Helen Keller

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Portrait of Helen Keller (1905)

Helen Adams Keller (born June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia , Colbert County , Alabama , † June 1, 1968 in Easton , Fairfield County , Connecticut ) was a deaf-blind American writer .

Life

Helen Keller's parents were Captain Arthur Henley Keller, a former Confederate Army officer , and his second wife, Catherine Everett ("Kate") Adams, 20 years his junior. Her grandmother was a second cousin of General Robert E. Lee . She had two younger siblings and two half-brothers from her father's first marriage. Helen Keller was born a healthy child, but at the age of 19 months she lost her sight and hearing (so-called defect healing ) due to meningitis . Soon afterwards, she also stopped speaking out loud. She developed hand signals to communicate with those around her, but she was often unable to make herself understood. Her frustration over this led to increasingly violent outbursts of anger.

Keller with her teacher Anne Sullivan (1888)
Keller and Sullivan (1898)

In March 1887 her teacher Anne Sullivan Macy , trained at the Perkins Institute for the Blind and almost 21 years old at the time, came to Tuscumbia from Boston. Anne Sullivan had lived at the Perkins Institute with Laura Bridgman , the first deaf-blind person who could express herself verbally to the hearing and sighted using a learned finger alphabet. Bridgman used the finger alphabet for the deaf, which was spelled on the palm of her hand , to communicate with her surroundings . Later she learned the square script, a kind of block script that was written with pencil, was able to read books in embossed script and learned the Braille script , which had not yet caught on at the time.

Anne Sullivan used the methods of Laura Bridgman's teachers on Helen Keller: She let the child touch an object and at the same time spelled its name in their free hand, using a finger alphabet, as is sometimes used by the deaf. Helen soon understood this connection; the breakthrough came with the word water . Sullivan reports on this:

“Something very important has happened. Helen […] learned that everything has a name and that the finger alphabet is the key to everything she asks to know. [...] When I washed her this morning, she wanted to know the name for water. If she wanted to know the name of something, she pointed to it and caressed my hand. I spelled water in her hand and didn't think about it until after breakfast was over. […] [Later] we went to the pump, where I had Helen hold her cup under the opening while I pumped. When the cold water shot out and filled the cup, I spelled her water in my free hand. The word that immediately followed the sensation of cold water pouring over her hand seemed puzzled. She dropped the mug and stood there rooted to the spot. A completely new glow of light transfigured her features. She spelled the word water on several occasions. Then she crouched down, touched the ground, and asked for the name, and also pointed to the pump and the grille. Then suddenly she turned and asked for my name. I spelled teacher on hand. […] On the whole way back she was extremely excited and asked about the name of each object […] [The next morning:] Helen got up this morning like a radiant fairy. She flew from one object to another, asked what the name of each thing was, and kissed me for sheer joy. [...] Everything had to have a name now. [...] As soon as she knows the word in question, she no longer applies her previous signs and pantomimes. "

- Anne Sullivan

Nevertheless, in 1890 Helen Keller tried to produce speech orally , inspired by the story of the deafblind Norwegian Ragnhild Kaata . Keller was able to understand phonetic utterances by other people who could not speak finger alphabet or Braille by feeling the movements of their lips.

Keller spent a lot of time at the Perkins Institute, whose director Michael Anagnos ( Samuel Gridley Howe's son-in-law , Laura Bridgman's teacher) patronized her and Anne Sullivan for years and wrote flowery, exaggerated reports on Keller and her achievements. However, Anagnos broke up when Keller sent him a self-written story called The Frost King , which was published in the school's yearbook. It soon turned out that a nearly word for word identical story by Margaret Canby had already appeared in 1880. Keller must have been read this story once, but she couldn't remember it. Margaret Canby, the author of the original, wrote Keller an understanding letter stating that Keller's version was even better than her own. Anagnos felt betrayed and summoned the eleven-year-old Helen Keller before an investigative committee consisting of eight teachers (four blind and four sighted). Following the two-hour interrogation, four members found Keller guilty of willful fraud, four found her innocent, and Anagnos voted in Keller's favor. Nevertheless, he distanced himself more and more from Keller and Anne Sullivan in the period that followed.

From the fall of 1900, Helen Keller attended Radcliffe College , learned several foreign languages, including French and German, and made her Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude on June 28, 1904 . She later received several honorary doctorates, including from Harvard University . She had correspondence with the Austrian philosopher and educator Wilhelm Jerusalem , who was one of the first to discover her literary talent. Keller later gave lectures, campaigned for the rights of the oppressed - including the rights of blacks, which turned her entire family against her - and wrote several books. She was a member of the Socialist Party of America (SPA).

Basement at the statue of Hachiko during her visit to Japan in 1948

In 1915, Helen Keller became a board member of the Permanent Relief War Fund. This organization was later called the American Braille Press.

In 1924 she founded the Helen Keller Endowment Fund and joined the American Foundation for the Blind . She became a national and international relations consultant for the American Foundation for the Blind. In 1933 she was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters .

After Anne Sullivan's death in 1936, Helen Keller lived with Polly Thompson, and after her death with Winifred Corbally. In 1961, after a stroke, Keller withdrew from public relations work for the blind. She died in her sleep in 1968 and was buried in Washington National Cathedral .

“Outside, I use my senses of smell and touch to tell the reason we're walking on and the places we're passing. Sometimes, when there is no wind, the smells are grouped in such a way that I perceive the character of a landscape, a hay meadow, a village shop, a garden, a barn, a farmstead with open windows, a spruce grove at the same time according to their location. "

- Helen Keller : My world

reception

The sculptor Jo Davidson , friend of Helen Keller, created a sculpture of her in the 1940s.

In 1954 the documentary The Unconquered was shot, which showed real shots of Helen Keller's everyday life. The film won an Oscar for best documentary in 1956 .

1962 filmed Arthur Penn her youth with Anne Bancroft as Annie Sullivan and Patty Duke as Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker (The Miracle Worker) , for both an Oscar won. Other films followed in 1979, this time with Patty Duke as Sullivan and Melissa Gilbert as Helen and in 2000 (as The Miracle Worker ) with Hallie Kate Eisenberg as Helen and Alison Elliott as Sullivan.

In 1971 she was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame as one of the first .

Steve Kalinich had for the album Pacific Ocean Blue of Dennis Wilson ( Beach Boys wrote a song about Helen Keller), which is however not yet been released.

In 2000, her life was portrayed in the South Park episode Helen Keller: The Musical (episode 13, season 4). In 2004 her life became the template for the Indian film Black by Sanjay Leela Bhansali . Her role was played by Rani Mukerji .

Helen Keller in the Alabama Quarter

As part of the special series of the 25-cent coin (quarter), which has been gradually issued since 1999 , in which each US state is honored with its own coin, Helen Keller was given a special honor. A portrait of her can be seen on the back of the Alabama Quarter. In addition to your name (in standard and Braille), the words "spirit of courage" can be read on the coin.

Several schools, including those in German-speaking countries, have been named after Helen Keller.

Works

  • The story of my life. Robert Lutz, Stuttgart 1905, (German translation of the autobiography The Story of My Life. Edited by John Albert Macy. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1905).
  • My way out of the dark, blind and deaf - the life of a courageous woman who conquered her disability. Translated by Werner DeHaas. Scherz, Bern 1994, ISBN 3-502-18363-5 .
  • My teacher and friend Anne Sullivan. Scherz, Bern 1956.
  • My world. Die Grüne Kraft, Löhrbach 1988; including a long article by Werner Pieper about Helen Keller.
  • My religion. Swedenborg Foundation, New York 1986. Digitized version (1927)
  • Optimism. Green power, Löhrbach.

literature

  • Max Adler (ed.): Festschrift for Wilhelm Jerusalem on his 60th birthday. With contributions by Max Adler, Rudolf Eisler, Sigmund Feilbogen, Rudolf Goldscheid, Stefan Hock, Helen Keller, Josef Kraus, Anton Lampa, Ernst Mach, Rosa Mayreder, Julius Ofner, Josef Popper, Otto Simon, Christine Touaillon and Anton Wildgans. Wilhelm Braumüller publishing house, Vienna and Leipzig 1915.
  • Edmund Jerusalem: Helen Keller, the deaf-blind writer. Dvar Liladim, Jerusalem 1940 (translated from the Hebrew by Michael Jerusalem, Kfar Saba 2010).
  • Evelyn Clevé: Helen Keller. Dressler, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-7915-0323-5 .
  • Dorothy Herrmann: Helen Keller. A biography. Knopf, New York 1998, ISBN 0-679-44354-1 .
  • Joseph P. Lash: Helen and teacher. The Story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy. Delacorte Press, New York NY 1980, ISBN 0-440-03654-2 .
  • Katja Behrens : All seeing comes from the soul. The life story of Helen Keller. Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim u. a. 2001, ISBN 3-407-80889-5 .
  • Helen E. Waite: Open the gate to the world for me . 4th, revised and improved edition. Free Spiritual Life, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-7725-1850-8 .
  • Werner Pieper : Blind, deaf and optimistic. Life and Learning of Helen Keller. In: Helen Keller: My world. Die Grüne Kraft, Löhrbach 1987, ISBN 3-925817-16-6 ( The green branch 116).
  • Birgit Kindler: Helen Keller - writer and fighter for the blind. Lecture as part of the lecture series "Famous women in the past and present" on September 23, 1999. Doc document ( Memento from May 25, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
  • Aleksandr I. Mešcerjakov: Helen Keller was not alone. Deaf blindness and the social development of the human psyche. Ed. Marhold, Berlin 2001.
  • Helen E. Waite: Helen Keller, Anne Sullivan. Open the gate to the world for me! The life of the deafblind Helen Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan. German Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1990.
  • Herbert Gantschacher : Snatch from oblivion! The correspondence between the Austrian-Jewish philosopher Wilhelm Jerusalem and the American deaf-blind writer Helen Keller. Sign thing, Vienna 2009.
  • Herbert Gantschacher: Wilhelm Jerusalem - Helen Keller - letters. Arbos edition, 2010–2012, ISBN 978-3-9503173-0-5 .
  • Konrad Lorenz : The back of the mirror. German Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1977, pp. 231-237

Web links

Commons : Helen Keller  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Quoted from Ernst Cassirer: Experiment about people. Felix Meiner-Verlag, Hamburg 2007, p. 60 f.
  2. Herbert Gantschacher: Snatch from oblivion! - The correspondence between the Austrian-Jewish philosopher Wilhelm Jerusalem and the American deaf-blind writer Helen Keller. Gebärdensache, Vienna 2009, p. 35 ff.
  3. Members: Helen Keller. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed April 7, 2019 .
  4. Photos by Helen Keller and Jo Davidson ( Memento of the original from June 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on highlands-gallery.com @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.highlands-gallery.com
  5. Kingsley Abbot: Working with the Wilsons. An interview with Steve Kalinich. in: The Beach Boys and Brian Wilson. Hannibal-Verlag, St. Andrä-Wölker 1998, ISBN 3-85445-160-1 .
  6. imdb.com: Helen Keller! The musical
  7. usmint.gov: The 50 State Quarters® Program. (No longer available online.) United States Mint , archived from the original on February 26, 2004 ; accessed on February 19, 2014 (English).