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An expanded view of the Helen Keller miracle

By Lisa Bornstein, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 19, 2008 at 6 p.m.

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Helen Keller

Helen Keller

Daria LeGrand, left, portrays Helen Keller and Kate Hurster plays Anne Sullivan in The Miracle Worker.

Photo by Terry Shapiro

Daria LeGrand, left, portrays Helen Keller and Kate Hurster plays Anne Sullivan in The Miracle Worker.

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A new generation is lining up to join 50 years worth of audiences who have learned the story of Helen Keller through the play The Miracle Worker.

William Gibson's play takes on a very narrow slice in the life of an accomplished woman. The Alabama native, born in 1880, was left both blind and deaf by an illness at 19 months. The play begins when Helen was 6, a wild child with almost no means of communication with her family. The title refers to Annie Sullivan, the teacher who broke through to Helen, teaching her sign language as well as manners.

The play ends with Helen still in childhood, though. Were it not for her later life story, few would have cared about her early successes. Here are the parts of Helen Keller's life you won't get from The Miracle Worker (with a little help from helenkellerbirthplace.org and the American Foundation for the Blind, afb.org).

"I seldom think of my limitations, and they never make me sad. Perhaps there is just a touch of yearning at times; but it is vague, like a breeze among flowers."

Helen Keller

Education

By age 10, Keller was fluent in Braille and could use a typewriter. She graduated from Radcliffe College - no small academic achievement - with Annie Sullivan by her side as interpreter.

Honors

Keller received honorary doctorates from Harvard University, Temple University and universities in Scotland, Germany, India and South Africa.

Activism

She spent her life advocating for people with disabilities, but Keller's life extended far beyond those borders. In 1915 she founded Helen Keller International, for research in vision, health and nutrition. Today, the organization has programs in 72 countries.

Politics

Keller was a suffragist and a birth-control advocate. As a pacifist, she opposed Woodrow Wilson. She campaigned for Eugene V. Debs and was a member of the Socialist Party and Industrial Workers of the World.

Travels

Keller visited 35 countries on five continents. She was a star in Japan. She met every U.S. president from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon B. Johnson. At age 75, she went on a 40,000-mile, five-month trip through Asia.

Writings

Keller wrote her autobiography, The Story of My Life, at the age of 22. It was her most successful work and is available in more than 50 languages, including Pashto and Tagalog. She wrote continuously throughout her life, for magazines and newspapers and full-length books.

The Miracle Worker

* When and where: Through Dec. 20 in the Space Theatre, Denver Center for the Performing Arts

* Cost: $11 and up

* Information: 303-893-4100

Comments

  • November 19, 2008

    7:28 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    richardtmyers writes:

    Thanks for this. Helen Keller was a remarkable individual with notable accomplishments throughout her life, yet these details of her later life are frequently ignored. The motive for dismissing her activism and her views may be found in one of her essays, in which she holds selfish and greedy employers responsible for causing blindness and other worker injuries, as well as for their indifference to widespread poverty that aggravated social diseases such as syphilis:

    "I was appointed on a commission to investigate the conditions of the blind. For the first time I, who had thought blindness a misfortune beyond human control, found that too much of it was traceable to wrong industrial conditions, often caused by the selfishness and greed of employers. And the social evil contributed its share. I found that poverty drove women to a life of shame that ended in blindness."

    --Helen Keller, in "Why I Became an IWW"

    If some day a playwright writes a play that explores her activism, including her speeches which drew live audiences throughout the nation and the role of the FBI in intercepting her mail, i'll be delighted to attend, and i'll bring all of my friends.

  • November 20, 2008

    2:04 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    BetterEducated writes:

    What a worthwhile addition to the Rocky's pages, thank you for it.