"I am not dumb now."
August 21, 2009 9:43 AM Subscribe
Helen Keller Speaks - 1930 Newsreel Footage (SLYT)
This post was deleted for the following reason: previously and poorly tagged. -- jessamyn
That is incredible. I had no idea she could do that. What an amazingly determined, patient pair to have accomplished that.
(I) think of how hard it is to debug a problem over the phone. You can't see what they see and every instruction has to be filtered through words and painful, step-by-step instructions. Except in this case, the "phone" is a fingertip tracing on the palm of a hand. Learning to "hear" through your fingertips would be hard enough without having the teaching process be so extremely hampered as that.
posted by DU at 9:50 AM on August 21, 2009
(I) think of how hard it is to debug a problem over the phone. You can't see what they see and every instruction has to be filtered through words and painful, step-by-step instructions. Except in this case, the "phone" is a fingertip tracing on the palm of a hand. Learning to "hear" through your fingertips would be hard enough without having the teaching process be so extremely hampered as that.
posted by DU at 9:50 AM on August 21, 2009
When Helen said "I am not dumb now" and gave that big smile at the end, I got a lump in my throat.
posted by orange swan at 9:51 AM on August 21, 2009
posted by orange swan at 9:51 AM on August 21, 2009
I came to make Helen Keller jokes, but I leave inspired. Thanks.
posted by Christ, what an asshole at 9:55 AM on August 21, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by Christ, what an asshole at 9:55 AM on August 21, 2009 [1 favorite]
Omg, thanks for making me burst into tears. So totally inspiring and heart swelling. What an amazing pair. How awesome they both were, what mutual love and mutual trust.
posted by nickyskye at 10:08 AM on August 21, 2009
posted by nickyskye at 10:08 AM on August 21, 2009
I haven't watched the clip yet, but does Helen say "I'm not dumb now" during it? If so, I remember seeing this in a longer film about Helen's life. We saw it in school in the sixth grade, and, surprisingly, even the really smart alecky-est kids didn't make fun of the way she spoke. We were all that amazed by her story.
posted by Oriole Adams at 10:09 AM on August 21, 2009
posted by Oriole Adams at 10:09 AM on August 21, 2009
I too came in to tell my favorite Helen Keller joke. It might be a while before I can tell it ever again :)
posted by crickets at 10:17 AM on August 21, 2009
posted by crickets at 10:17 AM on August 21, 2009
Jeez. Spoiler alert? Come on!
I echo DU. I had no idea she could do that. Amazing.
posted by bDiddy at 10:19 AM on August 21, 2009
I echo DU. I had no idea she could do that. Amazing.
posted by bDiddy at 10:19 AM on August 21, 2009
Helen Keller is amazing, but though we are often told teh story of her early life, we are rarely told of her later political activism.
Sh was a pacifist. She protested against the First World War. She was an early member of the American Civil Liberties Union. And there's more. Enough that someone who writes better than I could create a FPP on her without even mentioning her deafness.
posted by cccorlew at 10:19 AM on August 21, 2009 [3 favorites]
Sh was a pacifist. She protested against the First World War. She was an early member of the American Civil Liberties Union. And there's more. Enough that someone who writes better than I could create a FPP on her without even mentioning her deafness.
posted by cccorlew at 10:19 AM on August 21, 2009 [3 favorites]
Great footage. Sullivan is so great at explaining their process. I can see how she had the patience and ability to work with Keller to develop their system.
posted by JBennett at 10:20 AM on August 21, 2009
posted by JBennett at 10:20 AM on August 21, 2009
That is incredible. I had no idea she could do that.
By the time of this film, Keller was an accomplished and highly demanded public speaker. She and Sullivan-Macy are just demonstrating their beginning, not where they were by that point.
posted by Pollomacho at 10:27 AM on August 21, 2009
By the time of this film, Keller was an accomplished and highly demanded public speaker. She and Sullivan-Macy are just demonstrating their beginning, not where they were by that point.
posted by Pollomacho at 10:27 AM on August 21, 2009
Employing the technique in a meeting Charlie Chaplin.
posted by tellurian at 10:29 AM on August 21, 2009
posted by tellurian at 10:29 AM on August 21, 2009
I like to pretend I'm all bad-ass and bad taste but I'm glad to know I'm not the only total softy with who got sucker-punched right in the tear ducts with that last line.
posted by Juliet Banana at 10:38 AM on August 21, 2009
posted by Juliet Banana at 10:38 AM on August 21, 2009
Good thing I work at home. Wow.
Anne Sullivan fascinates me, too. When I was about 10, I read and re-read a Scholastic biography of her. The strength, creativity and persistence needed to bring Helen Keller back to the rest of the world came from a real place:
Anne Sullivan was the oldest of five children, born in Feeding Hills, a subsection of the town of Agawam, Massachusetts. Her parents, Thomas and Alice Sullivan, were impoverished cooks who left Ireland in 1847 during the Potato Famine. Her mother suffered from tuberculosis and died when Anne was eight years old. Her father was an alcoholic farm hand who abandoned his three surviving children after his wife died. Although her sister Mary was sent to live with an aunt, when Annie was ten, she and her brother Jimmie moved in with other relatives, who later sent the two siblings to the Tewksbury Almshouse (today Tewksbury Hospital). Annie spent her time there with Jimmie, in hopes that they would not be separated; however, his condition resulting from a tubercular hip weakened him and he died three months later.
When Anne Sullivan was three she began having trouble with her eyesight as a result of the eye disease trachoma, a bacterial infection that often causes blindness by scarring. Sullivan underwent a long string of surgeries.... Even after [many attempts] her vision remained blurry. Sullivan returned to Tewksbury, against her will. After four years there, in 1880, she entered the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind in Boston, where she underwent surgery in 1881 and regained some of her sight. After the improvement of her eyesight, and graduating as class valedictorian in 1886, Michael Anaganos, the school's director, encouraged her to become a teacher for Helen Keller and she received special training to do this. In 1887, Sullivan had an additional surgery which restored more of her vision.
So when I watched the video, knowing about Sullivan's hardscrabble background, I was a bit shocked by her accent, that old-fashioned mid-Atlantic sound we associate with the rich and which almost completely vanished from popular culture in the 40s. I don't think little Annie Sullivan sounded anything like that. That woman had to make herself over in almost every way.
posted by maudlin at 10:39 AM on August 21, 2009 [1 favorite]
Anne Sullivan fascinates me, too. When I was about 10, I read and re-read a Scholastic biography of her. The strength, creativity and persistence needed to bring Helen Keller back to the rest of the world came from a real place:
Anne Sullivan was the oldest of five children, born in Feeding Hills, a subsection of the town of Agawam, Massachusetts. Her parents, Thomas and Alice Sullivan, were impoverished cooks who left Ireland in 1847 during the Potato Famine. Her mother suffered from tuberculosis and died when Anne was eight years old. Her father was an alcoholic farm hand who abandoned his three surviving children after his wife died. Although her sister Mary was sent to live with an aunt, when Annie was ten, she and her brother Jimmie moved in with other relatives, who later sent the two siblings to the Tewksbury Almshouse (today Tewksbury Hospital). Annie spent her time there with Jimmie, in hopes that they would not be separated; however, his condition resulting from a tubercular hip weakened him and he died three months later.
When Anne Sullivan was three she began having trouble with her eyesight as a result of the eye disease trachoma, a bacterial infection that often causes blindness by scarring. Sullivan underwent a long string of surgeries.... Even after [many attempts] her vision remained blurry. Sullivan returned to Tewksbury, against her will. After four years there, in 1880, she entered the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind in Boston, where she underwent surgery in 1881 and regained some of her sight. After the improvement of her eyesight, and graduating as class valedictorian in 1886, Michael Anaganos, the school's director, encouraged her to become a teacher for Helen Keller and she received special training to do this. In 1887, Sullivan had an additional surgery which restored more of her vision.
So when I watched the video, knowing about Sullivan's hardscrabble background, I was a bit shocked by her accent, that old-fashioned mid-Atlantic sound we associate with the rich and which almost completely vanished from popular culture in the 40s. I don't think little Annie Sullivan sounded anything like that. That woman had to make herself over in almost every way.
posted by maudlin at 10:39 AM on August 21, 2009 [1 favorite]
That's wonderful. Thank you.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:40 AM on August 21, 2009
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:40 AM on August 21, 2009
cccorlew: This post and to a greater extent the links in the thread give some good info on her writing and political activism. And in a sign that the good old days of metafilter weren't as good as we remember them, the first comment is a link to Helen Keller jokes (which now redirects to a general humor site).
posted by TedW at 10:41 AM on August 21, 2009
posted by TedW at 10:41 AM on August 21, 2009
As cccorlew mentions, she was an inspiration regardless of her blindness and deafness - for a woman of her time period, she broke many many stereotypes.
This is my favorite photo of her. I think many of us have the image of her as the ragamuffin by the water spout in our heads when we think of her, but I think she was beautiful.
She graduated cum laude from Radcliffe in 1904. She was an international traveller, responsible for introducing the Akita dog to America, and an ardent feminist, socialist, and outspoken on almost everything. A prolific writer and big fan of correspondence, she was friends with famous people from Alexander Graham Bell to the Roosevelts. Also an Oscar and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner.
(I could say more, but I'm off to a meeting... I was the librarian at AFB for a few years. And as for the jokes - we had a whole file of them in the archives.)
posted by librarianamy at 10:47 AM on August 21, 2009
This is my favorite photo of her. I think many of us have the image of her as the ragamuffin by the water spout in our heads when we think of her, but I think she was beautiful.
She graduated cum laude from Radcliffe in 1904. She was an international traveller, responsible for introducing the Akita dog to America, and an ardent feminist, socialist, and outspoken on almost everything. A prolific writer and big fan of correspondence, she was friends with famous people from Alexander Graham Bell to the Roosevelts. Also an Oscar and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner.
(I could say more, but I'm off to a meeting... I was the librarian at AFB for a few years. And as for the jokes - we had a whole file of them in the archives.)
posted by librarianamy at 10:47 AM on August 21, 2009
The American Foundation for the Blind has a great slideshow on Sullivan.
posted by maudlin at 10:47 AM on August 21, 2009
posted by maudlin at 10:47 AM on August 21, 2009
Wow. That was absolutely astounding. Thank you so much.
posted by malthas at 10:53 AM on August 21, 2009
posted by malthas at 10:53 AM on August 21, 2009
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