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When a little girl named Helen Keller was rendered blind and deaf after a bout of meningitis, her family was desperate for help. They didn't know how to reach through their daughter's double disability to the intelligent person within. By the time she was six years old she had grown difficult to deal with. They turned to Alexander Graham Bell who was best known for inventing the telephone. His main vocation, however, was as a teacher of the deaf. His son-in-law directed the Perkins Institute for the Deaf and Blind.
Bell suggested that they hire Anne Sullivan as a live in tutor for Helen. Anne was a twenty one year old graduate of Perkins Institute for the Deaf and Blind. She was, herself, almost blind as a result of trachoma during childhood.
Anne Sullivan was able to figure out how to communicate with Helen by pressing manual alphabet signs into her palms. In due time, she would also help Helen Keller learn to speak by letting her feel the vibrations in her throat and the movements of her mouth. Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan quickly became world renowned for their achievements. Helen Keller would eventually graduate Cum Laude from Ratcliffe College after "listening to" lectures through Anne Sullivan's hands.
Miss Sullivan was christened under the name Johanna Sullivan. She was also called Anne or Annie. She was born in 1866 in Feeding Hills, Massachusetts. When she was eight years old her mother died, and two years later her father deserted the children, Anne and her two siblings. She entered Perkins in 1880, then in 1881 had surgery that partially restored her sight. In 1886 she graduated at the top of her class.
Sullivan married John Albert Macy in 1905. He was a literary critic and helped Helen Keller write her autobiography. The marriage was not happy, however, and the couple separated permanently in 1913.
Anne Sullivan received an honorary degree from Temple University in 1932. Nella Braddy wrote a book about her called Anne Sullivan Macy and it was published in 1933. Helen Keller wrote a book about her entitled Teacher: Anne Sullivan Macy. It was published in 1955 and reprinted in 1985. In 1956 William Gibson wrote the television play, The Miracle Worker, and in 1959 it was produced as a Broadway play, then in 1962 it became a film. In 1976 Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis proclaimed the week of October 17-23 Anne Sullivan week. On October 16, 1977, a plaque honoring her was unveiled at her birthplace. A monument to Anne Sullivan in Feeding Hills Center had a Braille plaque added that same day. In 1980 a book by Joseph P. Lash called Helen and Teacher was published. It was republished in 1997.
By 1935 Anne Sullivan was again completely blind. Perhaps her greatest honor was Helen Keller's belief that Anne Sullivan was God's gift to her. Miss Keller and Anne Sullivan were the closest of friends until Sullivan's death in 1936 at the age of seventy years.
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