[Nfb-history] Helen KEller

Tue Jun 6 14:01:44 UTC 2017

Good morning Kane,

Thank you for asking these questions, Kane. This is an interesting topic and one that I have had little opportunity to investigate before. If you are up for doing a little bit of research, I think you may find answers to some of your questions and a good bit to think about as well.

As far as I can tell, Helen Keller had little (if any) contact with the NFB. There is no direct correspondence between her and the Federation in either the Jacobus tenBroek Collection (which contains the NFB's earliest records)  or the NFB's Institutional Records (which are based on the records of Dr. Jernigan). Keller was never published in the Braille Monitor and was rarely even mentioned in it during her lifetime. Her involvement with the AFB and the Perkins School for the Blind, both of which had contentious relationships with the NFB both while she was alive and after, very likely affected her ability and her desire to interact with the organized blind movement. 

Peggy is correct in that there are several books out there that shed some light on the complex life of Helen Keller. Among them, I recommend The Radical Lives of Helen Keller by Kim E. Nielsen, which is available on NLS Bard in both Braille and audio formats. There are also a few interesting articles from more recent issues of NFB publications that deal with the legacy of Keller and her complicated relationship with both disability and the advocacy of/for people with disabilities. "In the Corner of a Round Room: Hunting for Helen's History," by Chancey Fleet in the Spring 2007 issue of The Student Slate, is a great article that you should check out at https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/slate/slss07tc.htm. You might also wish to read "A Historian's Look at the Problem at the Turn of the Century," by Catherine Kudlick in the December 2000 issue of the Braille Monitor, available at https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm00/bm0012/bm001205.htm. 

Dr. Jernigan also makes mention of Helen Keller in his 1973 banquet address called Blindness: Is History Against Us? In this speech, Jernigan says the following:
These few biographical sketches plucked from the annals of the blind are no more than samples. They are not even the most illustrious instances I could have given. I have said nothing at all about the best known of history's blind celebrities-Homer, Milton, and Helen Keller. There is good reason for that omission. Not only are those resounding names well enough known already but they have come to represent-each in its own sentimentalized, storybook form-not the abilities and possibilities of people who are blind but the exact opposite. Supposedly these giants are the exceptions that prove the rule-the rule, that is, that the blind are incompetent. Each celebrated case is explained away to keep the stereotype intact: Thus, Homer (we are repeatedly told) probably never existed at all-being not a man but a committee! As for Milton, he is dismissed as a sighted poet, who happened to become blind in later life. And Helen Keller, they say, was the peculiarly gifted and just plain lucky beneficiary of a lot of money and a "miracle worker" (her tutor and companion, Anne Sullivan).

Don't you believe it! These justly famous cases of accomplishment are not mysterious, unexplainable exceptions-they are only remarkable. Homer, who almost certainly did exist and who was clearly blind, accomplished just a little better what other blind persons after him have accomplished by the thousands: that is, he was a good writer. Milton composed great works while he was sighted, and greater ones (including Paradise Lost) after he became blind. His example, if it proves anything, proves only that blindness makes no difference in ability. As for Helen Keller, her life demonstrates dramatically what great resources of character and will and intellect may live in a human being beyond the faculties of sight and sound-which is not to take anything at all away from Anne Sullivan.

Thank you for the interesting question. If I can be of any further assistance, please feel free to contact me at akresmer at nfb.org. 

Cordially,
Anna K. Kresmer, MSLS
Archivist
200 East Wells Street, Baltimore, MD 21230
(410) 659-9314, extension 2310 | akresmer at nfb.org

-----Original Message-----
From: Nfb-history [mailto:nfb-history-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Peggy Chong via Nfb-history
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2017 9:14 AM
To: nfb-history at nfbnet.org
Cc: Peggy Chong
Subject: [Nfb-history] Helen KEller

Helen Keller

There are several books written about Helen Keller and a few written by her.
Each has a little different slant on her life and her opinions.  

Keller was definitely a promotional tool for the AFB.  But we also have to look at the times she lived in.  Who else would have hired her in the 1920's?  Maybe a sheltered shop.  How else would she have been able to have afforded an interpreter, traveled, had access to basic information without income from promoting and raising funds for AFB.  OR, she would have gone back home and stayed on the family farm for the rest of her life creating needlework projects.  She had to make choices.  At the time, were there any other choices for her to make?  We can only guess.  

It is easy for us to judge others by today's standards.  

I remember reading several articles about Hattie McDaniel, the black woman who played Mammy and the repercussions of that role for the black actress from black civil rights leaders.  I remember that she was one of the first black women to break through the color barrier and have a major part in a
white picture.   At the academy Awards ceremony the year Gone with the Wind
was up for so many awards, the star being honored had to sit at a segregated table.  She also said once to her critics "Why should I complain about making $700 a week playing a maid? If I didn't, I'd be making $7 a week being one."

Helen Keller made many break through's for the blind community.  Here in New Mexico in 1941, she lent her name and support to legislation sponsored by a blind legislator for a separate agency for the blind.  She travelled here to the state, brought media coverage to the state of affairs of the blind of New Mexico and connected the Lion's Clubs of New Mexico with blind people who wanted to make a difference.  Because of her name recognition, an audience with the governor regarding the needs of the blind of New Mexico was granted and elevated for a time, the unemployment and lack of education and training for blind adults.  

I choose to recognize that she was used by AFB sure.  I also recognize that she used AFB to benefit herself and the lives of the blind and deaf/blind of the United States.  In some ways, she was our Hattie McDaniel.  

This is a most simplified view of Helen Keller.  A suggestion for your chapter would be to choose one of her books, available on BARD, have chapter members read the book and then have discussions of how people feel about what was said.  I think this would be a great project for a few Saturday evenings around a BBQ or pizza box.  IT also would be a fantastic way to get members of your chapter to better know each other.  

Peggy Chong.  

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