Category: History

Helen Keller Plays Vaudeville With You

Out of the dark, a jewel box scene materializes; Helen Keller plays vaudeville on this top-billed set. The handsomely appointed drawing room, brilliant and color-saturated, projects hugely: French windows overlook rolling hills and a sky that will shift from day to night; drapes puddle on the floor; The Apotheosis of Homer hangs on one of the brocade-papered walls, and a… Read more

Helen Keller on Smell, The Fallen Angel

[“SMELL, THE FALLEN ANGEL” is Chapter SIX of The World I Live In (originally published in 1908), a magnificent book that tells of sensations beyond seeing and hearing. It is also the book from which I took the heartbreaking preface that ends Helen Keller Tries To Tell You Her Story. This has been gently edited for apparent scanning errors and… Read more

Helen Keller Tries To Tell You Her Story (Despite Your Helen Keller Jokes)

On to the black stage she steps. You believe you hear her cane tap tapping, then stop. Papers rustle. Suddenly you are blinded by a brilliant light. The light, emanating from a lamp on her head like that of a miner, creates dark smudges of her facial features. Under the brilliant light and shadow face, you see what appears to… Read more

THE HAND OF THE WORLD: Helen Keller on Social Blindness

[From Out of the Dark: Essays, Letters, and Addresses on Physical and Social Vision (1913). This text has been lightly edited for apparent scanning errors and hyperlinked by me] As I write this, I am sitting in a pleasant house, in a sunny, wide-windowed study filled with plants and flowers. Here I sit, warmly clad, secure against want, sure that… Read more

Helen & Friends @ Zuccotti Park: Occupy Wall Street 5-year anniversary

“ASK ME WHAT I THINK OF CAPITALISM” That was the sign I made and carried with me to Occupy Wall Street Sunday. We finally made it to Zuccotti Park, after the fact from the standpoint of many who think the movement of the physical place is dead. But it was exhilarating for me and my companions nonetheless. Besides me and… Read more

Helen Keller’s Vaudeville Q & A

  What is Miss Keller’s age? There is no age on the vaudeville stage.   Does Miss Keller think of marriage? Yes. Are you proposing to me?   Does talking tire you? Did you ever hear of a woman who tired of talking?   Do you close your eyes when you sleep? I guess I do, but I never stayed… Read more