called "square hand."

She latched onto

writing at a very early point.

In Anne Sullivan's account

of teaching her,

particularly in the first months

of their being together,

she tells a story about Keller,

who was fingerspelling
to herself

and then pretending that

she was writing a letter.

And then she took the letter

to her mother and she said,

"Take it to the post office

and mail it."

It was like
she grasped this idea

that she could write

and send her words
out into the world,

and get a response back

from people that
she'd never met.

And that was
a very powerful idea

for her as a child.

Back at Perkins,

Michael Anagnos was eager

to spread the word

about the progress
Annie was making

with her new student.

With Helen Keller,

he sees an opportunity to say,

"Look at what this woman,

who is a graduate of Perkins,

has been able to do

with this unfortunate
DeafBlind girl

in making her
a human being."

♪

"Her progress was not

a gradual advancement

but sort of a triumphal march,"

Anagnos wrote in one dispatch

sent to Perkins alumni

and benefactors.

But Annie Sullivan

resisted this narrative

and the way it would be used.

I appreciate

the kind things

Mr. Anagnos has said
about Helen and me,

but his extravagant
way of saying them

rubs me the wrong way.

The truth is not
wonderful enough

to suit the newspapers,

so they enlarge upon it

and invent ridiculous
embellishments.

♪

When she is 8,

Helen enrolls at

the Perkins School.

In the school,

I was in my own country.

What joy.

Helen and Annie

also worked on another way

for Helen to communicate

using lipreading and vibrations.

And I let her see

by putting her hand on my face

how we talk with our mouths.

She felt the vibrations

of the spoken word.

Instantly she spelled,

"I want to talk
with my mouth."

That seemed impossible.

But after experimenting

for a time, we found that

placing her hand
in this position...

The thumb resting on the throat

right at the larynx,

the first finger on the lips,

the second on the nose...

We found that she could feel

the vibrations of spoken words.

While this wasn't

always accurate,

it allowed Helen

a direct connection with people,

and she used it often in public.

From the time
she was a young girl,

Helen was eager to speak.

I had known

for a long time

that people around me

used a method of communication

different from mine.

One who is entirely dependent

on the manual alphabet

has always a sense of restraint,

of narrowness.

My thoughts would often rise up

and beat like birds

against the wind,

and I persisted

in using my lips and voice.

♪

She received help

from a friend,
Alexander Graham Bell,

now best known as

the creator of the telephone,

then a leader in Deaf education.

That's what he saw

as his mission in life...

In particular,

teaching of speech and
oral communication.

He was a public advocate

for the suppression

of sign language in the schools,

and for the teaching

of oral skills in schools.

Oralism in general,

I think,

has a very oppressive
quality to it,

because what oralism
is predicated on

is the idea that the only way

to communicate effectively

is being able to speak.

Speech teaching was

a central part of Bell's life,

and he married a Deaf woman,

Mabel Bell,

who was also a public advocate

for the oral method.

When Bell learned

Helen was speaking,

he went to Perkins,

and spelled questions
into her hands.

♪

Do you know

what a cloud is?

Rain.

What is wind?

It is wild air.

What is thought?

When we make a mistake,

we say, "I thought
it was right."

Where is your thought?

Mind.

My head is full of mind.

♪

On a visit home

to Alabama when she's 11,

Helen writes a story

and sends it to Anagnos

as a birthday present.

"King Frost,

like all other kings,

has great treasures
of gold and silver.

But as he is a
generous old monarch,

he endeavors to make a right use

of his riches."

He says this is proof

of what an original
intellect she has.

There had been some

accusations by critics,

both for Laura Bridgman

and for Helen Keller,

that they weren't

really learning anything,

that they were just
being parrots,

they were just
learning to imitate,

that they had been trained

to give answers.

An original story from
Helen Keller proved,

for Anagnos, that
she was original,

that she had the capacity

for independent thought.

Anagnos publishes

the story.

A Deaf community
newspaper prints it,

and soon a reader

notices a resemblance

to one by

Margaret Canby.

When the editors

print them

side by side,

the similarities

are obvious.

♪

It's not just

an ordinary 11-year-old girl

making the mistake
of copying something

that she'd read somewhere else.

This is Helen Keller.

This is the representative

of what it means to be human,

to have original thought,

to have a soul,
to have language...

Everything that distinguishes

animals from human beings.

The Perkins library

didn't have the story.

It did not exist
in raised print,

and Helen's parents

had never heard of it.

Anagnos needed answers.

Was Helen a fraud?

Had Annie falsely represented

the child?

He called for an investigation.

Eight Perkins educators

and board members,

four sighted and four Blind,

were directed to find out

what had happened.

Miss Sullivan

was asked to leave.

Then I was questioned,

with what seemed to me
a determination

to force me to acknowledge

that I remembered having

"The Frost Fairies" read to me.

I felt in every question

the doubt and suspicion

that was in their minds.

When at last I was allowed

to leave the room,

I was dazed

and did not notice
my teacher's caresses.

That night I wept

as I hope few children
have wept.

I felt so cold I imagined

I should die before morning,

and the thought comforted me.

♪

The verdict of

the sighted and Blind teachers

was "not proven."

Anagnos suspected for
the rest of his life

that Annie had
read Helen the story

and was trying to cover it up.

I am sure

I never heard it.

It made us feel so bad

to think that people thought

we had been untrue and wicked.

My heart is full of tears,

for I love the beautiful truth

with all my heart and mind.

Michael Anagnos

would publicly claim to hold

Annie and Helen in high esteem.

But privately,

he called Helen
"a living lie."

And Helen was deeply scarred

by the experience.

♪

For a long time,

when I wrote a letter,
even to my mother,

I was seized with

a sudden feeling of terror,

and I would spell the sentences

over and over to make sure that

I had not read them in a book.

Helen never returned

to Perkins.

In an effort to rebound from

the plagiarism scandal,

Annie urged Helen to write about

her own experiences.

An essay written when she was 12

caught the attention

of the novelist Mark Twain,

who would become a friend.

I will ask the reader

to notice the easy flow

and the graceful phrasing

of this girl's narrative,

and remember

not that she is Blind Deaf,

but that she was only 12

when she wrote the paper

which I am quoting from.

Girls of 12

and with all
their faculties intact

and with 11 years'
training in speech

are not as a rule able
to express themselves

in this capable fashion.

And when this child is eloquent,

how true the ring of it is,

and how far above her years.

Keller insisted on

continuing her education.

I did not want people

to tell me what
I should do or not do

just because I happened

to be different from others.

I was 16 years old,

and I had decided
to go to college.

It was a relief for Teacher

after the many disturbed days

she'd had spent
brooding on my future,

that I had formed
the decision myself.

She was asked

whether she wanted
to go to Wellesley

or to Vassar,

to one of the existing
women's colleges.

And she said,

"No, I want to go
to Harvard."

And Annie investigated this

and said, "Okay, well,

it has to be Radcliffe,"

which was then

the Harvard extension for women.

Annie and Helen

needed help to pay for school.

A group of wealthy women

created a scholarship fund

and asked Twain
to lead the appeal.

♪

She underwent

the Harvard examination

for admissions
to Radcliffe College.

She passed without
a single condition.

She was allowed

the same amount of time

that is granted
to other applicants,

and this was shortened
in her case

by the fact that
the question papers

had to be read to her.

It won't do for America to allow

this marvelous child

to retire from her studies

because of poverty.

If she can go on with them,

she will make a fame
that will endure

in history for centuries.

Along her special lines,

she is the most
extraordinary product

of all the ages.

When Helen

entered college,

there was a huge debate going on

as to whether or not

women should go to college.

There was a lot of concern that

it would render them sterile,

that they would be
unable to handle

a college education physically.

And with Helen Keller
being deaf and blind,

that was even more of
a controversy.

Would she be able to handle it?

Like all colleges

then, Radcliffe was not

accessible to all.

The lectures had
to be interpreted.

No braille textbooks
were easily available.

Helen relied on friends

to help convert
her books to braille.

Radcliffe dean Agnes Irwin

personally paid for
two exam proctors...

One to monitor Helen

and the other to watch
Helen's proctor.

It's almost as if

they were afraid that
people were going

to accuse the university

of engaging in a publicity stunt

by graduating this...
This Helen Keller

with her astounding disabilities

and her astounding abilities,

but that somehow,

they weren't playing
it on the level.

♪

♪

In the classroom,

I was, of course,
practically alone.

The professor was as remote as

if he were speaking
through a telephone.

The words rushed through my hand

like hounds
in pursuit of a hare,

which they often miss.

But in this respect,

I do not think I was

much worse off than the girls

who took notes.

As difficult as it was

to be a student there,

Radcliffe is where Helen became

a professional writer.

The editor of

The Ladies' Home Journal

made a big offer to turn

her autobiographical essays

into magazine articles.

♪

Without a very clear

idea of what I was doing,

I signed an agreement.

At the moment,
I thought of nothing

but the $3,000.

In my imagination,

the story was already written.

Soon Helen

was falling behind.

I was in deep water

and frightened out of my wits.

A friend told me
about Mr. Macy,

an English instructor
at Harvard.

He was eager,
intelligent, gentle.

He understood my difficulties

and set about relieving them.

The two of them

hired him to come in
and help them manage

all of the papers and to edit

"The Story
of My Life."

Macy negotiated

a contract to turn
Helen's articles

into a book.

He added an introduction

and Annie's letters about Helen.

This became the first

of Keller's many books...

"The Story
of My Life."

Her style

was kind of a throwback

to an earlier period.

Her style was kind of
flowery and ornate.

She loved metaphors and imagery.

In June 1904,

Helen Keller graduated
from Radcliffe College

with honors.

She could read and write

in Latin, French, and German,

and was a published author.

After Helen graduated

from college,

she, of course, was thrilled

by the success of
"Story of My Life,"

and she wanted and planned

to make her living as a writer.

The philanthropic
support that they had

was diminishing after

she had graduated from college.

She had some limited success,

but nothing she did

reached the material success of

"The Story
of My Life."

She had a very hard time

selling things.

Helen started on

another memoir...
"The World I Live In."

She talks about touch.

She talks about
her sense of smell,

and then she talks about

what she calls her
system of analogies.

My hand is to me

what your hearing
and sight are to you.

My world is built of touch...

The delicate tremble

of a butterfly's wings
in my hand.

The clear, firm outline

of a face and limb...

and a thousand

resultant combinations,

which take shape in my mind,

constitute my world.

She says,

"I have this sensory experience,

and I can make analogies to

sight and sound."

It was not a popular book,

because it didn't tell

that wonderful, heroic,

inspirational story.

In their

three-and-a-half years

working closely together,

John and Annie
had fallen in love,

and they married
in the spring of 1905.

Macy moved into

their house outside of Boston,

and the three of them
cultivated friends

who were journalists, poets,

teachers, and labor activists.

She became

increasingly interested

in politics.

And with John Macy,

this was her entry
into that world.

She wanted to know why
some people were poor

and some people were not.

She thought that was
incredibly unjust,

and she began to look at

why that was the case.

How did I

become a socialist?

By reading.

It's no easy thing

to absorb through one's fingers

a book of 50,000 words
on economics,

but it is a pleasure I
shall enjoy repeatedly

until I have
made myself familiar

with all the classic
socialist authors.

Socialism was

an enormously appealing movement

in the early decades
of the 20th century.

It flourished in

circles of educated people,

especially educated
young people.

♪

It can't be

unreasonable to ask of a society

a fair chance for all.

It can't be unreasonable

to demand the protection

of women and children

and an honest wage for all.

When shall we learn that

we are all related
one to the other,

that we are all
members of one body?

♪

Helen would go on

to write articles for The Call,

a New York City
socialist newspaper.

Its women's pages
regularly discussed

birth control,

wages for women workers,

and childcare.

When Keller began

working on disability issues,

job opportunities
for Blind people

were extremely limited.

Broom making,

chair caning,

some basic industrial
arts and crafts.

Women were involved in

mattress repair and sewing,

and would develop lace.

They would do embroideries.

Yeah. They would
make pillows.

A lot of not
particularly advanced

industrial enterprises.

It's terrible

to be Blind
and to be uneducated;

but it's worse for the Blind

who have finished
their education

to be idle.

Helen teamed up

with a friend, Charlie Campbell.

When Helen Keller

and Charles Campbell created

the Massachusetts Association

for the Blind and
Visually Impaired,

they were angry,

but they needed to get
people on their side.

They needed to advance
the civil rights

of Blind people,

and they had to figure out

a diplomatic way to do that

while at the same time

forcefully possessing ownership

of their own experience.

I appeared before

the Massachusetts legislature

to urge the necessity of

employment for the Blind

and to ask for
a state commission,

to which I was appointed.

Although I didn't
know it at the time,

the curtain rose
on my life's work.

♪

Among the commission's

earliest achievements

was helping to reduce
blindness in babies.

One of the big causes
was gonorrhea,

unknowingly passed on
from mother to child.

Gonorrhea is affecting

all of these babies.

They're being exposed.

They're gonna have sore eyes.

Many of them will go blind.

It becomes a matter of,

"Let's not keep this

something shameful and hidden.

Let's find it
and treat it."

Because she was

both female and Blind,

it was safe for Helen

to talk about things

that other women

would not be able to,

like venereal disease.

No one would think
that it's because

she knew that firsthand.

The Ladies'

Home Journal

took on this taboo subject

and invited Helen

and other women

to write about it.

Ladies' Home Journal

is targeted at the home.

It goes into

everyone's household.

And this is a culture where

women aren't allowed
to talk about sex.

Where no one is allowed

to talk about sex.

Where, in fact,

women are not supposed
to speak in public.

The facts are not

agreeable reading.

Often they are revolting.

It may be objected that

women cannot be trusted

with such a painful

revelation.

They must be.

I cannot help it.

The time has come
for plain speaking.

A few drops

of silver nitrate would end up

being the prevention.

I think it was

the happiest moment of my life

when I was told that
the day nursery

for Blind babies in Boston,

once full, is now almost empty.

But despite

all she helped to accomplish

and the work being done

to improve Blind lives,

the commission members
were not equal.

While reports
were often provided

in braille for Helen

and her Blind colleagues,

there were no accommodations

for Helen's deafness.

She had to provide
the interpreters

and was never able to access all

of the available information.

♪

At the meetings,

the endless minutiae

were impossible to grasp

through hand spelling.

I felt incompetent

to enter into discussions,

only part of which

any human being could give me.

My mind became confused,

and suggestions
I intended making

usually failed to materialize.

I decided to resign.

♪

By now,

Keller is nearly 30.

Famous since childhood,

she is sought out by journalists

and photographers.

From the time
she was a small girl,

her protruding left eye

was always carefully concealed.

Keller decided to change that.

She needed to pass

for public inspection.

She needed to be someone

that looked normal
and comfortable

to the media-consuming public.

So she has her eyes

replaced with glass eyes,

which make her look
like her eyes

are always open, bright,

shining, and seeing.

Removing the eye is

a difficult procedure
to go through.

I've been through it
twice, and, uh,

for her to go through that

at 30 years of age

would have, at that time,

been a very difficult
experience,

and all of this was private.

Keller continued

to work on her speech

and learned new
breathing techniques

often used by singers.

♪

The level of pain

and blood, sweat, and tears

of effort, of time and energy

that people who are Deaf

have gone through
in order to be able

to speak in some form
of intelligible way

is never really addressed.

Since my 10th year,

I have labored
unceasingly to speak

so that others can
understand me.

I have not succeeded completely

in realizing the
desire of my childhood

to "talk like
other people."

Yet I have only
partially conquered

the hostile silence.

It is not a pleasant voice.

It is not blindness

or deafness

that brings me my darkest hours.

"It is not blindness

or deafness

that bring me
my darkest hours."

It is the acute disappointment

in not being able
to speak normally.

"It is the acute disappointment

in not being able
to speak normally."

Longingly I feel how much
more good I may have done

if I had only acquired
normal speech.

"Longingly I feel
how much more good

I could have done

if I had acquired
normal speech."

But out of this
sorrowful experience,

I understand more clearly...

"But out of this
sorrowful experience,

I understand
more clearly..."

all human striving...

"all human striving..."

thwarted ambitions...

"thwarted ambitions..."

and infinite capacity of hope.

"and infinite capacity
of hope."

♪

Throughout

the next decades,

Keller would lend her name

to big causes.

She joined the labor union

Industrial Workers of the World

and was in the vanguard of

the women's movement.

She was a suffragist.

She supported women's
right to vote.

She said somewhere

that she saw being female

as more of a disability

than being DeafBlind,

because women didn't
have the vote.

There's a defiance

in Helen Keller

that I have always related to

that resonates
so loudly with me.

The defiance is that

she will not be defined.

♪

This inferiority

of woman is man-made.

She knew she was

a prominent figure,

and that the media
would follow her

wherever she went.

So she knew that if she went

to support striking workers,

those striking workers

would receive media attention.

Newspaper editors,

who had previously

showered her with praise,

were quick to criticize

her positions.

"Helen Keller preaching on

the merits
of socialism."

"Helen Keller sneering
at the Constitution."

"Helen Keller on these
aspects is pitiful,"

said one editorial.

Annie and John were

frequently blamed for
brainwashing Helen,

and for giving her
political views.

There's a chance for

a satirical comment
on the phrase

"the exploitation of
poor Helen Keller."

I don't like the hypocritical

sympathy of such a paper.

But I'm glad if it knows

what the word
"exploitation" means.

On the one hand,

people would say,

"Oh, poor Helen Keller.

She's being manipulated

by these people around her.

They're putting words
in her mouth.

You know, she doesn't know

what she's saying.

It's just terrible."

And then the other
criticism was,

"Well, if someone
who's so defective

like this DeafBlind person

can take these positions,

that just proves

how wrong-minded
they are."

So in either case,
she's dismissed.

She's diminished.

Her political views are not

taken seriously.

Keller's beliefs,

her politics, and advocacy

would, at times,
have to be tempered

by the need to earn a living.

Helen and Annie

always struggled with money.

They always felt that
they needed money

to support their household.

A big source of income

was speaking engagements.

The topics were suffrage,

Blindness,

Helen's education,

and why she became a socialist.

♪

We spoke in halls

or big, noisy tents
full of country folk.

Together

they crisscrossed the country.

All the while,

America was building
up its weaponry

and getting ready
to enter World War I.

Keller was fervently opposed.

I used to wake

suddenly from a frightful dream

of sweat and blood

and multitudes shot,
killed, crazed,

and go to sleep

only to dream of it again.

My teacher and I
were both worn out.

But I determined to do and say

my utmost against militarism.

She gave

anti-war speeches,

and in this one

at Carnegie Hall,

took on her critics.

I know what

I'm talking about.

My sources of information

are as good and reliable

as anybody else's.

I have papers and magazines

from England, France,

Germany, and Austria

that I can read myself.

No, I will not disparage

the editors.

They are an overworked,

misunderstood class.

Let them remember, though,

that if I cannot see the fire

at the end of their cigarettes,

neither can they thread
a needle in the dark.

Keller courted

even more controversy

in her home state of Alabama

when she sent a large donation

with a letter of support

to the NAACP.

I am indeed

wholeheartedly with you.

This great republic
of ours is a mockery

when citizens in any section

are denied the rights

the Constitution
guarantees them...

when they are openly evicted,

terrorized, and lynched

by prejudiced mobs

and their persecutors
and murderers

are allowed to walk abroad

unpunished."

Again,

editorial writers condemned her

and essentially told her

not to come home again.

"Her visit to Selma will not be

as welcome as it
might have been,

advocating and endorsing

as she does

such unspeakable things

as this Negro magazine

stands for.

If she is ashamed

of her southland,

why call
their dollars?"

♪

Helen's Alabama family

asked her to back down.

Many years later,

NAACP founder
W.E.B. Du Bois

applauded her conviction.

Keller was in

her own state,
Alabama, being feted

and made much of by
her fellow citizens.

And yet, courageously
and frankly,

she spoke out on the inequity

and foolishness
of the color line.

It cost her something to speak.

♪

So, the hardest thing

to grapple with

about Keller's
political life for me

is what at least appears to be

her embrace of eugenics.

In 1915,

a doctor refused
to perform surgery

on a disabled baby and
left the child to die.

Helen was drawn into
the public debate

as an example of

the value of life.

But when asked about it,

Keller defends the doctor

and supports his decision.

It is the possibilities

of happiness, intelligence,

and power

that give life its sanctity,

and they are absent

in the case of
a poor, misshapen,

paralyzed, unthinking creature.

♪

She does it, though,

with some complications

that are important
to think about.

She argues for several things.

She argues for a check
on the system,

for a kind of ethics board

of, uh, doctors and thinkers

to mull over

what is possible for this child

and what kind of suffering

the child is in.

So she has a nuanced position

in that way.

She also...

And this is
really interesting...

Makes a call for

people who have enough wealth

to support a child

in that condition
to come forward

and adopt babies who are coming

under this kind of threat.

She is trying to think through

this range of issues.

Her thinking evolved.

Decades later, during another

medical ethics debate,

Keller sent a telegram
to the parents

of an infant girl
with eye tumors.

Blindness is not

the greatest evil.

It is only a physical handicap.

That is life.

The annals of progress

show undeniably that

much of humanity's

finest work

has been wrought

by persons with

a severe handicap

that she may be spared

to help open
the eyes of ignorance.

♪

♪

♪

During all the years

Helen and Annie spent
on the road,

there were no accommodations

for disabled travelers.

I've never been able

to accustom myself
to hotel life.

I cannot readily
orientate myself

in a strange locality.

I am conscious of the same kind

of remoteness
one senses out at sea,

far from all signs of land.

We think of

a Blind person and
how they get around,

you think of a white cane,

you think of a dog.

And those tools were not part

of the landscape
for Blind people.

They were not available

to Blind people

until well into
the 20th century.

Annie's eyesight

was deteriorating.

She became ill and fell.

There was no one

to help us in that dismal hotel,

not even an intelligent maid.

I understood then why
our friends insisted

we should have

a competent woman with us.

♪

They found

Polly Thomson,

a young woman from Scotland

described as someone who

"could balance a bank book,

map out a cross-country schedule

and keep to it."

Polly Thomson

fit right in
and became a presence

who was there for decades.

♪

While they were

on the road,

John Macy left.

His marriage to Annie

had been unraveling

for some time.

I think the breakup

happened for so many reasons.

It happened for money reasons.

It happened for alcohol reasons.

It happened for
Annie's fearfulness.

They didn't know how to

live with Helen, as well.

A distraught Annie

leaned on Helen.

She kept demanding

my love in a way that
was heartbreaking.

For days, she would
shut herself up

almost stunned,

trying to think of a plan

that would bring John back

or weeping as only women

who are no longer
cherished weep.

♪

But, soon,

Hollywood came calling,

giving Helen and Annie

a great diversion.

Toward the end of World War I,

producers pitched a film

that could raise awareness

of disabled soldiers.

I thought that

through the film

we might show how

the distracted,
war-tortured world

we were then living in

could be saved from strife

and social injustice.

That's why the picture
was called

"Deliverance."

It was a full-on,

big Hollywood production,

you know.

It concludes with this scene

of her on a white horse

and all these people
following behind her,

you know, which is somehow

representing of

that she's leading
the masses into

the glorious future.

I was supposed to be

a Joan of Arc fighting
for the freedom

of the workers of the world!

In the California sun,
I grew hotter, redder,

and more embarrassed
every second.

The trumpet tasted nasty!

My quaint fancy of leading

the people of
the world to victory

has never been so ardent since.

♪

The film's plot,

which Helen later
called ludicrous,

included a bizarre
romance for her...

A fantasy boyfriend
pulled from the pages

of ancient Greek literature.

It's wild.

It's a wild movie.

In some ways, it's kind of

a straight-up biography,

with her playing herself,

which is always
an interesting case,

but it has these

extraordinary dream sequences

where she falls asleep
reading "The Odyssey."

She does imagine

being in love with Ulysses,

through reading Homer.

So that it's not

"Helen Keller falls
in love with a man

and has sex," but, rather,

"Helen Keller imagines herself

as a literary
creation."

♪

But, in real life,

Helen had already fallen in love

with Peter Fagan, a socialist

and an old friend of
John Macy's.

I was sitting alone

in my study.

The young man came in
and sat beside me.

For a long time,

he held my hand in silence,

then he began talking
to me tenderly.

I was surprised

he cared so much about me.

The romance began

when Annie became sick

and went away with
Polly to recover.

Helen stayed behind with Fagan.

He had been working
with them for months,

helping with correspondence

and Helen's writing.

Peter Fagan

could fingerspell,

he knew the manual alphabet,

and they could
communicate directly.

They required no intermediary.

He said

if I would marry him,

he would always
be near to help me

in the difficulties of life.

She wanted a life

with her own household,

possibly with children,

with a man to love.

She said yes.

The two of them went off,

got a marriage license,

they did not tell anyone.

News of the marriage license

hit the media.
Boom!

Everyone wanted attention.

Everyone wanted to know

whether this was true.

Annie Sullivan

was opposed to a marriage,

as were Helen's mother
and siblings,

perhaps believing married life

and childbearing
should not be possible

for a DeafBlind woman.

Apparently.

I mean, you know,
it's still an issue

for disabled people today.

There's an idea that,
"Oh, you wouldn't want

to have sex with
a disabled person.

You wouldn't want
to reproduce with

a disabled person."

You know.

I don't understand it,

but it's a prevalent view.

How incredibly sad

and unfortunate that,

despite all of the
education and access

these people provided her with,

Annie Sullivan and her family,

that they were not
able to understand

just how crucial and important

that human connection
was for her,

not just in terms of

these meaningful friendships

and familial relationships,

but in terms of
romantic connection

and relationships.

Unable to resist

Annie and her family,

Helen reluctantly

ended the relationship.

She shrugged off the episode

with self-deprecating humor.

I seem to have acted

exactly opposite to my nature.

It can only be explained

in the old way

that love makes us blind.

♪

But it was far more

serious and meaningful to her

than that public quip.

The brief love

will remain in my life,

a little island of joy

surrounded by dark waters.

I am glad that I have had

the experience of being loved

and desired.

♪

In later years,

responding to a fan
who had never met her

and sent a marriage proposal,

Helen wrote about
coming to terms

with what she wanted,
but could never have.

Here is a woman

who couldn't hear or see.

You can imagine her ability

to feel connected to her body.

I think that is one of

the most incredible parts

of not being able to
hear and see, right?

The other parts of your body,

of your senses, are heightened.

Since my youth,

I have desired
the love of a man.

Why was I tantalized with

bodily capabilities
I could not fulfill?

I no longer cry for

the spoiled treasures
of womanhood.

I face consciously

the strong sex urge of my nature

and turn that life energy

into channels of

satisfying sympathy and work.

♪

When "Deliverance"

opened,

Helen was not there.

She refused to cross

Actors' Equity picket lines.

The silent film did not

bring attention to
disabled veterans,

nor did it make much money.

Annie and Helen were, again,

scrambling for resources.

We're the kind

of people who come out
of an enterprise

poorer than they went into it.

B.F. Keith vaudeville

made them a big offer...

$2,000 a week.

They went on between animal acts

and acrobats.

It had always

been said that we went
into public life

only to attract attention

and I had letters from
friends in Europe

about "the deplorable
theatrical exhibition"

into which I had allowed

myself to be dragged.

Now the truth is,

I went of my own free will

and persuaded my teacher

to go with me.

Vaudeville offered us better pay

than either literary work

or lecturing!

♪

Helen and Annie did

two 20-minute
performances a day.

They also took questions.

All the world

knows and loves Helen Keller,

the girl with an
unconquerable spirit!

Can you tell when
the audience applauds?

Oh, yes.

I hear it with my feet.

What is her opinion

of President Harding?

I have a fellow feeling

for him.

He seems to be as blind as I am.

The three greatest men

of our time?

Lenin, Edison,

and Chaplin.

Some of the questions
were very funny.

"Can you tell the time of day

without a watch?

Do you think that business

is looking up?

Do you believe in ghosts?

Do you think it's a
blessing to be poor?"

There were hundreds of them.

♪

I liked it.

I liked to feel

the warm tide of human life

pulsing round and round me.

To weep at its sorrows,

be annoyed by its foibles,

laugh at its absurdities.

But Annie's health

was failing.

Their contract was not renewed.

It was time to get off the road,

return to their new
home in New York,

time for Polly to take
on a bigger role,

and time to start new work.

The American Foundation

for the Blind
wanted Helen's help.

So, the AFB

would become,
in pretty short order,

the preeminent organization

speaking on Blindness issues

in the country,

from the 1920s, you know,

well into the 1950s
and beyond, you know.

For many, many decades, it was,

certainly, by far,

the best funded and best known.

And in large part, of course,

that was due to the efforts

of Helen Keller,
who would become

the best known spokesperson

for the AFB.

♪

Soon, they were back

on the road.

For three years

we covered the country
from coast to coast.

We addressed 250,000 people

at 249 meetings

in 123 cities,

attending innumerable luncheons

and receptions

and making endless calls.

The AFB was skittish

about Helen's politics.

She was told not to speak

about her socialism
or its issues.

She was a figurehead.

People knew she was a celebrity.

I think, with the AFB,

which was a somewhat, you know,

you know, somewhat more

conservative organization,

they wanted to keep her focused

on one issue and one issue only.

"It's about Blindness.

Give money
to the Blind people."

So, with the help of

AFB speechwriters,

Keller tailored
an emotional pitch

for community-minded groups,

like this one she gave

to the Lions Club Convention.

Try to imagine

how you would feel

if you were suddenly
stricken blind.

Picture yourself

stumbling and groping
at noonday,

your work, your
independence, gone.

Some of them are

hard to read because

it's all about,
"the poor Blind people

living in darkness
and ignorance,

you know, but with
your kind support,

they will have
a glimmer of hope,"

and so on.

Early in the 1930s,

Keller, on behalf of
the AFB, persuaded

President Herbert Hoover

to host an
international assembly

of Blind leaders
at the White House.

The event coincided
with an agreement

to standardize braille
and use it

in American Blind schools.

It's a huge

accomplishment.

For well over a century,

you had multiple
competing versions

of braille and, you know,

you couldn't communicate beyond,

sometimes, you know,
your roommate

at your residential school

or, you know, the guy next door,

you know, because everybody read

a different version of braille.

It really brought

the Blind community together,

in a way it hadn't been.

In her more than

40 years with the AFB,

Keller campaigned for
sight-saving classes

in public schools,

resources for job training,

the establishment of

commissions for the Blind

in nearly 20 states,

and access to braille and audio

for the Blind.

The Works
Progress Administration

has established a project

for making talking-book machines

for the Blind.

But, in 1935,

when the AFB pioneered
the talking-book,

Keller initially balked

at lending her support.

Revolutionary as it was,

the talking-book
would be of no use

to Deaf and DeafBlind people.

I thought the Blind

could do without talking-books

and radios, at a time when

millions of people
are out of work

and in the bread lines.

But I would appear
before legislators

and ask them for appropriations

for talking-books.

This wouldn't be
soliciting funds

directly from the public.

The person who

suggested this project

and is responsible for it

is Miss Helen Keller.

Helen's involvement

was greatly exaggerated.

She drove a hard bargain,

finally agreeing to
promote talking-books

after the AFB promised her

more would be done
for DeafBlind people.

Once assured, she took the cause

straight to the White House.

Dear Mrs. Roosevelt,

your kindness to everybody

encourages me to come to you

with a request.

Would you give a tea
at the White House

to help me send the talking-book

to every corner of dark-land?

I dare not hope of
meeting the president,

his days are
so terribly crowded.

"Anything Helen Keller

is for, I am for,"
FDR once said.

They had the shared experience

of pushing their disabilities

out of the frame

while living big public lives.

♪

Eleanor Roosevelt later wrote,

"My husband knew what it was

to face a handicap
and conquer it.

I thought how wonderfully

both Miss Keller and my husband

typified triumph over
physical handicap."

By 1936,

Annie Sullivan was near death.

She was 70 years old.

Before my teacher

came to me,

I did not know that I am.

♪

After nearly

half a century,

Helen was losing
the most important

relationship of her life.

Helen was by her
beloved teacher's side

for her final hours.

♪

It was an October

evening.

She was fully awake,

sitting in an armchair

with us around her.

She was laughing.

How tenderly
she fondled my hand!

♪

Her dearness was
without limit...

♪

And it was almost intolerable.

♪

♪

♪

Annie Sullivan

would be the first woman

to have her ashes placed in

the National Cathedral.

♪

Helen was consumed with grief.

She needed to mourn in private,

so she went to Scotland

with Polly.

♪

Dear, brave Polly

now reads to me with her fingers

when I can pay any attention.

The anguish which makes me feel

cut in two

prevents me from
writing another word

about these
life-wrecking changes.

♪

This was a time

of tremendous healing for her.

It was also a time
of tremendous grief.

But it was very important.

She wrote a book which
chronicles the year

after Annie's death.

It is, in some ways,
the least polished

of her books,
but I find it to be

the most truthful,
the most heartfelt.

It's very painful
to read, sometimes,

because of the anguish
that she's feeling

over Annie's death,

but it's also very beautiful

and you, as a reader,

get a very strong taste
of their relationship.

♪

I saw no other way

to accomplish a task
of extreme difficulty

and delicacy...

Reintegrating my life,

so shaken and lacerated

by Teacher's going.

It is as if all objects

dear to my touch

and paths familiar to my feet

had vanished.

♪

Keller,

with Polly at her side,

continued her work with the AFB.

As the Nazis rose to power,

she stood her ground

when her German
publisher insisted

her books be heavily censored.

Helen refused.

I ask you please

to drop all my writings

from your list of publications.

Her books were among

those publicly burned.

♪

During World War II,

Helen and Polly visited

military hospitals
across the country,

talking to wounded soldiers.

To try to brace

the newly blinded and
the newly deafened,

my comrades

along the roads of
darkness and silence.

The variety of their
hands is infinite...

Hands hardened by manual labor,

slender hands aquiver
with thought;

powerful, nervous hands;

hands pitifully defaced

by burns.

♪

After the atomic bombs

were dropped on Nagasaki

and Hiroshima, forcing
Japan's surrender,

Keller is invited
to tour the country

during
the U.S. occupation.

Helen had visited

Blind advocates there
years before.

A more gracious

compliment could not
have been paid me

than General MacArthur's

granting this opportunity

to be reunited with

my Japanese Blind
and Deaf fellows.

His interest will, I am sure,

draw to our standard

the good-will
and the practical aid

that restore and heal.

Nagasaki was still

recovering from the atomic bomb

when Helen Keller went
there on pilgrimage.

♪

I think, at some level,

there's a kind of
practical mission

to her being sent

in that moment of
conciliation, right?

"You can learn to live
with the horror

of whatever casualty was caused

by our dropping of this bomb,

just as Keller does."

No sooner had

we arrived there

than the bitter irony of it all

gripped us overwhelmingly,

and it cost us

a supreme effort to speak.

♪

Jolting over what had once

been paved streets,

we visited the one grave...

All ashes...

Where ninety thousand

men, women, and children

were instantly killed.

We stumbled over

ground cluttered
in every direction...

Foundation-stones, timbers,

bits of machinery
and twisted girders.

Polly saw burns

on the face of
the welfare officer.

A shocking sight.

He let me touch his face,

and the rest is silence.

♪

And it was to these people

that I made the appeal.

Their affectionate welcome

will remain in my soul,

a holy memory...

And a reproach.

Keller's 1948 trip

to Japan convinced

the U.S. State
Department,

without a doubt, that she was

one of the most
effective ambassadors

that they'd ever had

and she was then used by

the State Department

to travel all over the world.

She went to Israel.

She went to South Africa.

She went throughout
Central America

and South America.

She went through

the Northern European countries.

She traveled extensively

throughout the Middle East.

And, wherever she went,

people certainly understood her

as an American,

but they also understood her

as more than that,

that she transcended nationhood,

that she represented

what people had in common,

despite their

nationalistic differences.

I know every step

on the road you are traveling...

"I know

every step of the road
you are taking..."

and I rejoice at your cheer
and determination.

"and I rejoice at your cheer
and determination."

The obstacles you meet are many.

"Because the obstacles
you meet are many."

And, when you go out
to life's struggles

and adventures...

"And, when you go out

to life's struggles
and adventures..."

you will raise a banner...

"you will raise
a banner..."

for the Deaf who follow you.

"for the Deaf
who follow you."

Blindness

with a big "B"

has never interested me.

I've always looked on the Blind

as part of the whole of society

and my desire is to help them

regain their human rights.

What I say of the Blind

applies equally to all
hindered groups...

The Deaf, the impoverished,

the mentally disturbed.

Over the next decade,

the U.S. government
would develop

its goodwill ambassador program.

Keller visited more than

three dozen countries

addressing issues of
importance to her...

Education and employment

for people with disabilities,

poverty, and women's rights.

She often went to countries

after controversial struggles

over equality had taken place,

such as apartheid
in South Africa.

And to you,

Miss Keller,
we present this scroll

for being the outstanding woman

in social service work

and who is an inspiration,

not only to the handicapped,

but to all of us,

for your courage
and indomitable will.

Now living

in Connecticut,

Helen and Polly had a
new group of friends,

including the then-famous

Broadway star Katharine Cornell

and her partner, Nancy Hamilton.

Together, they made

a documentary filled with

staged scenes of daily life.

They sort of present

her and Polly Thomson

as these two sort of
spinster ladies

who were kind of
doing good works,

but they don't really explain

what the good works are.

It wasn't really about
her intellectual life.

I mean, they do have a scene,

I think, of her typing a letter,

or something, but
it's kind of unclear

what the content
of what she's writing

might be about.

With Helen's

permission,

playwright William Gibson

dramatized her childhood

in a TV program,

on the Broadway stage,

and, finally, a feature film

starring Anne Bancroft

and Patty Duke...

All hugely popular.

♪

Helen was coming to the end

of a full and accomplished life,

but her legacy would
be overshadowed.

She would live on

as the girl at the water pump.

♪

So, the end result,

by the time the film version and

the stage version of

"The Miracle Worker"
do their work...

Do their miracle work...

Is they, in many ways,

kill off Helen Keller,

culturally, socially,

and we get a child
at the water pump.

We get Patty Duke.

So, in some ways,

I find that the most
bizarre thing.

It has overtones

of an American story

that we like to tell ourselves,

about, "If you just
work hard enough,

you can overcome anything,"

which, of course,
we know is a myth,

but it's still very popular.

It has a kind of
Christian overlay.

I mean, I think
the whole business

about the pump, about the water,

that it's that word, you know,

has a kind of
inference of baptism,

of being born again.

So I think,
all of that combined,

it just makes it
a really, really

compelling story,

but I think we need
to think about it.

It's not something

that you really think about in

a sophisticated way,

apart from what
the standard story is,

and then, two,
it's something that,

if you are a person
with a disability,

as I was, always made you

just a little uncomfortable.

Because either, "A,"

Helen Keller was something

that was presented

as a model or as, you know,

as a super person
with a disability,

you know, and that you had

to live up to;

or, "B," you know,

was somebody who,
again, was the stuff

of a lot of really
terrible jokes.

And so, you know,

those kind of associations

are not something, you know,

as a young kid, you know,

you're comfortable with.

♪

I think it's very

difficult for a
21st-century audience

to connect with

the image of Helen Keller

that the 20th century produced.

And that's partly because

she represents ideas

about purity and self-sacrifice

that are very sentimental

and that we don't have

a culture of sentiment anymore,

that sentiment is

something we make fun of.

That more people are going

to know Helen Keller

from the jokes that
are made about her

than they are from
the original images.

And the fact that

we have, in essence,

whitewashed her to that extent,

we've made her boring,
to a great extent,

is not fair to Helen Keller

and it paints a very limited...

Very limited... picture

of people with
disabilities today

and what their lives
can be like,

and what their lives are like.

We need to, I think,
recognize her

as a fully complex,
contradictory,

interesting, quirky person

of very firm convictions,

very important to
her nation's history,

but also, not perfect.

And that represents

a far more realistic picture

for people with
disabilities today.

It represents

a far more realistic picture

of what we, as a country are

and what we can do, as people.

Polly died in 1960.

♪

A series of strokes

began to sideline Helen

and ultimately forced
her retirement

from public life.

♪

In April 1961,

Keller gave what would
be her last speech.

It was a visionary one,

calling for more funds
and special education

for children with disabilities.

There seems to be a

growing conviction that
the Federal government

should at least provide

education and funds

to promote the
schooling of children

who are physically, mentally,

or emotionally handicapped.

Think of it...

Probably 75 percent of
all such children

are denied the right
to any education!

♪

Of course we know how expensive

special education is...

♪

But America should provide

this advantage.

♪

She's a person who

tried to bring about
certain changes

without the force
of law behind them.

She was really sort of
an advance scout.

♪

Helen Keller died

on June 1, 1968.

She took her place

next to Annie and Polly

at the National Cathedral.

♪

I cannot understand

why anyone should fear death.

Life here is more
cruel than death.

I believe that when

the eyes within my physical eyes

shall open upon
the world to come,

I shall simply be
consciously living

in the country of my heart.

♪

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♪

♪

O0 C1 P
The Arthur Vining Davis
Foundations

Investing in our common future.

The National Endowment
for the Humanities...

Bringing you the stories
that define us

♪

♪

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