Overview
Papers of Helen Keller, a humanitarian, activist, and author who was deafblind, including a photocopied inscription by Keller and Annie Mansfield Sullivan from the book The Story of My Life, as well as letter from John Macy to Charles T. Copeland contained inside the volume.
Dates
- Creation: 1903
Creator
- Keller, Helen, 1880-1968 (Person)
Language of Materials
Materials in English.
Access Restrictions:
Access. Collection is open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright. Copyright in the papers created by Helen Keller as well as copyright in other papers in the collection may be held by their authors, or the authors' heirs or assigns.
Copying. Papers may be copied in accordance with the library's usual procedures.
Extent
1 folderThe papers of Helen Keller include an inscription by Keller and her teacher Annie Mansfield Sullivan photocopied from Keller's autobiography which was presented to Charles T. Copeland (professor at Harvard University). It also includes a letter from John Macy to Copeland which was slipped into the volume.
BIOGRAPHY
At the age of nineteen months, due to an attack of scarlet fever, Helen Keller lost her senses of sight and hearing. Keller's parents requested that a teacher from the Perkins Institution in Boston, Massachusetts, be sent to instruct the child soon thereafter. Anne M. Sullivan was sent to Helen's home in Tuscumbia, Alabama, to train her according to the methods of Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe. From 1888 onwards, at the Perkins Institution, and under Sarah Fuller at the Horace Mann School in New York, she learned to read, write, and talk, and became proficient to some degree in the ordinary education curriculum, several languages, and mathematics.
In 1900, Keller entered Radcliffe College and graduated cum laude in 1904. After her college education, Keller began working extensively in causes for people who are blind in the United States and internationally. She made many tours and held fund-raising benefits for the American Foundation for the Blind. During and after World War II she focused her efforts on aiding veterans, orphans, and refugees. Various honors, awards, and honorary degrees and citations were conferred upon Keller by foreign governments and civic, educational, and welfare organizations throughout the United States. Keller's writings include: Optimism (1903), "The Song of the Stone Wall" (1910), Helen Keller's Journal (1938), Teacher (1955), and others.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Accession number: R2004-17
The papers of Helen Keller were photocopied and removed from The Story of My Life in 2004.
Processing Information
Processed: November 2004
By: Jane S. Knowles
Updated with additional description: June 2020
By: Paula Aloisio
The Schlesinger Library attempts to provide a basic level of preservation and access for all collections, and does more extensive processing of higher priority collections as time and resources permit. Finding aids may be updated periodically to account for new acquisitions to the collection and/or revisions in arrangement and description.
Creator
- Keller, Helen, 1880-1968 (Person)
- Author
- Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America
- Language of description
- eng
- EAD ID
- sch01736
Repository Details
Part of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute Repository
The preeminent research library on the history of women in the United States, the Schlesinger Library documents women's lives from the past and present for the future. In addition to its traditional strengths in the history of feminisms, women’s health, and women’s activism, the Schlesinger collections document the intersectional workings of race and ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class in American history.