Woman of the Month: Teacher of the World
Helen Keller, world-famous for her perseverance and accomplishments, would have been none of those things without Anne Sullivan.
On April 14, 1866, in Feeding Hills, MA, Anne Sullivan was born to Irish immigrants, Alice and Thomas Sullivan. Anne faced many challenges from the beginning. Her mother’s contraction of tuberculosis when Anne was an infant left her at the mercy of her alcoholic, abusive father. When Alice eventually succumbed to the disease in 1875, Thomas abandoned his children. Anne’s sister Mary was quickly taken in by an uncle. Anne, who was partially blind due to an infection called trachoma, and her brother Jimmie, who had a tubercular hip, were sent to live at the Tewksbury poorhouse.
Anne and Jimmie were the only children in a home for poor, sick, disabled, and dying adults (Turning the key: Anne Sullivan, Helen’s teacher ). The home was overrun with cockroaches and rats, and the children played in the room where dead bodies were stored prior to burial. Jimmie died a few months after arriving, leaving Anne companionless. Abandoned by her family, and her world growing darker with every blink due to small bumps in her eyelids, Anne’s time there left her with “the conviction that life is primarily cruel and bitter” (Anne Sullivan Macy [Encyclopedia of World Biography Online]).
In 1880, the head of the State Board of Charities, Franklin Sanborn, inspected the Tewksbury poorhouse. As he was departing, Anne rushed toward him and begged to be allowed to attend school. Moved by the girl’s desperation, Sanborn agreed. In the fall of that year, Anne was enrolled in Perkins Institution for the Blind, in Boston.
Fourteen-year-old Anne was far behind her peers, educationally and socially. She had never attended school, and “hid her insecurities under a defiant attitude and showed little respect for her teachers” (Anne Sullivan Macy [Encyclopedia of World Biography Online]). Anne’s teachers recognized the headstrong girl’s potential and encouraged her to read, write, and learn math. Anne saw her opportunities grow when two surgeries partially restored her vision. After six years at Perkins, she graduated valedictorian.
In the summer of 1886, the director of Perkins, Michael Anagnos, received a request from Arthur Keller for a governess for his blind, deaf, mute, six-year-old daughter, Helen. Anagnos offered Anne the position, and despite her qualms, she accepted it.
Anne had only ever met one other deaf-blind person, Laura Bridgman. Bridgman was a fellow Perkins student for whom Anne had learned the manual alphabet. The manual alphabet is a method of spelling out words onto the hand of a deaf-blind person. To prepare for her new position, she studied the tactics of Bridgman’s teacher, Samuel Howe.
On March 3, 1887, Anne arrived in Tuscumbia, AL. Helen later described the moment in her autobiography The Story of My Life, explaining “I went to the door and waited on the steps…. I felt approaching footsteps. I stretched out my hand…. Some one took it, and I was caught up and held close in her arms who had come to reveal all things to me, and, more than all things else, to love me” (Sullivan, Anne Mansfield). Anne had planned to teach Helen the manual alphabet to connect ideas with names, but she hit a major roadblock from the start. Helen was a spoiled, strong-willed child prone to tantrums. Her parents, the Kellers, could never bring themselves to discipline the child and resented any efforts to do so on Anne’s part (Anne Sullivan Macy [Contemporary Heroes and Heroines]). Recognizing the impossibility of working with the parents, Anne persuaded Helen’s father to allow them to work in a cottage away from the main house (Anne Sullivan). She hoped that nature could help calm Helen, and that the neutral space would allow the pair to establish a bond of trust and acceptance.
After two weeks of Helen struggling to understand the connection between words and objects, they experienced a breakthrough. On April 5, 1887, Anne held Helen’s hand under the water from the garden pump while signing W-A-T-E-R, repeatedly in her other hand. Helen’s mind was unlocked; she realized Anne’s words represented objects. From that point on, Helen was excited to learn, demanding to know the names of everything.
Anne taught Helen through firsthand world experiences, rather than in a classroom. She would sculpt mountains and valleys from clay by a river, have Helen “watch” farmers plant crops, and read with her in trees. In this way, she taught Helen geography, history, math, and language, managing to teach her nouns, verbs, adjectives, and even abstract concepts.
“The constant effort to observe, read, explain, and spell for Helen took its toll on Sullivan’s health, and in 1889, she returned to Boston for eye treatments.” (Anne Sullivan Macy [Contemporary Heroes and Heroines]) Helen soon joined her in Boston to attend Perkins. During her time at Perkins, Anne attempted to teach Helen to communicate verbally, but only a few people could understand her speech.
In the 1890s, the Kellers found themselves unable to finance Helen’s continuing education. While Anne was offered governess positions, she had long ago decided her life was meant for Helen. Because Anne’s success with Helen was well-known, benefactors stepped in to support the women. Among them were Andrew Carnegie and John Spaulding.
In 1900, Helen became the first deaf or blind person to pursue a college education when she attended Radcliffe College. Anne attended all her classes, translating information with the manual alphabet, and helping Helen complete her reading and writing assignments. As a result, Anne’s eyes suffered and she was ordered by Helen and doctors to rest.
Anne faced negativity for her support of Helen’s ambitions. When Helen attended Radcliffe College, “the school’s director criticized Sullivan and accused her of overworking her pupil” (Anne Sullivan Macy [Encyclopedia of World Biography Online]). Additionally, some people labeled Anne manipulative because she demanded such excellence of Helen. They believed Anne intentionally caused Helen to be dependent on her. In fact, both women relied on the other. According to biographer Nella Braddy: “as long as Annie Sullivan lived, a question remained as to how much of what was called Helen Keller was in reality, Annie Sullivan. The answer is not simple. During the creative years neither could have done without the other.” (Anne Sullivan Macy [Encyclopedia of World Biography Online]) Anne’s influence is present in all of Helen’s work. Anne helped her research for books, lectured with her across America, and “when calls and letters from the newly blind or deaf came, it was usually Anne who responded, offering hope and advice” (Turning the key: Anne Sullivan, Helen’s teacher).
When Helen graduated Radcliffe with honors in 1904, she and many others were upset that Anne was not also granted a degree. It was only twenty-eight years later that Anne finally received an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Temple University.
In 1905, Anne married John Macy, a Harvard instructor whom the women had become acquainted with at Radcliffe. When the pair began writing The Story of My Life in 1902, Macy aided in writing and editing. Spending long hours together, Anne and Macy began to fall in love with one another. Fearful that a romantic relationship with him would damage her relationship with Helen, and vice-versa, Anne initially resisted Macy’s proposals. Eventually, she caved and the two were married on May 2.
The couple and Helen lived together in a farmhouse the women had bought in Wrentham, MA. Nine years later, Anne’s fears came true. Devoted to Helen, Anne spent little time with her husband, and with the three of them reliant on Helen’s income, Macy began to doubt his wife’s intentions. In 1914, the pair permanently separated, and Macy left for Europe.
Exhausted, overweight, in poor health, and mourning the breakdown of her marriage, Anne descended into depression. To ease the strain on Anne, Helen hired Polly Thomson as her secretary. The addition of Polly into the household allowed Anne to rest and regain some of her strength.
In 1920, the women “turned to vaudeville as a source of income” (Anne Sullivan Macy [Encyclopedia of World Biography Online]). Their act consisted of Anne describing how she taught Helen to communicate and of Helen explaining how people rely on others. They performed for three years, with Polly stepping in when Anne was unable due to illness. After some time, all three women accepted positions raising awareness of blindness for the American Federation for the Blind (Anne Sullivan). They toured the country delivering speeches and raising funds for the organization.
In her sixties, Anne’s health rapidly deteriorated. In 1929, at age 64, constant pain forced the removal of her right eye, and by age sixty-nine she was completely blind. On October 20, 1936, Anne Sullivan Macy died of myocarditis and arteriosclerosis. On November 2, she became the first woman to be interred at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.
Today, everyone knows who Helen Keller is and how she changed the world for people with disabilities. But she never would have had the opportunity to promote the education of and aid for those with vision loss without the help of her teacher, Anne Sullivan. Like many of the teachers we encounter in our lives, Anne facilitated Helen’s exploration and understanding of the world. Having barely finished her own education, Anne had no experience educating a child, much less one without the ability to see or hear. Her only frame of reference was the skills she had acquired while attending Perkins and how they had addressed her disability. When she struggled to get through to the stubborn and spoiled Helen, she could have given up and forsaken her, but she was determined to open Helen’s eyes in the way her own had been opened. With extreme patience, she continued her attempts to help the child connect her hand movements with objects. When the pair experienced the “water breakthrough,” Helen’s understanding was awoken because of Anne’s perseverance and dedication.
Anne devoted her entire life to Helen, and as a result, to generations of deaf and blind people. Prior to Helen Keller, with the exception of Laura Bridgman, those with severe disabilities were ignored, unable to acquire an education, and were frequently forced to molder in almshouses, similar to the one in which Anne spent four years. Helen’s ability to engage in society, as a result of Anne’s aid, demonstrated that people with disabilities deserve equal opportunities and treatment. Anne’s work with Helen gave hope to those with vision or hearing loss, and inspired them to strive for full lives. She may have spent her life as Helen Keller’s teacher, but Anne Sullivan was and still is the teacher of the world.
