#& writing an essay on IWW art & literature

[past---caring]

Helen Keller:The Revolutionary and Social Activist

As a disabled person I dream of embodying the same passion for achieving social justice that Helen Keller had.Keller is a very misunderstood disabled historical figure  who has not gotten full recognition for their life’s work.

She was born in 1880 in the state of Alabama and her loss of sight and hearing occurred when she was eighteen months old ; likely due to a condition like meningitis. Helen’s family struggled to communicate with her fully until they heard of the ‘Perkins Institute for the blind’. It is through this institute that Anna Sullivan ,who was also blind, was chosen as Keller’s instructor and teacher. Their relationship began in 1887 with Sullivan attempting to reach Helen through spelling on her hand. As shown in ‘ the miracle worker’ and Keller’s memoir  understanding was reached through Sullivan pouring water from a pump over Keller’s hand until she connected that the word being spelt into her palm was the sensation and object she felt pouring on her hand. Anne’s teaching allowed Helen to attend Perkins. In the 1890s she moved with Anne to  New York  to attend schools such as the Wright-Humason school for the deaf. Her mastery of Braille and more enabled her to florish. In 1900 she was  admitted to Radcliffe college and by the age of twenty four she graduated as the first deaf and blind person to achieve a bachelor degree in art. This point in Helen’s life is pretty much the end of what most people know about her. A supposedly feral disabled girl breaks free from the isolation of her condition thanks to a patient teacher ,but the problem with this picture is that it strips Keller of her incredible achievements and life instead infantilising her even beyond childhood.  

Helen Keller’s role as a writer was central to her identity from a young age and was the career she had listed in documentation. Her first work at the age of eleven called ‘The Frost King’ was suspected of possible plagiarism, but might have been due to forgetting the story ‘The Frost Fairies’ being read to her. Her memoir called ‘The Story of My Life’ was released in 1903 and opened up about her early life and relationship with Anne. It would go on to inspire the 1962 film “The Miracle Worker”. The book was a best-seller, is an enduring classic of American Literature and is now available in fifty languages. Keller wrote fourteen more books and hundreds of speeches which were on topics as diverse as faith, the experience of blindness, socialism/communism, birth control, the rise of fascism, nuclear weapons and feminism. Her autobiography appealed to the public then and now for its focus on her disability and overcoming of the aforesaid condition. The text is apolitical and was thus easier for the public to enjoy and admire. Books to follow would fail on this front. ‘The World I Live In’(1908) challenged the ableism of those who believed she was still essentially ignorant of life. ‘Out of the dark’(1913) consisted of essays focused on social issues such as feminism and socialism. As others have stated the success of her childhood memoirs over her works regarding politics and more show how Helen Keller was expected to fit a sanitised and one dimensional inspiring mould for the public  and when it became clear she was multifaceted, complicated and opinionated she suffered. Reading these works even now is an incredible experience as Keller explores what it means to be a disabled women insightfully while also discussing her leftist politics, feminism, pacifism and more at a time when this was extremely brave for anyone never mind a disabled woman. Using her braille and regular typewriters Keller didn’t find just a way to communicate with the world ,but engage, probe and explore its depth in an incredibly beautiful ,vital and intellectual way. Literature surely was her utopia.

Keller’s activism and political/social beliefs were tied to and equally important as her writing. Helen should be remember for these as much as her personal story. Helen became a socialist after reading texts such as Well’s ‘New World For Old’ and taking part in a study on the causes of blindness in which she discovered class played a huge part. She wrote about her journey to socialism in ‘How I became a socialist’ and in ‘why I became a IWW’. The public and press saw her politics as repugnant and a warping of the safe disabled heroine that had existed before. One paper editor said that mistakes sprung “out of the manifest limitation of her development.” Keller in ‘How I became a socialist’ replied to these comments saying that the paper was controlled by industrial tyranny which clouded its senses. She also asked for it to fight fairly and use arguments against her own instead of simply reminding people that she can’t see or hear. Keller had to deal with it being claimed she was gullible and so ignorant that her companions the Macy’s had brainwashed her into believing in such politics. She was no longer a role model, but someone with difficult views. Alongside being a socialist(then communist) Keller did much more activism. She supported the newly formed NAACP in 1916 by donating a substantial amount to their cause despite this being criticized by her family and friends. She also helped create the ACLU in 1920 which fought for civil liberities. Her pacifism was tied to her politics and led to her opposing WW1 severely. She was also a feminist who supported birth control and was against capital punishment. In a piece for the Manchester Advertiser in 1911  she said that instead giving women the vote first  the system needed to be changed. In Britain for instance 10/11 of land belonged to 200,000 people while the other 40 million only had 1/11.She also stated how unimportant males having the vote was in  a system  so corrupt and unrepresentative. In her 1916 speech called ‘Strike Against War’ Keller begins by stating she is not being controlled by anyone, doesn’t want their pity and knows what she speaks of. With passion she shows this is true. She discusses how the American government at the time were more interested in imperial capitalist concerns in places like Hawaii than their security. She says that the workers are controlled and made to fight in a terrible cycle. Lastly she implores that the working class “be not dumb obedient slaves in an army of destruction”. Keller advocated for female contraception and birth controlling with the belief it would enfranchise women in their lives, help them plan their family and help end suffering caused by poverty. After the deployment of nuclear weapons in WW2 Keller visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1948 to speak out against nuclear weapons. Throughout her life Keller also fought for disabled rights and support. She helped in 1946 to form a special service for the blind and deaf, worked for forty years for AFB ,helped create rehabilitation centres/studies into blindness and more. She helped aid blind soldiers after WW1 through the permanent blind war relief fund and til the end of her life travelled the world as a representative for disabled peoples. She never forgot that her own success was due to her class privilege and used her position to help millions without this benefit.

Keller spoke out about how she was treated for some of her beliefs in a 1924 letter. As long as she stuck to activities associated with the disabled etc she was viewed saintly, a ‘wonder woman’ and a ‘modern miracle’. However when she stood up against poverty, sexism,  racism and more things were different. Giving pennies to the disabled was laudable and good for many ,but to state the world should be better was a naïve dream only the deaf and blind like her could believe. The incredible array of causes Keller stood up for somewhat ahead of her time should be something we all know about her. These beliefs led to her being watched by the FBI most of her life and experiencing times when she was shunned severely ,but Keller lived her life campaigning for these things till her last day.Keller like many woman historical figures has been sanitized and erased. A disabled women who is so multifaceted is a peculiar thing even now in media. Her entire life work matters as much as her overcoming of the difficulties caused by her condition. This is one of the many reasons Keller matters so much and why you should admire her even now.

References:

Her extensive works such as The Story of My Life (1902), Optimism: An Essay (1903),Our Duties to the Blind (1904), The World I Live In (1908), Out of the Dark: Essays, Letters, and Addresses on Physical and Social Vision (1913).

Selection of her many quotes: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Helen_Keller

Strike Against War By Helen Keller, Speech at Carnegie Hall, New York City, January 5, 1916, under the auspices of the Women’s Peace Party and the Labour Forum:http://gos.sbc.edu/k/keller.html

The Radical Lives of Helen Keller by Kim E. Nielsen:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Radical-Lives-Keller-History-Disability/dp/0814758142

Article on her radicalism: http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/the-radical-dissent-of-helen-keller

A Disabled Feminist’s opinion of her: http://disabledfeminists.com/2010/01/14/feminist-icons/#fn-2553-6

Bios on her: http://www.nndb.com/people/074/000046933/ ; http://www.afb.org/info/about-us/helen-keller/biography-and-chronology/biography/1235