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    The Story of My Life
    The Story of My Life
    The Story of My Life
    Ebook313 pages6 hours

    The Story of My Life

    By Helen Keller

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    About this ebook

    Enriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentary. Each book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their work.

    Left blind, deaf, and mute after an illness in infancy, Helen Keller overcame her disabilities with the help of Anne Sullivan, her inspired teacher. Her classic autobiography, first published in 1903, covers her first twenty-two years, including the memorable moment at a water pump when she first made the connection between the word “water” and the cold liquid flowing over her hand. She also discusses her friendships with Oliver Wendell Holmes and other notables, her education at Radcliffe, her joy at learning to speak, and above all, her extraordinary relationship with her teacher. This deeply moving memoir, full of love and compassion for others, offers an unforgettable portrait of one of the twentieth century’s most remarkable women.

    Enriched Classics enhance your engagement by introducing and explaining the historical and cultural significance of the work, the author’s personal history, and what impact this book had on subsequent scholarship. Each book includes discussion questions that help clarify and reinforce major themes and reading recommendations for further research.

    Read with confidence.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster
    Release dateJul 17, 2014
    ISBN9781439117149
    Author

    Helen Keller

    Helen Keller would not be bound by conditions. Rendered deaf and blind at 19 months by scarlet fever, she learned to read (in several languages) and even speak, eventually graduating with honors from Radcliffe College in 1904, where as a student she wrote The Story of My Life. That she accomplished all of this in an age when few women attended college and the disabled were often relegated to the background, spoken of only in hushed tones, is remarkable. But Keller's many other achievements are impressive by any standard: she authored 13 books, wrote countless articles, and devoted her life to social reform. An active and effective suffragist, pacifist, and socialist (the latter association earned her an FBI file), she lectured on behalf of disabled people everywhere. She also helped start several foundations that continue to improve the lives of the deaf and blind around the world.

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    Reviews for The Story of My Life

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    • 5/5
      I wish I had read this sooner. What I remember of what I was taught about Keller was never from her perspective. It was how she was so difficult and generally lived a secluded life. But when she tells her own story, it is with such persistent and unapologetic optimism. I found her struggle with knowing what ideas were her own fascinating. If all you have is the description provided from others, it must be profoundly challenging to form original thoughts in certain areas. That resonated with me and struck me. Not only is Keller an example of a person with disabilities defying stereotypes, but she even has the nerve to do so with joy! *jawdrop* Keller found such pure beauty and eloquently expressed her appreciation for what she was grateful for. She is a person I know I admire, and I would put this short read on a required reading list for sure!
    • 4/5
      I became interested in reading Helen Keller's autobiography after seeing the original movie "The Miracle Worker", now one of my favourites. I was a bit sorry when all of that was dispensed with in the first four chapters, and discovered that Miss Keller's account hardly matches the movie version. I chalked up the difference to Hollywood invention - a bit disappointing. Helen relates her story up to her college years and is fairly lacklustre as far as biographies go. Mostly it's devoted to discoveries about the things she most grew to love. Highlights include famous people she met (Mark Twain being my favourite), and her surprising daring at trying things I wouldn't have expected - riding a bicycle and rowing a boat alone, for example.She was very descriptive throughout, almost poetic, which greatly impressed me. Then in Chapter Fourteen comes the poem she wrote and was accused of plagiarizing. She gives a convincing account of how this must have occurred subconsciously, and what a setback it was to suspect every thought she had as not being her own. It also cast my reading in a different light: how much of the descriptive detail I'd been admiring had she simply echoed? It earned my sympathy to read about this circumstance in which she could no longer trust her own imagination. Fortunately she found the confidence to pursue her dream of a college education, which is where her biography (written in her early twenties) draws to a close. While I admired her bravery, it wasn't a standout biography for me. Before I set it aside, I saw there were substantial appendices so I gave those a peek. The first was a collection of letters. While the content was fairly dull, it was remarkable how quickly she progressed in vocabulary and grammar. In the space of two years she went from discovering words to writing age-appropriate letters to her friends and family. After those, I discovered the real treasure: a retelling of her biography from the perspective of her teacher, Anne Sullivan. Its preface explains that Helen Keller had little memory of her life prior to being educated, nor could she convey an outside perspective of what her education had entailed. Miss Sullivan's account is an almost scene-for-scene description of what occurs in the movie - surprise! Then it goes well beyond that, relating Miss Keller's remarkable development from her teacher's viewpoint. This was the biography I'd imagined reading in the first place. I was hooked.I'm tempted to recommend others go straight to Anne Sullivan's account. But in hindsight I can say it's worth your time to read both sides (internal and external) for the full picture of this remarkable woman's experience in being awakened to the wonders of life and language.
    • 2/5
      The Story of My Life by Helen Keller is told in four parts: first Helen's own account, then Anne Sullivan's account, their assistant John Macy's account, and finally a collection of Helen's letters over time and and appendix of further accounts previously referenced in the book. The only part I enjoyed was Anne Sullivan's section, which consists of letters she wrote detailing her teaching efforts. Helen's section was well written and she's clearly very nice, but it just didn't contain much that was interesting about how she felt. Everyone is sweet, delightful, wonderful. Macy didn't have anything to add that hadn't been said in the first half of the book, and the fairly lengthy section of Helen's letters added nothing to the book at all except a glimpse at how her language skills progressed, which again had already been said. All in all, I was pretty disappointed and wouldn't recommend this particular book.
    • 3/5
      I remember reading this 10 years ago, such is the lasting impression of some people. The book was not easy to get into but this is such an awe-inspiring biography, an absolute miracle worker.
    • 4/5
      this autobiography of Helen Keller is of interest, and some of the extra mateial in this book is of interest, but there are a lot of boring letters by Helen Keller which taxed my patience and added nothing of interest. The actual story of how she came to learn and actuaally graduated from Radcliffe is of interest and worth reading.
    • 5/5
      Amazing, Incredible, Wonderful, Brilliant... There aren't enough superlatives to describe Helen Keller. It boggles my mind how fully she was able to live life and the people she met. Ann Sullivan must have been the greatest, most loving teacher ever! It has always fascinated me that she could learn so much and be able to enjoy such a full life, both deaf and blind. It is difficult to believe that the descriptions and knowledge imparted by her in this book are from a deaf, blind person. Most sighted, hearing people don't live life to the fullest. Her example is inspiring and humbling. This edition has a reiteration of each chapter (not necessary) and pertinent questions.
    • 4/5
      A wonderful book about a brilliant, loving young woman who just happened to be blind and deaf. When Helen was 19, she penned the following words in a letter: "The thought that my dear Heavenly Father is always near, giving me abundantly of all those things, which truly enrich life and make it sweet and beautiful, makes every deprivation seem of little moment compared with the countless blessings I enjoy."Anne Sullivan, her famous tutor, taught Helen at age 11 that "the best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen nor even touched, but just felt in the heart."
    • 1/5
      This was incredibly disappointing...more like a text book than a memoir.
    • 5/5
      This "restored" edition has been reedited by Roger Shattuck to reflect more accurately its original compostiion, presenting Helen Keller's story in three successive accounts: Helen's own version; the letters of "teacher" Anne s"ullivan, shubmerged in the original; and thevaluable documentation frunished by their young assistant, John Marcy.Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, in 1880. Before her second birhtday, a mysterious illness left her deaf and blind. She graduated with honors from Radcliffe College in 1904, on year fafter the initial publication of The Story Of My Life, and wa the author of thriteen books. She died in 1968. Roger Shattuck, author of Forbidden Knowledge and The Banquet Years, won the National Book Award for a work abot Marcel Proust. University Professor Emeritus at Boston University, Shattuck lives in Vermont. Dorothy Herrmann is the author of Helen Keller: A Life and of three other biographies. She lives in New Hope, Pennsylvania, and New York City.Jacket Design by Eleen Cheung Jacket Photograph by Library of Congress Printed in USA
    • 3/5
      Not a great book, but one that can definitely convice a person that they have things pretty easy. Her struggle enables us to appreciate much of what we take for granted. This is definitely an inspirational book.
    • 4/5
      Summary: Helen is both blind and deaf, it seems all hope is lost-enter Anne Sullivan the miracle worker. With persistence and love little Helen learns not only how to survive but how to thrive.Summary: "Everything has it's wonders, even darkness and silence , and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content."
    • 5/5
      Written when Helen Keller was 22, "The Story of My Life" is about her life as a child and young lady. She was not born blind and deaf, but as a toddler suffered an illness that almost killed her and robbed her of her sight and hearing. Helen was seemingly unteachable and growing wilder each day until Helen's parents hired Anne Sullivan who was to become her beloved "Teacher". Helen became a proficient student, learning not only to read and write and speak, but also learning several languages eventually graduating from Radcliffe College. This is an extraordinary book about an extraordinary woman. The book is divided into two parts: Keller's autobiography and her letters. Her autobiography is written a bit flowery, but is interesting as she describes her early years and how she tried to communicate with people and her increasing frustration when they couldn't understand her. She writes about how Anne Sullivan finally got her to understand the word for "water" and how she quickly learned other words after that breakthrough. She tackles what was a very painful time in her young life when she was accused of plagiarizing a story when she was only 11 years old. She ends her autobiography by describing the things she loves in life: reading (books that she loves and her favorite authors), history, languages, the outdoors, sailing and visiting friends. As interesting as Keller's autobiography is, her letters reveal even more about her life. Printed in chronological order, starting when Helen was just 7 years old, the letters show how quickly her grammar and writing skills developed. In the autobiographical section of the book, it is easy to forget that Keller was deaf and blind as she writes about talking to people and things that she's seen. Her letters explain better how people communicated with her and even the toll it took on Anne Sullivan, who had continuous problems with her eyes. Her letters explain how she wrote letters using a special board and a regular pencil and how she was able to read people's lips and feel things in a museum to get an appreciation of art. Very interesting reading. My only complaint about this wonderful book is the editing. The book was first published in 1903 and has been in print ever since, but I wonder when it was last edited. There are notations that a footnote will follow but there is no footnote. There are mentions of people who were well known in Helen's time, but today's readers might not know how they were and footnotes should have been used to explain who they were, starting with Laura Bridgman who apparently was the inspiration for much of the education the young Helen got. Also, Helen raised money for the education of a blind and deaf boy, but there was no mention of what happened to him later in life. Editing aside, this is a wonderful, inspirational book and I highly recommend it.
    • 3/5
      I have mixed feelings about this (audio)book. For writing style, I'd give it 2 stars, OK, but for the content of Helen Keller's life--amazing! In fact, I doubt that the formal writing style did Keller's life and accomplishments full justice. So, I'm giving the book 3 stars as an average, but am much more impressed by Keller, herself!
    • 4/5
      This book is about the life of Helen Keller. The book starts when Helen is a child. Helen describes herself as stubborn and angry. She lived in a world of dark for a few years of her life. Helen talks about the years before and after Annie Sullivan, her teacher arrive. The story continues to show how Helen and Annie worked together to accomplish the many learning skills that Helen learned. This book is inspirational and a great book to show to children that may or may not have disabilities.
    • 4/5
      Earlier this year, Andrew was heading to pick up Jefferson in Chicago, and wanted a book to entertain him in the car on the way home. I handed him a children's biography of Helen Heller that I had loved as a child. Evidently Jefferson loved it, too. So for our Christmas road-trip I was sure to include a biography of her teacher, Anne Sullivan, also from my childhood, in my bag of tricks. These things, combined with coming across references to Helen Keller as a progressive icon in her adult life, made me grab this memoir for my stack of prospective New Year's Eve reads.

      As it turns out, Keller wrote this autobiography at the age of 22, so it didn't get me any closer to understanding her activism in later life. But this slim book is still remarkable for the joy in life that leaks through the print, and then conversely her intensely introspective self-criticism for limitations that I feel NEARLY EVER OTHER HUMAN BEING HAD AT HER AGE.

      I am happy to have read it and will be glad to share it with Jefferson, but I think I'll wait a few years, so the descriptions of her prep school and college studies will be more relatable.
    • 4/5
      This is an interesting look at Ms. Keller's young life - learning to communicate in a world where her blindness and deafness isolate her from just about everyone at first. Some of the passages don't seem as if they could be written by someone who was blind and deaf. Her descriptions of nature - particularly the sounds - seem improbable. Perhaps this was a result of her education - the ability to describe things for others that she didn't actually have firsthand experience with but only experience from Ms. Sullivan's descriptions. I certainly admire Ms. Keller's persistence and her keen mind. How many seeing and hearing people today master four languages by the time they have entered college??
    • 5/5
      At first I thought I was going to be disappointed, which surprised me, because I love every Helen Keller quote I come across. But the beginning paragraphs are of the typical, what I call "Genesis" kind. My father was so-and-so, my mother was so-and-so, I'm related to blah, blah and blah etc. And the narrator's voice can be a bit grating. But the language very quickly changed and the narrator's voice became more comfortable with familiarity.Helen Keller has possibly the most joyous and vividly beautiful approach to language that I have yet encountered. She was clearly a natural at PR from an early age; her affectionate, naïve and idealistic enthusiasm for "good works" brought tears to my eyes. I felt very chastened by the end. Despite regular references to her deprivations (perhaps a fraction overstressed), she retains a lilting and joyous outlook throughout. It made me realise the value of choosing to abstain from noxious literature; she is so filled with beauty that it is beauty she chooses to express in everything, including the letters which accompany the main book. This book is cause for serious moral reflection in the best possible way.
    • 4/5
      An amazing autobiography by Helen Keller. An illness makes her both deaf and blind as a little child. With the help of an untiring and patient teacher she learns how to communicate with the outer world through sign language signed into her hand, and later she learns to read and even reaches the university.What struck me most was the joyous spirit she possesses. Her wonder and appreciation of nature, friends, art, litterature and just the exitement of the everyday events like smelling a flower or touching a dog. She enjoys going to the museum and let her hand grace the sculptures: I sometimes wonder if the hand is not more sensitive to the beauties of sculpture than the eye. I should think the wonderful rhythmical flow of lines and curves could be more subtly felt than seen. Be this as it may, I know that I can feel the heartthrobs of the ancient Greeks in their marble gods and goddesses.I found her determination and joy in the everyday life very refreshing and inspiring, despite of her limitations and sorrow. Is it not true, then, that my life with all its limitations touches at many points the life of the World Beautiful? Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content. Sometimes, it is true, a sense of isolation enfolds me like a cold mist as I sit alone and wait at life’s shut gate. Beyond there is light, and music, and sweet companionship; but I may not enter. Fate, silent, pitiless, bars the way…. Silence sits immense upon my soul. Then comes hope with a gentle smile and whispers, “There is joy in selfforgetfulness”. So I try to make the light in others’ eyes my sun, the music in others’ ears my symphony, the smile on others’ lips my happiness.
    • 2/5
      Hat mich schon länger interessiert, ich hab allerdings nur den Autobio-Teil gelesen, (noch) nicht die Briefe. Etwas sehr klischeebeladen, aber doch beeindruckend, was diese sehr begabte und ambitionierte Frau (die mit knapp zwei Jahren Gehör und Augenlicht verloren hat) geschafft hat.
    • 4/5
      Where I got the book: purchased from Amazon. A Book Wizards book club read.This was one of those books I managed to miss reading during my childhood years—I wonder what impression it would have made on me then? It is, of course, Helen Keller’s own story about how her teacher Annie Sullivan helped her escape the dark and silent world an early illness had thrust her into by teaching the deaf and blind girl to communicate via touch and, eventually, speech.I found many aspects of Helen’s story fascinating, although I wasn’t entirely sure I would have liked Helen had I met her. She admits to being a tyrant in her early years—to bullying the little black girl who was assigned to serve her and to venting her frustration on all those around her—and I suspect that the amount of attention she received as she grew up probably left its mark, despite the sugary-sweet language she uses in the style of her era. In an age where disability is seen as no bar to being out in the community, to employment and to acceptance, it’s hard to imagine how limited Helen’s prospects must have seemed when she was a child—and that was an aspect of things much discussed by the Book Wizards, who are all themselves cognitively disabled. And yet, then as now, the solution was money—Helen’s parents had the resources to employ a full-time, live-in teacher and this, combined with Helen’s high level of intelligence, determination and the gift of study, ensured that she was able to live up to her full potential. Teachers of the twenty-first century might note that Helen became proficient in several languages, both ancient and modern—how much we’ve lost!The edition I’m reviewing (the “Restored Edition” from Modern Library) is an excellent one, with plenty of photos (it’s amazing how many celebrities of the day Helen met, another indication of her privileged life) and supplemental materials such as letters and a piece written by Annie Sullivan. I didn’t get round to reading them, but I’m hoping to at some point.

    Book preview

    The Story of My Life - Helen Keller

    CONTENTS

    INTRODUCTION

    CHRONOLOGY OF HELEN KELLER’S LIFE AND WORK

    HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF The Story of My Life

    THE STORY OF MY LIFE

    LETTERS

    INTERPRETIVE NOTES

    CRITICAL EXCERPTS

    QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

    SUGGESTIONS FOR THE INTERESTED READER

    NOTES

    INTRODUCTION

    The Story of My Life: A JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY

    I do not object to harsh criticism, said Helen Keller, so long as I am treated like a human being who has a mind of her own. The Story of My Life, published when Keller was just twenty-two, is not only the assertion of a young woman that she does indeed have a mind of her own, but the story of how she came to be that lively and intelligent young woman.

    Most of us know Helen Keller as the little deaf and blind girl who triumphed over adversity to become world-famous. Perhaps we have seen the movie The Miracle Worker, with its well-known scene where Keller discovers the meaning of the word water. Perhaps we have heard—or even told—Helen Keller jokes. But as The Story of My Life shows, Keller’s life is neither a miracle nor a joke. It is a tremendous achievement. Seemingly destined to be imprisoned in darkness and isolation for the rest of her life, Keller built upon the brilliant work of her teacher, Anne Sullivan, to become a nationally recognized and respected figure.

    Kellers determination to learn, her passion for experience, and her refusal to allow society to define her are inspiring, but they are somewhat daunting, too. How can any of us hope to be as strong as Helen Keller? Yet, reading Keller’s story, we see that she is still human. Like us, she sometimes loses her temper when she doesn’t get her way. She gets irritated by people’s ignorance. She even complains about doing her homework.

    More than anything else, The Story of My Life is a journey of discovery. Language allowed Helen Keller to discover the world, and language is the means she uses to try to make sense of it, and herself. She asks perhaps the most important question we can ask as human beings—Who am I?—and in answering that question, she tells us something of who we are.

    The Life and Work of Helen Keller

    Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama, to Captain Arthur Henry Keller, a Confederate army veteran and a newspaper editor, and Kate Adams Keller. By all accounts, she was a normal infant. But at nineteen months Keller suffered an illness—perhaps scarlet fever or meningitis—that left her deaf and blind. Although Keller learned basic household tasks and could communicate some of her desires through a series of signs, she did not learn language the way other children do. Indeed, her family—and most people at the time—wondered if a deaf and blind child could be educated at all.

    When Keller was six, her mother managed to get in touch with Michael Anagnos, director of the Perkins Institution for the Blind, who agreed to send one of his graduates, Anne Sullivan, to teach Keller. Sullivan’s success is the stuff of legend. By the end of her initial round of work with Sullivan, Keller was well on her way to becoming the national celebrity and activist she would be for the rest of her life.

    After studying at the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf and the Cambridge School for Young Ladies, Keller entered Radcliffe College in 1900. In 1902 she began the series of articles for the Ladies’ Home Journal that was published as The Story of My Life in 1903. When she graduated from Radcliffe with high honors in 1904, some said that Anne Sullivan, who had been at her side the entire time, translating lectures and assisting with her lessons, deserved a degree, too.

    With royalties from The Story of My Life, Keller and Sullivan purchased a home together. In 1905 Sullivan married John Macy, who moved in with them. Macy, a Harvard English instructor and literary critic who had served as editor and literary agent for Keller’s book, was an ardent socialist and helped influence Keller’s political thinking.

    In 1908 Keller published The World I Live In, an account of how she experienced the world through touch, taste, and scent. In magazine articles she advocated for increased opportunities for the blind and for improving methods of reducing childhood blindness. Keller joined the Socialist Party of Massachusetts in 1909, and supported many Progressive-era causes, including birth control, labor unions, and the right of women to vote. She also opposed Americas involvement in World War I and contributed money to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), actions for which she was widely criticized. Her 1913 collection of essays on social and political issues, Out of the Dark, was poorly received. The fact that her audience would listen to stories of her life but not to her opinions and political theories was not lost on a frustrated Keller.

    In 1920, to make money, Keller and Sullivan toured the vaudeville circuit, performing scenes from their lives and answering audience questions. In 1924, her popularity somewhat recovered, Keller began working as a lecturer and fund-raiser for the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB). In 1927 she published My Religion, in which she described her experience with Swedenborgianism, a mystical form of Christianity. In 1929 she followed up The Story of My Life with Midstream: My Later Life. She continued advocating for the blind through the 1930s. Though she grew less politically outspoken, her progressive politics and support of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War eventually alarmed her employers and earned her an FBI file noting her Communist sympathies.

    In 1936, Anne Sullivan died. Keller was devastated. The two had been constant companions for nearly fifty years. Still, the dauntless Keller continued writing and lecturing. In 1937 she visited Japan, raising millions for the blind and deaf there, and in 1938 published Helen Keller’s Journal, 1936-1937 to wide acclaim. During World War II, Keller visited wounded soldiers. After the war she toured more than thirty countries, continuing her advocacy for the blind. In 1955 she published Teacher, her biography of Anne Sullivan, and in 1957 The Open Door, a collection of essays.

    In 1957, The Miracle Worker, a somewhat sentimental version of Keller’s early life, was broadcast live on television. Rewritten for the stage, it became a hit Broadway play in 1959 and an Academy Award–winning movie in 1962, ensuring Helen Keller’s lasting fame but effacing her complex and at times controversial adult life.

    In 1961 Keller suffered the first of a series of strokes and retired from public life. In 1964 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, by President Lyndon Johnson. She died on June 1, 1968, at her home in Arcan Ridge, Connecticut.

    Historical and Literary Context of The Story of My Life

    Education of the Deaf and Blind

    At the time The Story of My Life was published, the idea of a disabled person as an active member of society was radical. Though there were institutes for deaf students and blind students in America, they emphasized vocational education, training their graduates to earn a living the only way they supposed they could. Helen Keller’s education appeared nothing short of miraculous in comparison. It did, however, emerge from an identifiable tradition.

    The first American school for the blind was the Perkins Institution for the Blind, which opened in Boston in 1832. Its director, Samuel Gridley Howe, emphasized self-sufficiency and reading skills (using embossed, or raised, textbooks). In 1837 he taught seven-year-old Laura Bridgman, who had been deaf and blind since infancy, to read, first by using raised letters and then through a finger spelling system, or manual alphabet spelled into Bridgman’s palm. Bridgman and Howe both became famous.

    Anne Sullivan taught Keller the same manual alphabet, but instead of spelling single words, she spelled whole sentences into Keller’s hands. Sullivan believed Keller had the same capacity to learn language as other children and would acquire it in the same way, through repetition and imitation. Modern theories of language acquisition seem to bear her out, although Keller, nearly seven, was near the end of what most scientists regard as the critical period of language acquisition. Had Sullivan arrived a few months later, Keller might never have learned to speak at all.

    During Keller’s youth there were many competing systems of raised type for blind people. It was not until 1932 that the Braille system of six dots was recognized as a U.S. standard. Keller, who mastered multiple systems, was an early advocate for Braille and helped contribute to its acceptance.

    Education for the deaf was slowed by controversies over sign language. In 1817 Thomas Gallaudet, an early advocate of sign language, founded the Connecticut Asylum at Hartford for the Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons. Sign language flourished in America for many years, but some powerful figures, including Alexander Graham Bell, considered it a foreign language and insisted the deaf learn English. By 1880 the oralism advocates carried the day, and representatives at an international conference of educators of the deaf in Milan, Italy, passed a resolution banning the use of sign language to teach the deaf. Though sign language teaching did continue, the decision negatively affected attitudes toward it and limited its scope.

    Most educators today agree that disabled children should be educated with their peers, but advocates for the deaf point out that this can be harmful. Forcing deaf children to learn to communicate orally while denying them their natural language—sign language—can irrecoverably set back a deaf child’s educational and social development. Alexander Graham Bell, considered a hero by Keller, is now sharply criticized by many deaf people for his advocacy of oralism.

    The education of deaf-blind children remains a complex challenge. Many of the methods Keller learned—such as finger spelling, the speechreading of faces (known as the Tadoma method), and Braille—are still common features of deaf-blind education. Deaf and blind students today are also taught communication techniques Keller did not learn, such as sign language; hands-on, or tactile, signing; and finger Braille.

    Changing Women’s Roles

    Though Helen Keller lived much of her life in the twentieth century, her family was from a class and an era in which women’s roles were strictly limited. A woman from a white, upper-middle-class southern family such as the Kellers was discouraged (or forbidden) from working and taking part in politics. Her sphere was the home and family. Her education, if she got any, was not supposed to train her intellect or prepare her for the world. Rather, it polished her graces for the role of angel of the house—pious, pure, and uncomplaining.

    By the time of Helen Keller’s birth, however, the Civil War had destroyed the South’s economy. The ideal of the southern belle persisted, but its reality was increasingly hard to achieve. Keller’s once wealthy father struggled to make ends meet and was frequently in debt. At one point he even considered putting Helen in a freak show to help raise funds.

    Thus, Keller came of age in a world in which she had to be—and wanted to be—independent, but she was still expected to conform to outdated ideals. Many people who read her story or met her not only celebrated her as a miracle, but held her up as a paragon of virtue, innocence, and chastity—a pure creature, uncorrupted and unsullied by society. These same people were unhappy when their saint of tomorrow began speaking forthrightly about birth control and women’s suffrage. The Story of My Life shows us a woman poised on the cusp of a radically changing world.

    Autobiography, Bildungsroman, and Sentimental Fiction

    Helen Keller was extremely well read. She was familiar with the Bible, classical literature, the masterworks of British and European literature, and contemporary English and American poets, and she loved children’s literature, including fables and fairy tales—especially those with happy endings.

    Keller’s eclectic tastes complicate categorizing The Story of My Life. On the surface, it is a straightforward autobiography. But it is also a bildungsroman, or coming-of-age tale, in which our young heroine overcomes trials and tribulations as she grows from childhood to adulthood, and discovers who she is. Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield and Great Expectations can be considered bildungsromans, as can Frances Hodgson Burnett’s children’s story Little Lord Fauntleroy, a great favorite of Keller’s. The Story of My Life also owes a debt to sentimental fiction, which often told the story of a young woman finding her way in the world, overcoming obstacles—and false expectations that as a woman the world will protect her—and coming to terms with her identity. Sentimental novels also explicidy treated the question of what a woman’s role should be in society.

    Keller’s work also serves as a precursor to two contemporary genres: women’s autobiography and the disability narrative. The former frequently features a young woman negotiating her identity against society’s expectations of her, and the latter often features narrators struggling to make themselves heard in a world that does not grant them full status as human beings or citizens. More than a simple story of triumph over adversity, Keller’s autobiography depicts a young woman discovering her true voice.

    CHRONOLOGY OF HELEN KELLER’S LIFE AND WORK

    1880: Helen Adams Keller is born on June 27 in Tuscumbia, Alabama.

    1882: At nineteen months, Keller suffers the illness that leaves her deaf and blind.

    1887: Anne Mansfield Sullivan becomes Kellers teacher on March 3; she has breakthrough on April 5, teaching her to spell water.

    1890: Keller begins learning to speak.

    1891: Writes The Frost King; accused of plagiarism.

    1896: Keller’s father dies.

    1900: Enters Radcliffe College.

    1902: The Story of My Life begins appearing in the Ladies’ Home Journal.

    1903: Publication of The Story of My Life as a book.

    1904: Keller graduates from Radcliffe, becoming the first deaf-blind person to obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree.

    1908: Publication of The World I Live In.

    1909: Joins the Socialist Party of Massachusetts.

    1913: Begins career as a lecturer; publication of Out of the Dark.

    1916: Engaged to marry Peter Fagan; forced by her mother to break engagement.

    1920: Begins touring act with Anne Sullivan.

    1921: Keller’s mother dies.

    1924: Begins working with the American Foundation for the Blind.

    1927: Publication of My Religion.

    1929: Publication of Midstream: My Later Life.

    1936: Anne Sullivan dies.

    1938: Publication of Helen Keller’s Journal, 1936-1937.

    1940: Publication of Let Us Have Faith.

    1943: Visits wounded soldiers in military hospitals.

    1946: Begins extensive series of tours through world in support of the blind.

    1953: Release of The Unconquered (later renamed Helen Keller in Her Story), an Academy Award-winning documentary film of Keller’s life.

    1955: Publication of Teacher, a biography of Anne Sullivan.

    1957: The Miracle Worker is broadcast as a live television drama; later made into Broadway play (1959) and movie (1962).

    1964: Receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Lyndon Johnson.

    1968: Dies at age eighty-seven on June 1 at her home in Arcan Ridge, Connecticut.

    HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF

    The Story of My Life

    1829: Louis Braille publishes the Braille system, a code of six raised dots representing letters, eventually the standard system for texts for the blind.

    1832: Samuel Gridley Howe opens Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston.

    1837: Laura Bridgman enters Perkins; becomes first deaf-blind person to be educated in America.

    1842: Charles Dickens documents Howe’s success with Bridgman in American Notes.

    1848: First Woman’s Rights Convention held at Seneca Falls, New York.

    1872: Alexander Graham Bell opens School of Vocal Physiology.

    1876: Bell patents the telephone.

    1880: International Congress of Teachers of Deaf-Mutes in Milan, under Bell’s influence, votes oralism is superior to sign language, setting the course for deaf education in the United States for many years.

    1914-1918: World War I.

    1916: Sex education proponent Margaret Sanger opens first birth control clinic in the United States.

    1917: Russian Revolution.

    1920: Nineteenth Amendment grants women the right to vote.

    1921: American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) established.

    1931 First World Council on Work for the Blind.

    1932: English-speaking countries adopt single Braille standard.

    1934: Guide Dogs for the Blind Association established.

    1939-1945: World War II.

    1964: Robert Weitbrecht, a deaf physician, invents teletypewriter (TTD), allowing deaf individuals to communicate by phone.

    1975: Education for All Handicapped Children Act (now called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) passed, legislating free, appropriate education to students with disabilities.

    1990: Americans with Disabilities Act passed, legislating nondiscrimination in employment against deaf, blind, and handicapped individuals.

    THE STORY OF MY LIFE

    TO

    ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL

    Who has taught the deaf to speak and enabled the listening ear to hear speech from the Atlantic to the Rockies,

    I DEDICATE

    This Story of My Life.

    Chapter 1

    IT IS WITH a kind of fear that I begin to write the history of my life. I have, as it were, a superstitious hesitation in lifting the veil that clings about my childhood like a golden mist. The task of writing an autobiography is a difficult one. When I try to classify my earliest impressions, I find that fact and fancy look alike across the years that link the past with the present. The woman paints the child’s experiences in her own fantasy. A few impressions stand out vividly from the first years of my life; but the shadows of the prison-house are on the rest.¹ Besides, many of the joys and sorrows of childhood have lost their poignancy; and many incidents of vital importance in my early education have been forgotten in the excitement of great discoveries. In order, therefore, not to be tedious I shall try to present in a series of sketches only the episodes that seem to me to be the most interesting and important.

    I was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, a little town of northern Alabama.

    The family on my father’s side is—descended from Caspar Keller, a native of Switzerland, who settled in Maryland. One of my Swiss ancestors was the first teacher of the deaf in Zurich and wrote a book on the subject of their education—rather a singular coincidence; though it is true that there is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

    My grandfather, Caspar Keller’s son, entered large tracts of land in Alabama and finally settled there. I have been told that once a year he went from Tuscumbia to Philadelphia on horseback to purchase supplies for the plantation, and my aunt has in her possession many of the letters to his family, which give charming and vivid accounts of these trips.

    My Grandmother Keller was a daughter of one of Lafayette’s aides, Alexander Moore, and granddaughter of Alexander Spotswood, an early Colonial Governor of Virginia. She was also second cousin to Robert E. Lee.²

    My father, Arthur H. Keller, was a captain in the Confederate Army, and my mother, Kate Adams, was his second wife and many years younger. Her grandfather, Benjamin Adams, married Susanna E. Goodhue, and lived in Newbury, Massachusetts, for many years. Their son, Charles Adams, was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and moved to Helena, Arkansas. When the Civil War broke out, he fought on the side of the South and became a brigadier-general. He married Lucy Helen Everett, who belonged to the same family of Everetts as Edward Everett and Dr. Edward Everett Hale. After the war was over the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee.

    I lived, up to the time of the illness that deprived me of my sight and hearing, in a tiny house consisting of a large square room and a small one, in which the servant slept. It is a custom in the South to build a small house near the homestead as an annex to be used on occasion. Such a house my father built after the Civil War, and when he married my mother they went to live in it. It was completely covered with vines, climbing roses and honeysuckles. From the garden it looked like an arbor. The little porch was hidden from view by a screen of yellow roses and southern smilax. It was the favorite haunt of hummingbirds and bees.

    The Keller homestead, where the family lived, was a few steps from our little rose-bower. It was called Ivy Green because the house and the surrounding trees and fences were covered with beautiful English ivy. Its old-fashioned garden was the paradise of my childhood.

    Even in the days before my teacher came, I used to feel along the square stiff boxwood hedges, and, guided by the sense of smell, would find the first violets and lilies. There, too, after a fit of temper, I went to find comfort and to hide my hot face in the cool leaves and grass. What joy it was to lose myself in that garden of flowers, to wander happily from spot to spot, until, coming suddenly upon a beautiful vine, I recognized it by its leaves and blossoms, and knew it was the vine which covered the tumble-down summer-house at the farther end of the garden! Here, also, were trailing clematis, drooping jessamine, and some rare sweet flowers called butterfly lilies, because their fragile petals resemble butterflies’ wings. But the roses—they were loveliest of all. Never have I found in the greenhouses of the North such heart-satisfying roses as the climbing roses of my southern home. They used to hang in long festoons from our porch, filling the whole air with their fragrance, untainted by any earthy smell; and in the early morning, washed in the dew, they felt so soft, so pure, I could not help wondering if they did not resemble the asphodels of God’s garden.

    The beginning of my life was simple and much like every other little life. I came, I saw, I conquered,³ as the first baby in the family always does. There was the usual amount of discussion as to a name for me. The first baby in the family was not to be lightly named, every one was emphatic about that. My father suggested the name of Mildred Campbell, an ancestor whom he highly esteemed, and he declined to take any further part in the discussion. My mother solved the problem by giving it as her wish that I should be called after her mother, whose maiden name was Helen Everett. But in the excitement of carrying me to church my father lost the name on the way, very naturally, since it was one in which he had declined to have a part. When the minister asked him for it, he just remembered that it had been decided to call me after my grandmother, and he gave her name as Helen Adams.

    I am told that while I was still in long dresses I showed many signs of an eager, self-asserting disposition. Everything that I saw other people do I insisted upon imitating. At six months I could pipe out How d’ye, and one day I attracted everyone’s attention by saying Tea, tea, tea quite plainly. Even after my illness I remembered one of the words I had learned in these early months. It was the word water, and I continued to make some sound for that word after all other speech was lost. I ceased making the sound wah-wah only when I learned to spell the word.

    They tell me I walked the day I was a year old. My mother had just taken me out of the bath-tub and was holding me in her lap, when I was suddenly attracted by the flickering shadows of leaves that danced in the sunlight on the smooth floor. I slipped from my mother’s lap and almost ran toward them. The impulse gone, I fell down and cried for her to take me up in her arms.

    These happy days did not last long. One brief spring, musical with the song of robin and mockingbird, one summer rich in fruit and roses, one autumn of gold and crimson sped by and left their gifts at the feet of an eager, delighted child. Then, in the dreary month of February, came the illness which closed my eyes and ears and plunged me into the unconsciousness of a newborn baby. They called it acute congestion of the stomach and brain.⁴ The doctor thought I could not live. Early one morning, however, the fever left me as suddenly and mysteriously as it had come. There was great rejoicing in the family that morning, but no one, not even the doctor, knew that I should never see or hear again.

    I fancy I still have confused recollections of that illness. I especially remember the tenderness with which my mother tried to soothe me in my waking hours of fret

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