History of Disability in South Australia

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” Helen Keller

On June 30th 1948 Helen Keller, a woman without sight or hearing who wrote, spoke and worked tirelessly to help others came to Adelaide and gave a speech to 1,200 school children at the Adelaide Town Hall.

A personal account of the ‘Address to the 1,200 School Children’

When Helen Keller visited Adelaide in 1948 I was in Grade 5 at Woodville Primary School. The entire class was marshalled onto the train at Woodville station, then marched through King William Street to the Adelaide Town Hall. We had all heard beforehand about Miss Keller, and how she had learned to speak in spite of having been born without sight or hearing.

The man who introduced Helen Keller told us not to applaud by clapping our hands, because Miss Keller wouldn’t be able to hear us, but we could stamp our feet so she could feel the vibrations. Tell a town hall full of restless kids they can stamp their feet as loud as they like, and you can imagine the outcome. When a small older woman, (she must have been in her late sixties at that time) came out on stage our applause was wildly enthusiastic.

She spoke for quite a while about her life, what she had done, and about overcoming difficulties in life. I remember thinking then if she could overcome her difficulties, I should be able to do anything I wanted. I thought the flat quality of her voice was unusual and remember our teacher explaining later that people who have no hearing, while able to learn to speak, are necessarily unaware of the vocal inflexions that others use. The concluding applause was, if anything, louder than the first. Elizabeth Jardine

Helen Keller Biography

Helen Adams Keller was born on 27 June 1880 in Tuscumbia, a small rural town in Northwest Alabama, USA. In February 1882, when Helen was 19 months old, she was struck with a mystery illness. Doctor’s at the time called it a ‘brain fever’, however it may have been scarlet fever or meningitis. Helen recovered but had lost both her sight and hearing.

When Helen was seven her parents hired a 20-year-old tutor named Anne Sullivan. She began teaching Helen letters by signing into her hand but Helen didn’t understand what the words meant. It wasn’t until Anne made a ‘miracle’ breakthrough and held Helen’s hand under the water and spelt ‘W-A-T-E-R’ into Helen’s other hand. A feeling had been turned into a word and Helen understood. Helen bent down and tapped the ground and Anne spelt ‘earth’. When Helen was ten she learnt to speak by feeling Anne’s mouth when she talked. During these years Helen learnt to read French, German, Greek, and Latin in Braille. Helen and Anne became inseparable until Anne’s death in 1936.

In 1889 Helen began her first formal education at Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston. In 1900 she entered Radcliffe College. While at Radcliffe, Annie Sullivan laboriously spelled books and lectures into Helen’s hand. Helen graduated with honours in 1904 and became the first deaf-blind person to graduate from college. While still at Radcliffe, Helen Keller began her writing career with The Story of My Life. Over the next 50 years she wrote 11 more books and many articles on blindness, deafness, women’s rights and social issues.

Helen Keller gave speeches and helped raise money for many organisations, including the American Foundation for the Blind and the American Foundation for the Overseas Blind (Helen Keller Worldwide). She spent years travelling around the world speaking about the experiences and rights of people who are blind. She travelled with Anne and later with Polly Thompson visiting 39 countries on five different continents. She received dozens of awards and in 1964 received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honour an American civilian can receive.

Helen Keller died in her sleep on 1st June 1968. Helen Keller, with the help of Anne Sullivan showed that a disability need not be an obstacle in life.

In Helen’s own words: ‘The public must learn that the blind man is neither genius nor a freak nor an idiot. He has a mind that can be educated, a hand which can be trained, ambitions which it is right for him to strive to realise, and it is the duty of the public to help him make the best of himself so that he can win light through work.’

References

American Foundation for the Blind. 2007. [online]. [Accessed 15th May 2007]. Available from World Wide Web: http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=1&TopicID=129

Royal National Institute of the Blind. 1995 -2007. [online]. [Accessed 15th May 2007]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/publicwebsite/public_keller.hcsp>