Reading, writing, and speaking are all important skills. They help people communicate. However, it can be hard for people with to learn those skills. In the 1800s, many of those people did not go to school. Anne Sullivan was a teacher. She rose to the challenge. She overcame difficulties in her life. Then, she helped a student in need.
Anne Sullivan was born on April 14, 1866, in Feeding Hills, Massachusetts. Her childhood was hard. Sullivan’s parents were and could not read or write. The Sullivan family was very poor. When she was about five years old, Sullivan caught an eye disease. This made her almost completely blind. Then her mother died when she was eight years old.
Sullivan went to the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1880. Sullivan was 14 years old. She still could not read or write. However, she worked hard at her new school. At age 15, Sullivan had eye surgery that gave some of her vision back. She could now see letters when they were written on paper. Sullivan graduated from Perkins at the top of her class in 1886.
That same year, a man named Arthur Henley Keller sent a letter to the Perkins School. Arthur’s daughter, Helen, was born in 1880. Before she had turned one year old, Helen suffered from an illness that left her blind and deaf. As a result, the now six-year-old Helen never learned how to speak. Arthur asked for help, hoping that someone at Perkins would be able to teach Helen. Sullivan accepted the job.
Anne Sullivan met Helen Keller at the Keller family home, Ivy Green, in 1887. To teach Helen, Sullivan used a trick called fingerspelling. She wanted Helen to know that everything in the world had a name. So, Sullivan “spelled out” the names of these objects into Helen’s hand. She used a Manual Alphabet taught at Perkins (see Slide Show). For example, when Helen felt cool water flowing over her hand, Anne spelled out the letters “w-a-t-e-r” into her other palm. Helen now had a name for water! From that day on, Helen was eager to learn many new names.
Sullivan lived and worked with Keller in Tuscumbia, Alabama. After six months, Keller had learned nearly 600 words. Over time she could even read . Eventually, Sullivan used a new technique. She had Keller place one hand on her face. Helen used her fingers to feel how her lips moved when she spoke certain words. By pressing her thumb against Sullivan’s throat, Helen could also feel the vibrations of those words. Meanwhile, Sullivan spelled out the words she was saying into Helen’s other hand. After seven lessons, Helen was ready to copy those sounds with her own mouth. She spoke the sentence “I am not dumb now!”
With Sullivan’s help, Keller graduated from Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1904. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree. She was the first deafblind person to ever get that degree. For years afterward, Helen and Anne traveled together. They visited more than 30 countries. They talked about Helen’s life.
Sullivan went completely blind by 1935. She died on October 20, 1936. However, her legacy lives on. Many groups still support people with disabilities. They include Helen Keller International in New York and the Anne Sullivan Centre for People who are Deafblind in Ireland.
By Tyler Burdick
Updated March 6, 2025, 5:00 P.M. (ET)
