March 3rd...This Day in History (Now with links to other events)

Helen Keller meets her miracle worker 1887

 

On this day in 1887, Anne Sullivan begins teaching six-year-old Helen Keller, who lost her sight and hearing after a severe illness at the age of 19 months. Under Sullivan’s tutelage, including her pioneering “touch teaching” techniques, the previously uncontrollable Keller flourished, eventually graduating from college and becoming an international lecturer and activist. Sullivan, later dubbed “the miracle worker,” remained Keller’s interpreter and constant companion until the older woman’s death in 1936.

Sullivan, born in Massachusetts in 1866, had firsthand experience with being handicapped: As a child, an infection impaired her vision. She then attended the Perkins Institution for the Blind where she learned the manual alphabet in order to communicate with a classmate who was deaf and blind. Eventually, Sullivan had several operations that improved her weakened eyesight.

Helen Adams Keller was born on June 27, 1880, to Arthur Keller, a former Confederate army officer and newspaper publisher, and his wife Kate, of Tuscumbia, Alabama. As a baby, a brief illness, possibly scarlet fever, left Helen unable to see, hear or speak. She was considered a bright but spoiled and strong-willed child. Her parents eventually sought the advice of Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone and an authority on the deaf. He suggested the Kellers contact the Perkins Institution, which in turn recommended Anne Sullivan as a teacher.

Sullivan, age 20, arrived at Ivy Green, the Keller family estate, in 1887 and began working to socialize her wild, stubborn student and teach her by spelling out words in Keller’s hand. Initially, the finger spelling meant nothing to Keller. However, a breakthrough occurred one day when Sullivan held one of Keller’s hands under water from a pump and spelled out “w-a-t-e-r” in Keller’s palm. Keller went on to learn how to read, write and speak. With Sullivan’s assistance, Keller attended Radcliffe College and graduated with honors in 1904.

Helen Keller became a public speaker and author; her first book, “The Story of My Life” was published in 1902. She was also a fundraiser for the American Foundation for the Blind and an advocate for racial and sexual equality, as well as socialism. From 1920 to 1924, Sullivan and Keller even formed a vaudeville act to educate the public and earn money. Helen Keller died on June 1, 1968, at her home in Westport, Connecticut, at age 87, leaving her mark on the world by helping to alter perceptions about the disabled.

 (More Events on This Day in History)

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• 1776 Silas Deane embarks on secret mission to France

• Automotive

• 2009 Super-luxurious Maybach Zeppelin goes on sale

• Civil War

• 1865 Freedman’s Bureau created

• Cold War

• 1952 Supreme Court rules on communist teachers

• Crime

• 1873 Congress bans sending obscene materials through the mail

• Disaster

• 1974 Faulty door dooms plane

• General Interest

• 1820 Congress passes the Missouri Compromise
• 1863 Congress passes Civil War conscription act
• 1918 Russia makes a separate peace
• 1931 “The Star-Spangled Banner” becomes official
• 1991 Police brutality caught on video

• Hollywood

• 1915 Birth of a Nation opens in New York

• Literary

• 1926 James Merrill is born

• Music

• 1875 George Bizet’s Carmen premieres in Paris

• Old West

• 1879 United States Geological Survey created

• Presidential

• 1845 Congress overrides presidential veto for first time
• 1877 Rutherford B. Hayes is inaugurated in a private ceremony

• Sports

• 1875 First indoor game of ice hockey

• Vietnam War

• 1965 U.S. jets bomb Ho Chi Minh Trail
• 1971 U.S. 5th Special Forces Group withdraws

• World War I

• 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk concluded

• World War II

• 1945 Finland declares war on Germany