WEBVTT - Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan: Miracle is Right 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:07.680 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:13.600 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:16.439 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:20.560 should Know. I think this is a long time coming edition. 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:24.800 Yeah, I mean, how have we not covered Ann Sullivan 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:27.320 and Helen Keller at this point? It's kind of weird. 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:29.240 I don't know. But this is the kind of thing 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:31.400 that's like, yeah, we still got a few years left 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:31.920 in this, you. 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:35.000 Know, totally. And we're not scraping the bottom of any 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:35.640 barrels here. 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:38.320 No, we're not even dipping into the top of the 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:40.720 barrel yet. Everybody, it's still full. 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:44.680 Of pickles, that's right, or cream that has risen to 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:45.080 the top. 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:49.080 Oh, that's even better. Pickles and cream. 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:52.840 Right, But we're talking about Helen Keller and An Sullivan. 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:57.320 You probably know who these people are. But if you don't, 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:00.840 just very quickly we should say that I Sullivan was 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:05.160 a teacher of a young girl and others along the way, 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:07.560 but mainly known for her work with a young girl 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:11.120 starting from the age of six named Helen Keller, who 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:15.440 lost her sight in hearing as a nineteen month old 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:20.800 from what is likely bacterial meningitis, even though we don't 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:24.040 know for sure, and it's one of the great inspiring 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:27.839 stories of all time, and especially one that came early 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:30.760 on to show to the rest of the world who 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:33.080 at the time didn't think that people that had these 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.720 kinds of afflictions like blindness and being deaf, Like if 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:39.880 you had both of those, they were basically like, we're 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:43.160 going to send you to an institution because we can't 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:45.880 teach you anything. You know, you can't see, you can't hear. 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:49.600 We're sorry, yeah, And at those institutions they likely died. 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:52.560 A lot of them died just from neglect or abuse 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:55.640 or all sorts of different reasons, just because they were 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:59.320 unable to see or hear. And by this time, there 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:03.200 was education for the deaf, there was education for the blind, 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:06.120 but like you said, the deaf blind were considered like, 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:08.080 there's just no way you can teach them. And the 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:14.120 reason why is because the only senses they have are touch, smell, 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:20.400 and tastete that's about it. And that like they're just like, 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:22.440 we don't know how to teach anybody by taste, Like 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:24.320 you just can't do anything with them. So when you 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:28.519 really start to put yourself in Helen Keller's positions, totally 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:33.360 cut off by the world or from the world. It's 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:37.800 just mind boggling and as inspiring as it gets to 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:41.200 stop and think about what Ann Sullivan actually did and 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.799 then what Helen Keller was able to do after Ann 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:46.280 Sullivan did her thing. 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:50.000 Initially, Yeah, for sure, one of the great relationships and 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:55.520 partnerships of history. Yeah, world history and certainly American history. 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:59.320 There had been some schools in place, and there was 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:03.120 one recording did deaf blind person who had learned language. 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:06.079 It was a woman named Laura Bridgman. In the eighteen 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:08.679 thirty She worked with a guy named Samuel Gridley Howe 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:11.359 and he founded what's known as the Perkins School for 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:13.760 the Blind in Boston, which will come into play in 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:16.520 this story. But he taught her, and this is what 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:20.919 Anne Sullivan would teach Helen Keller, something called the manual alphabet, 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:24.520 which is as Lisa Simpson would say, Tapa tapa tapa, 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:29.799 where letters correspond to taps on a palm. And that 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:34.080 is how, you you know, very sort of slowly teach 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:37.680 somebody language without with them not being able to see 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:38.040 or hear. 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:42.000 Yeah, they figured out how to teach somebody language just 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:45.920 through touch, which is impressive in and of itself. But 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:48.520 the fact that Laura Bridgman had learned that it was 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:52.720 a it was considered like a curiosity and anomaly like 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:55.840 this is not like that didn't extend to the idea 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:58.880 that you could teach deaf blind people anything generally. Right. 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:01.840 Yeah, And we should say that Ann Sullivan was vision 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:04.440 impaired herself, and that's how she ended up knowing Laura 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:07.480 Bridgman from that Perkin School for the Blind. 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:10.240 Right, And let's talk a little bit about Ann Sullivan. 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:15.280 She had an extraordinarily rough life man leading up to 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:19.679 about age fourteen. She was born in eighteen sixty six 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:25.800 to parents. Her mother was an invalid. Her father abandoned 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.240 them right after her mother died when she was I 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:31.960 think eight. By this time, she had lost most of 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:35.479 her vision. She had suffered an eye infection, and so 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:40.080 she and her brother Jimmy, they have no She's eight 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:42.839 and now she's in charge of her little brother. She's 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:47.040 blind and there's no one helping them any longer. There's 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:49.119 no one looking out for them. It's up to her 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:51.920 to look out for the both of them in any 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:54.120 way she can and so they had to move into 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:55.880 a public poor house in Tewksbury. 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:59.640 That's right, And we should point out she's vision impaired 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.599 at this I think until she was an adult she 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:07.240 suffered full blindness. Okay, but you know, rough life. This 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:11.760 poorhouse was awful. There were rumors and reports of cannibalism 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:15.599 at the shelter. It was filthy. They were constantly just 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:18.880 threatened and in danger, you know, health wise and otherwise. 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:22.279 And there was an inspection at one point of a 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:26.640 state board of charities, and a little teenage Anne Sullivan 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:31.360 actually convinced them she had no formal education, convinced a 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:34.720 government official who was on site there to send her 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:38.239 via tax dollars to that Perkin School for the Blind 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:42.000 in Boston, where she enrolled and would eventually graduate as 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:43.560 valid victorian of her class. 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:46.840 Yeah, and just to get that point across, when she 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:49.440 was fourteen is when she was sent to Perkins School. 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:53.480 She lived in a poorhouse for six years. Her brother 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:57.320 died four months after they moved there when he contracted tuberculosis. 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:01.160 She'd had an incredibly rough life. Her first formal education 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:04.200 came at age fourteen when she went to Perkins, and 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:10.040 six years later she was valedictorian again despite being uncited. Like, 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:13.560 her story in and of itself is incredibly inspiring, but 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:15.080 it just picks up from there. 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:18.200 Yeah, for sure. And the reason we sort of mentioned 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:20.719 the Perkins stuff because, like I said, that's where she 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:24.200 met Laura Bridgman, and notably, that's where she learned that 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:27.640 manual alphabet because she wanted to converse with Laura Bridgman. 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:33.599 So Keller, like I said, probably lost her her sight 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:38.800 and her hearing from bacterial meningitis is what they suspect. Yeah, 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:43.600 she was born in eighteen eighty. She was completely developmentally 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:46.960 on track when this happened at nineteen months old. So 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:50.520 her life just took a really unfortunate turn. And so 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:53.800 from the moment that she was nineteen months old until 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:56.559 she was six, she was you know what some people 0:06:56.640 --> 0:06:59.800 might call in a trapped state. She was just living 0:06:59.880 --> 0:07:04.000 in her mind, unable to communicate her parents. You know, 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:10.080 she reacted very frustratingly, probably not surprisingly, and got increasingly 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:12.960 violent with her tantrums. And by the time she was six, 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:16.280 her parents were like, I don't know that we can 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:20.520 handle this safely anymore. We don't want to institutionalize her. 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:25.880 So they reached out somehow. I think her mom had 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:30.000 just remembered, like reading something about Laura Bridgman and that 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:32.800 Perkins School, and I think this is before Helen was 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:36.720 even born, and so they, I guess hopefully, put in 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:40.480 a phone call to Alexander Graham Bell and said, first 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:43.080 of all, thank you for this invention. This is pretty 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:44.720 cool that we can call you the inventor. 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:46.080 He said, bully bully. 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:48.800 He said, bully bully. And then they said, but I 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.200 know you're active in death education, and I know your 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:53.880 son in law runs the Perkins School. What do you 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:56.320 think about our daughter. It's a pretty tough case. 0:07:57.560 --> 0:07:59.560 Yeah, And he was like, this is I think this 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.000 is just the job for the Perkins School. So he 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:05.880 pulled some strings and that kind of makes it sound 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:09.440 like the Perkins School's in Massachusetts. Helen Keller's family was 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:11.880 from Alabama. It sounds like her family was wealthy. They 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:15.760 were not. Her father was a captain in the Confederate 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:18.600 Army during the Civil War. After the Civil War, her 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:21.160 family was left poor, so they were not wealthy. I 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:24.040 think they had land and everything like that, but she 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:26.920 was not nearly as destitute as Anne Sullivan. But I 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:30.560 think it's worth the point that as she grew and 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:35.120 started living her life, she supported herself. She didn't come 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:36.599 from a wealthy family. 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:39.400 Yeah for sure. In the meantime, while, you know, when 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:41.600 she gets in to school there, Anne Sullivan had already 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.520 gotten a job offer from Perkins. She was a great 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:47.600 student there. She knew that manual sign language, and they said, well, 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:50.600 we should just work here. And so on March third, 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:55.040 eighteen eighty six, Helen Keller would meet Anne Sullivan and 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:58.040 later call that her soul's birthday. 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:03.040 Yeah. So Anne Sullivan was sent by Perkins to t Scumbia, 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:08.800 where the Kellers lived in Alabama, and she when she 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:14.600 got there, i mean almost immediately, Helen through a tantrum. 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:18.360 So Anne Sullivan got to see firsthand, right off the bat, 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:21.240 like this is going to be tough. This girl has 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:24.920 learned because her parents are letting her do this. She's 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:29.520 learned to express herself through violence, through anger, through intimidation, 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:33.000 through the thread of throwing another tantrum if she doesn't 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:36.000 get her way or she can't someone's not listening to 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:42.120 her or something. And Anne Sullivan was a scrappy Irish 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:47.320 lass who identified very quickly like if I'm going to 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:50.520 get through this girl. That stuff has to end immediately, 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:54.240 and so they were like, she spent about the first 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:59.880 week essentially physically overpowering Helen whenever she through a tan 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:04.480 and by the end of the week had lost the tooth. 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:07.880 I think she'd been touched many times they went through it. 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:12.160 But apparently after just a week Helen learned like, Okay, 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:14.720 this lady's not going to put up with that. I 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.840 should probably try a different tack. And it seems like 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:22.480 from that point she had gained Helen's trust and now 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:24.920 they could start with Helen's education. 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:28.600 Yeah, I mean, you think about it. Helen Keller didn't. 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:31.600 She couldn't even figure out who this person was all 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:34.000 of a sudden, this new person in her life, yeah, 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:38.200 who is now physically restraining her. I mean that was 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:44.800 sort of Sullowan's philosophy. She talked about. The gateway was obedience. Basically, 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:47.880 eventually you'll get to love and knowledge, but at first 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:50.319 I have to I have to sit on this girl. 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:53.800 Right, you know. Yeah, I mean she's like, she broke 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:56.360 a tooth from me, give me a break. 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:00.160 Yeah, well, very encouragingly. And this is something as one 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:02.679 who's always believed in the healing powers of the great outdoors. 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:06.120 Getting Helen outside was a very big deal and a 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:10.040 very good sort of second step because they could explore nature. 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:13.920 It calmed Helen down immediately, and that's where her senses 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:16.319 of smell and touch could really be engaged. 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:19.360 She's later said, Helen did that if you were deaf 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:22.439 and blind, then out in the sun is the best 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:25.280 place to be, oh, because you can really feel it, 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:29.920 you know. Yeah, So it didn't really occur to me, 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:31.760 like I knew that this is a really big deal 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:34.240 to Anne Sullivan was able to teach Helen Keller, but 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:36.120 it didn't occur to me until I was researching this 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:40.280 that that wasn't even the first step. The first step, 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:43.120 like if you're teaching a kid something there in school, 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:46.079 you're saying, Okay, now we're going to learn the alphabet. 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:48.720 Here's the alphabet. This is what you use the alphabet 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:51.320 for to spell words. This is what this word means 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:53.240 for this right, this is the word for this thing. 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:57.480 They know that you're teaching them, so they're understanding that 0:11:57.520 --> 0:11:59.000 they're accepting that information. 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:00.680 That's still hard. 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:04.199 It is that's hard in and of itself. Yeah, there 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:09.520 was no way for Anne Sullivan to explain to Helen Keller, 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:13.640 I'm here to teach you language. Right, she had to 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:16.960 essentially figure out how to break through to Helen Keller 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:20.120 so that Helen Keller realized what was going on now 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:22.959 and could take it from there could start to learn. 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:27.160 So there was this enormous obstacle before Helen Keller could 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:30.560 even begin to learn, which was to understand that she 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:33.720 was being taught and to understand that what she was 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:37.600 being taught was language, that things had words associated with them. 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:40.280 This was brand new to her because again she was 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:43.400 nineteen months old when she lost her sight in hearing, 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:45.640 so she hadn't learned this stuff yet. 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:51.120 Yeah, I mean, it's astounding that this worked, quite frankly, 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.120 and it's due to hard work. And as we'll see 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:58.400 the fact that Helen Keller turns out was brilliant. So 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:02.200 she starts Tapa tap a tap into Helen's palm. Every 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:04.959 chance she gets, she'd hand her a doll, Tapa tapa 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:10.000 tapa doll. She gives her some water, Tapa tapa tapa 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:14.080 w a t e R. And like you said, you know, 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:17.839 for a while, Helen's probably like, what is this person doing? 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:21.559 Tapping on my hand all the time. Eventually she's doing 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:24.640 it so much she learns to associate, like, oh, when 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:28.040 I get water, I'm getting these same taps. And eventually 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:31.960 there's like a literal aha moment where she gets it 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:36.000 and she's like, wait a minute, I understand this person 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:41.120 is representing a word for the thing that I'm experiencing 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:44.200 by tapping into my palm. And she said it was. 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:47.160 She said, Helen's face lit up like it was a 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:48.080 complete revelation. 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:53.000 Yeah, this very famously happened at a water pump. They 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:56.880 were on one of their outdoor walks or hikes, I guess, 0:13:57.559 --> 0:13:59.960 and they came upon the water pump and she said, 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:04.160 somebody was pumping water and Anne stuck Helen's hand into 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:06.200 the stream of water coming out of the spout and 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:11.200 was tapping the same letters wat er and just kept 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:13.360 doing it over and over and over and over. And 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:18.319 that's what finally, Helen just put those things together, just clicked, 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:22.880 like you said. And there's a statue of her that 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:25.760 was unveiled in the Capitol rotunda in two thousand and nine, 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:28.640 and it is of her as an eight year old 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:33.560 girl standing at this water pump basically commemorating that incredibly 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:39.160 just moving moment, but also incredibly unlikely moment that she 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.840 got it. She just got it, and now she was 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:45.040 able to start to learn from there. 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:50.200 That's incredible. So it went really pretty quickly from that point. 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:52.560 She learned thirty words by the end of that day, 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:56.760 had a vocabulary of a few hundred words within a 0:14:56.800 --> 0:14:59.480 few months. And by the time this started when she 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:02.360 was six and then to seven, by the time she 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:07.120 was eight, she had taught her to read words by feel. 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:10.640 She was writing. She was composing sentences and writing in 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:16.000 block letters, which is an astounding rate of speed considering 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:20.400 her scenario. And maybe that's a good time for a break. Yeah, 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:22.600 all right, we'll be right back. Things are off to 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:25.520 a really quick start, and we'll see what happens next 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:27.200 with Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan. 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:51.720 Okay, Chuck, So, like you said, Anne Sullivan quickly figured 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:55.160 out that Helen Keller was a gifted child. She just 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:57.280 had to learn how to learn, and once she learned that, 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:00.000 she just took off. Like you said, by the time 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:03.480 she was a teenager, she was reading i think five 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:09.640 different languages, she wrote poetry, and she was in public speaking. 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:12.680 She did public speaking as a teenager and what's called 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:16.320 the Chattaquah Lecture Circuit, which was a movement to essentially 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.680 bring culture and interesting topics to people who lived in 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:23.000 rural areas who otherwise might not be exposed to that 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:24.800 kind of stuff, to give them something to talk about. 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.280 And she lectured on the circuit. She appeared on the 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:33.720 circuit with Anne Sullivan as a teenager. I think before 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.080 this though, she made her way to the Perkins School 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:37.760 right for her formal education. 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:41.320 Yeah, there were three kind of big things that followed 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:45.840 education wise, between what is that like eight years between 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:49.720 eighty eight and eighteen ninety six, she went to that 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:53.040 Perkin School like you talked about, got that formal education. 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:57.160 She also went to a specialist at the horse Man 0:16:57.240 --> 0:16:59.600 School for the death so she could learned to speak. 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:02.800 And then the third one they moved to New York City. 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:04.920 So and you know, ends along every step of the 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:07.639 way as we'll see obviously, so Helen could go to 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:11.200 the right Humusin School for the Deaf where it would 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.560 continue to sort of improve her speaking and she could 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:18.760 learn to lip read. And this is like Sullivan's there. 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:22.040 Tapa Tapa Tapa every step of the way. When she 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:25.840 goes on the lecture circuit, she's tapping questions like during 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:28.920 Q and A, and then Helen would tap the questions 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:32.240 back to Sullivan and she would translate for the audience. 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:35.159 As we'll see, this would lead to some suspicion that 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:38.000 it was all just an act, which is, you know, 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:41.679 fairly upsetting because what they did was remarkable. But this 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:44.760 would all end up with Helen Keller eventually wanting to 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:45.680 go to college. 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:48.439 Yeah, and just stepping back for just a second, you 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:50.600 mentioned how she learned to lip read, and that doesn't 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:53.520 make any sense because she could she was totally blind. 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:58.359 She lip read by putting her thumb on say Anne 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:02.840 Sullivan's voice box around like under her chin. She put 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:06.639 a finger on her lips and then put another finger 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:10.399 on her sinus cavity, and through feeling what the lips 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:13.159 were doing and the vibrations the vocal box was making, 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:19.199 she could discern essentially what the person was saying. That's 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:21.600 how she learned how to lip read, and eventually that's 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:23.680 one of the ways that she learned to talk, although 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:25.919 she found it a failing of her life that she 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:29.639 was never able to speak clearly enough that just a 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:31.840 stranger on the street could understand her. 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:34.960 Yeah, So, like I said, she want to go to college, 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:37.120 she goes to She want to go to Radcliffe. It's 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:40.760 the Harvard's sister school. And so Anne Sullivan arranges for 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:42.239 her to go to a prep school to get her 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:46.280 ready for this, for the entrance exams and again translating 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:51.000 all the curriculum, tapping out those lectures, tapping out the 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:54.920 books like reading basically to her into her hand and 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:58.440 then translating back to the teachers. She's there every step 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:02.520 of the way when she gets into and attends Radcliffe College, 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:06.840 where she eventually would graduate Kuum Laudie in nineteen oh 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:09.480 four as the very first person with deaf blindness to 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:10.639 earn a college degree. 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:13.040 And like you said, there were scoffers who were like, 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.120 what is this. There's this woman who's like helping her. 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:22.199 Is this really a thing? And like you said, it 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:26.800 is upsetting. But the amount of study and attention that 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:28.920 was paid to these too, there's just no way they 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:31.439 could have kept up a fraud like this for fifty years. 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:35.760 It's quite clearly settled that Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:39.600 really did all the stuff that they were thought to do. 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.040 Yeah for sure. And we don't want to get into this, 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:46.120 but we just so we don't get emails, we will 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:49.359 mention that, just like this week, there is a really 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:55.400 idiotic TikTok trend that started among Generation Z where they 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:58.320 have put forth that Helen Keller did not even exist, 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:03.560 idiotic and ablests. And so the only reason we mentioned 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:05.119 is so we won't get emails about it, but we 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:06.359 don't want to talk more about that. 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:11.960 Yeah, good point. So we should say that that Helen 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:14.720 Keller and Ann Sullivan by this time they weren't just 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:17.960 famous among deaf blind advocates or blind advocates or deaf 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:20.680 advocates or anything like that. They were in that circle. 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:25.840 They also were in academia because they were studied. But 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:29.480 by this time she's a teenager still, I think her 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:34.800 early twenties, after she graduates from Radcliffe, they're world famous. 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:38.440 Like everyone knows who Helen Keller and An Sullivan are. 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:42.600 Yeah for sure. I mean they knew the Rockefellers, they 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:47.160 knew Henry Ford, they had met with US presidents, They 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:50.760 met Charlie Chaplin when they would eventually film starring themselves 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:54.640 as themselves in movie Deliverance in nineteen eighteen. They knew 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:59.960 Mark Twain the book and eventually play title and movie 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:02.600 title the Miracle Worker came from Mark Twain. He's the 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:04.880 one that coined that term when he wrote a letter 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:09.359 to Anne Sullivan calling her that. But all this to say, 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:13.960 I think that put a strain on Anne Sullivan's marriage. 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:16.200 During this period, she got married to a guy named 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:19.800 John Macy. He was a Harvard professor and he actually 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:23.000 helped Helen Keller write the Story of My Life, her autobiography. 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:27.400 But they, you know, they were married for a little while. 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:29.399 The marriage didn't work out, and I think a lot 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:32.520 of it probably had to do with just their fame 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:34.520 and their travels, and it was it was just a 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:35.359 strain on the marriage. 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:38.280 It seemed like, yeah, apparently I saw a documentary called 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:41.960 Becoming Helen Keller. It was really good, but it crushed 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:46.399 Anne Sullivan when John Macy left. Yeah, and you know, 0:21:46.520 --> 0:21:48.760 Helen grieved along with her. She said it took a 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:52.880 really long time. Helen like almost exclusively referred to Anne 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:55.320 as teacher. So she was like, it took it took 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:57.880 teacher a really long time to basically get over that 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:01.080 she may she may have never really gotten over it. 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:05.479 But they they were a pair again at this point, 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:09.480 so they were in a movie. As you said, Helen 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:12.199 learns very quickly, like I like being on stage. This 0:22:12.240 --> 0:22:14.720 is kind of fun. It's a rush. She apparently could 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:17.840 feel the vibration in the floor and through the air 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:20.160 when and knew when the audience was clapping. 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:25.320 Yeah, you know, interestingly weaken since through the vibrations and 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:28.000 through the air when a stuff you should know, tour 0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:29.840 show is forty percent full. 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:34.080 That's right, man, that's right. But she loved that. She 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:39.359 thrived on that and it energized her so cool. Yeah, 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:41.480 she really liked it. She was also one of her 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:44.359 things was they would demonstrate, you know, how she learned 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:48.119 and how she communicated through Anne, but she would deliver 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:53.920 in like these these demonstrations, like inspirational messages. This is 0:22:53.960 --> 0:22:57.439 the kind of message she's decided to take to the world. 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:00.560 Rather than like get a load of me, She's like, 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:03.720 you're paying me all this attention. Why don't you pay 0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:05.840 attention to yourself and how great you can be too. 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:09.760 At the same time, she was shining a massive spotlight 0:23:09.880 --> 0:23:14.879 on how few opportunities the disabled community in the United 0:23:14.920 --> 0:23:17.400 States and around the world had at the time, and 0:23:17.480 --> 0:23:21.520