The Miracle Worker. Did you watch this 1962 film at some point through the years? It's what we might now call a docudrama , the "miracle" of Annie Sullivan teaching the child Helen Keller to read and speak and communicate despite being "deaf, dumb, and blind" to use the unfortunate terminology of the time. Anne Bancroft won an Oscar for playing Sullivan while 15-year-old Patty Duke as Helen received the best supporting actress award. Bancroft and Duke were in these roles in the play from the late 1950's which preceded the movie.
I read an intriguing review of a recently published biography of Helen Keller, who lived a long and remarkable life. In fact, she was still alive at the time the film was made and had long before written a best-selling autobiography. Thanks to the library I'm reading After the Miracle: The Political Crusades of Helen Keller by Max Wallace. I've discovered that Keller was considered the best known woman in the world after Queen Victoria and she was famous on several continents. Both Mark Twain and Alexander Graham Bell were mentors and friends, with Twain once introducing her to a crowd as "the eighth wonder of the world." Industrialist Andrew Carnegie created an annuity in perpetuity to provide her with financial security, although Keller spent her considerable earnings as fast as she received them.
Annie Sullivan lived with Helen for most of her life and depended on her student for financial support, even after Sullivan married. Although Keller referred to Sullivan as "Teacher" in deference and gratitude it was Helen who had the remarkable life. She learned several languages, read voraciously, and wrote a number of books. All this even though she never regained the sight and hearing she lost to illness as a toddler and in the days when American Sign Language was still being developed and adopted.
Helen became a devout Christian after religious instruction which came out of persistent questions to Annie Sullivan about God. As such she became deeply committed to causes such as women's suffrage and providing support for those with disabilites, as well as to changing conditions where people of all ages lost their sight. She was an ardent socialist which was a brave identification then, as it still is today in the States. She grew up in Alabama which was a racist, segregationist state yet worked to end Jim Crow laws and advocated for voting rights and equality.
Helen Keller on a Picket Line
Helen rejected the anti-semiticism of her Episcopalian instructor and the notion that all who weren't Christians would be consigned to hell. Later she wrote:
I had been told by narrow people that all who were not Christians would be punished and naturally my soul revolted, since I knew of wonderful men who had lived and died for truth as they saw it in pagan lands.
Every chapter of After the Miracle offers new insights, a term I use deliberately. She scolded others along the way saying that those who resisted progress on social justice were more blind and deaf than she was. It should be required reading for evangelical Christians and right-wingers in the US who use "socialist" as a term of derision.
There were times when Keller ventured down paths which were mistakes, including a disturbing support of eugenics which she came to regret. I do look forward to the rest of this well-written book, the story of an extraordinary Christian who understood the meaing of the Sermon on the Mount.
Patty Duke and Helen Keller
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