Helen Keller: A Life in American History

by Meredith Eliassen, Peg A. Lamphier (Editor), Rosanne Welch (Editor)

Overview

This book provides new and exciting interpretations of Helen Keller's unparalleled life as "the most famous American woman in the world" during her time, celebrating the 141st anniversary of her birth.

Helen Keller: A Life in American History explores Keller's life, career as a lobbyist, and experiences as a deaf-blind woman within the context of her relationship with teacher-guardian-promoter Anne Sullivan Macy and overarching social history. The book tells the dual story of a pair struggling with respective disabilities and financial hardship and the oppressive societal expectations set for women during Keller's lifetime. This narrative is perhaps the most comprehensive study of Helen Keller's role in the development of support services specifically related to the deaf-blind, as delineated as different from the blind.

Readers will learn about Keller's challenges and choices as well as how her public image often eclipsed her personal desires to live independently. Keller's deaf-blindness and hard-earned but limited speech did not define her as a human being as she explored the world of ideas and wove those ideas into her writing, lobbying for funds for the American Federation for the Blind and working with disabled activists and supporters to bring about practical help during times of tremendous societal change.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781440874635
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	09/09/2021
Series:	Women Making History
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.50(h) x 0.95(d)

About the Author

Meredith Eliassen, MSLIS, is special collections librarian and university archivist at San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword vii

Introduction: Why Helen Keller Matters ix

Chapter 1 Intersections: Alone We Can Do So Little 1

Chapter 2 Interventions 23

Chapter 3 Helen's Pen Pals 45

Chapter 4 Articulating Helen 63

Chapter 5 Money Talks 83

Chapter 6 The Boundless Universe 105

Chapter 7 Wrentham 127

Chapter 8 What Is in a Name? 147

Chapter 9 Preparedness and Paradoxes 169

Chapter 10 Between Persona and Image 191

Chapter 11 Together We Can Do So Much 213

Timeline 229

Primary Source Documents 243

Bibliography 255

Index 263