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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that believes there's no time like the present to

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Speaker 1: learn about the past. I'm Gabe Bluesier, and in this episode,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the remarkable determination, creativity, and patience of

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Speaker 1: Annie Sullivan. Her pioneering work in the field of touch

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Speaker 1: teaching improved the lives of countless blind children and earned

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Speaker 1: her the nickname the Miracle Worker. The day was March third,

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Speaker 1: eighteen eighty seven. American teacher Anne Sullivan was introduced to

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Speaker 1: her star pupil, Helen Keller. Johanna Mansfield Sullivan, known throughout

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Speaker 1: her life as Anne or Annie, was born on April fourteenth,

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six, in Feeding Hills, Massachusetts. Her her parents

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Speaker 1: had immigrated to the US from Ireland to escape the

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Speaker 1: Great Famine of the eighteen forties. The couple had five

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Speaker 1: children together, but only three survived their infancy. They were

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Speaker 1: Anne the oldest, Jimmy, her younger brother, and Mary, their

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Speaker 1: younger sister. Anne Sullivan and her siblings grew up in

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Speaker 1: extreme poverty. They were malnourished and lived in unsanitary conditions,

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Speaker 1: leading them all to develop health problems at an early age.

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Speaker 1: When Anne was five, for instance, she contracted a bacterial

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Speaker 1: eye disease called trachoma, which severely impaired her vision and

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Speaker 1: left her almost blind. Three years later, Anne's mother died

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Speaker 1: of tuberculosis, and two years after that her father left

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Speaker 1: home and never came back. The Sullivan children were split

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Speaker 1: up following their abandonment. Mary was sent to live with

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Speaker 1: an aunt, while Anne and her sickly younger brother Jimmy

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Speaker 1: were entrusted to the Tewkesbury Almshouse, date facility for the poor. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: the conditions at Tewkesbury proved just as bad, if not worse,

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Speaker 1: than the Sullivan's childhood home. It was filthy, crowded, infested

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Speaker 1: with vermin, cruelly mismanaged, and deliberately undersupplied. Anne's brother Jimmy

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Speaker 1: died just a few months after they arrived there, forcing

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Speaker 1: her to endure the neglect and squalor all on her own.

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Speaker 1: Anne Sullivan remained at Tewkesbury for about forty years, during

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Speaker 1: which time she began to long for a formal education,

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Speaker 1: viewing it as a way to lift herself out of poverty.

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Speaker 1: She feared that dream was out of reach due to

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Speaker 1: her disability, but then she learned about the Perkins School

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Speaker 1: for the Blind and nearby Watertown, Massachusetts. The prospect of

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Speaker 1: attending rekindled her hopes for the future, but there was

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Speaker 1: little chance her neglectful caregivers would actually let her go. Luckily,

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Speaker 1: fate intervened when members from a special commission visited the

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Speaker 1: almshouse one day. Sullivan shattered the group all afternoon and

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Speaker 1: eventually found the courage to approach them and ask that

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Speaker 1: she be sent to a school that could actually meet

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Speaker 1: her needs. The request was granted, and Sullivan was allowed

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Speaker 1: to enter the Perkins School for the Blind in eighteen

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Speaker 1: eighty It was a drastic improvement in her fortunes, and

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Speaker 1: the skills and self reliance that she learned there would

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Speaker 1: inform her choices for the rest of her life. In

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Speaker 1: her second year at the school, Sullivan underwent a surgery

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Speaker 1: that successfully restored some of her sight. In eighteen eighty six,

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Speaker 1: she graduated at the head of her class and decided

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Speaker 1: to become a teacher herself. She found her first job

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Speaker 1: after graduation with the help of Michael Anagnos, the then

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Speaker 1: director at Perkins. He had received a letter from the

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Speaker 1: Keller family in Alabama, requesting a governess for their daughter, Helen,

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Speaker 1: who was both blind and deaf. Sullivan accepted the position

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Speaker 1: arrived at Keller's home in Tescumbia, Alabama, on March third,

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Speaker 1: eighteen eighty seven. She was twenty years old at the

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Speaker 1: time and her student, Helen Keller, was six. Keller had

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Speaker 1: been left blind and deaf at the age of nineteen

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Speaker 1: months after contracting an unknown illness, possibly rubella or scarlet fever.

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Speaker 1: As she got older, the young girl became increasingly frustrated

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Speaker 1: by her total inability to see you or hear Feeling

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Speaker 1: cut off from the outside world with no meaningful way

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Speaker 1: to express herself, she grew unruly and prone to temper tantrums.

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Speaker 1: Her parents were at a loss for how to help her,

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Speaker 1: so that's where Anne Sullivan came in. Helen Keller would

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Speaker 1: later describe the day of her teacher's arrival as her

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Speaker 1: soul's birthday, the moment when the world she lived in

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Speaker 1: and her place within it finally began to make some sense.

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Speaker 1: Up until then, Keller had relied on just a few

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Speaker 1: dozen hand gestures to communicate with her parents to ask

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Speaker 1: for things, expanding her vocabulary took a good deal of

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Speaker 1: trial and error, but gradually Sullivan developed an effective style

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Speaker 1: of teaching. First, she taught Keller using the Tadoma method,

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Speaker 1: which she had been introduced to at the Perkins School

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Speaker 1: where it was invented. Tadoma, also known as tactile lip reading,

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Speaker 1: involves placing the student's hand on the teacher's face so

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Speaker 1: that the thumb is resting on the throat, the index

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Speaker 1: finger on the lips, and the middle finger on the nose.

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Speaker 1: With this arrangement, the student is able to feel the

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Speaker 1: vibrations of the teacher's spoken words and then translate them

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Speaker 1: into sound. The next method Sullivan used was the manual alphabet,

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Speaker 1: also known as finger spelling. As the names suggest, it's

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Speaker 1: a series of hand signs where each letter of the

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Speaker 1: alphabet is represented by a different arrangement of the fingers,

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Speaker 1: which can then be chained together to spell out words.

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Speaker 1: Anne Sullivan had learned the skill from Laura Bridgeman, a

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Speaker 1: fellow graduate of Perkins who was actually the first deaf

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Speaker 1: blind person to receive a formal education. Finger spelling was

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Speaker 1: originally developed as a way for the deaf to communicate

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Speaker 1: the alphabet visually However, Bridgeman adapted the method for those

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Speaker 1: with deaf blindness by spelling out words into the palm

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Speaker 1: of a hand, thereby allowing the recipient to feel what's

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Speaker 1: being said. Sullivan used a combination of tadoma and finger

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Speaker 1: spelling to teach Keller the connection between words and objects.

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Speaker 1: This approach yielded rapid results, with perhaps the biggest breakthrough

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Speaker 1: occurring just one month into their time together. On April fifth,

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Speaker 1: eighteen eighty seven, Keller learned the meaning of the word

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Speaker 1: water when Sullivan pumped water from a well into the

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Speaker 1: girl's outstretched hands while also repeatedly spelling out the word

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Speaker 1: into her palm. The teacher wrote a letter home five

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Speaker 1: days later, and in it she described the great progress

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Speaker 1: her student had made since that fateful day at the well,

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Speaker 1: and improvement in Helen from day to day, she wrote,

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Speaker 1: almost from hour to hour, everything must have a name.

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Speaker 1: Now wherever we go, she asks eagerly for the names

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Speaker 1: of things she has not learned at home, and we

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Speaker 1: notice that her face grows more expressive each day. Under

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Speaker 1: Anne Sullivan's tutelage, seven year old Helen Keller mastered the

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Speaker 1: manual alphabet, learned to read Braille, and even branched out

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Speaker 1: to other subjects such as mathematics, all within the span

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Speaker 1: of six months. That unprecedented success garnered national attention for

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Speaker 1: both teacher and student. They made numerous public appearances together

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Speaker 1: and mingled with other prominent figures of the day, including

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Speaker 1: Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and beloved American author Mark Twain.

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Speaker 1: In fact, it was Twain who later gave Anne Sullivan

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Speaker 1: her now famous nickname. In a postcard, he greeted her

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Speaker 1: with quote, warm regard and with limitless admiration of the

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Speaker 1: wonder she has performed as a miracle worker. In eighteen

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Speaker 1: eighty eight, Helen Keller enrolled in the Perkins School herself,

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Speaker 1: and Sullivan went along to continue assisting in her education.

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Speaker 1: A couple years later, Keller was admitted to Radcliffe College,

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Speaker 1: a women's liberal arts school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Once again,

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Speaker 1: Sullivan remained by her side, where she diligently spelled out

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Speaker 1: each lecture to Keller and read to her for hours

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Speaker 1: each day. In nineteen o four, the pair's hard work

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Speaker 1: paid off when Helen Keller became the first deaf blind

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Speaker 1: person to earn an undergraduate degree. Some listeners may be

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Speaker 1: familiar with Keller's autobiography, The Story of My Life, which

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Speaker 1: was first published in nineteen oh three. She actually began

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Speaker 1: working on the book while still a student at Radcliffe,

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Speaker 1: with Sullivan helping to transcribe it. During that time, Sullivan

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Speaker 1: met John A. Macy, a professor at Harvard University, who

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Speaker 1: helped edit Keller's manuscript. That working relationship eventually led to

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Speaker 1: romance between Macy and Sullivan. They got married in nineteen

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Speaker 1: oh five, but Sullivan remained devoted to Keller. In fact,

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Speaker 1: the three of them lived together in a Massachusetts farmhouse,

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Speaker 1: and Sullivan and Keller continued making the rounds on lecture tours,

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Speaker 1: just as they had before her marriage. Sullivan and Macy

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Speaker 1: eventually split up around nineteen thirteen or nineteen fourteen. When

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Speaker 1: the couple parted ways, Macy moved to Europe. They were

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Speaker 1: never formally divorced, but they never reconciled either. Over the

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Speaker 1: next two decades, Sullivan and Keller continued to live and

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Speaker 1: work together. They gave lectures on the vaudeville circuits both

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Speaker 1: in the US and abroad, and later worked for the

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Speaker 1: newly formed American Foundation for the Blind, serving as advocates

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Speaker 1: for the needs of people with vision loss. The hectic

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Speaker 1: lifestyle slowly took its toll on Sullivan's already fragile health. Finally,

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Speaker 1: on October fifteenth, nineteen thirty six, she developed a blood

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Speaker 1: clot which restricted the flow of blood to her heart,

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Speaker 1: causing her to slip into a coma. She died five

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Speaker 1: days later at the age of seventy, with Helen Keller

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Speaker 1: holding her hand. Sullivan's ashes were placed in a memorial

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Speaker 1: at the National Cathedral in Washington, d c. Making her

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Speaker 1: the first woman to be interred at that distinguished resting place.

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Speaker 1: Helen Keller went on to live a long and full life,

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Speaker 1: penning several more books and continuing her work for the AFB.

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Speaker 1: A woman named Polly Thompson had long served as the

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Speaker 1: livin secretary for Keller and Sullivan, and she took over

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Speaker 1: the role as Keller's companion and interpret her after Sullivan's death.

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Speaker 1: When Keller passed away herself in nineteen sixty eight, she

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Speaker 1: too was cremated and interred at the National Cathedral, with

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Speaker 1: her ashes placed right alongside those of Sullivan Anne Thompson.

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Speaker 1: It's fitting that they all be joined in death, because,

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Speaker 1: as Sullivan once said, quote, my own life is so

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Speaker 1: interwoven with my Helen's life that I can't separate myself

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Speaker 1: from her. There is no denying the strength of their

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Speaker 1: bond or the ways in which they came to define

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Speaker 1: each other's lives. The achievements they shared are astounding, But

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Speaker 1: at the root of them all was a humble, dedicated teacher,

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Speaker 1: a woman who yearned to improve the lives of others

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Speaker 1: through service. When Sullivan graduated Perkins in eighteen eighty six,

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Speaker 1: she gave a speech as the valedictorian of her class.

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Speaker 1: Fellow graduates, she began duty bids us to go forth

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Speaker 1: into active life. Let us go cheerfully, hopefully, and earnestly,

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Speaker 1: and set ourselves to find our especial part. When we

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Speaker 1: have found it, willingly and faithfully perform it. For every

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Speaker 1: obstacle we overcome, every success we achieve, tends to bring

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Speaker 1: man closer to God and make life more as he

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Speaker 1: would have it. At Sullivan's funeral some fifty years later,

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Speaker 1: Bishop James E. Freeman made clear that Sullivan had indeed

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Speaker 1: reached her goal. The touch of her hand, he said,

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Speaker 1: did more than illuminate the pathway of a clouded mind.

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Speaker 1: It literally emancipated a soul. I'm Gabelusier and hopefully you

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Speaker 1: now know a little more about history today than you

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Speaker 1: did yesterday. You can learn even more about history by

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Speaker 1: following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TEDI eight

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Speaker 1: C Show Special Thanks to listener Whitney White for suggesting

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Speaker 1: today's topic, and if you have a historical topic you'd

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Speaker 1: like to see covered on the show, don't be shy

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Speaker 1: send it along by writing to This Day at iHeartMedia

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Speaker 1: dot com. Thanks to Chandler May's for producing the show,

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Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening. I'll see you back

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Speaker 1: here again soon for another Day in History class Intended

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Speaker 1: the peat and Conden of pot