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Anne Sullivan Macy is a feminist hero.” -Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia and Seeking Peace
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Still, somehow Anne, an almost blind orphan living in a poorhouse, managed to secure an education and carve out an independent life for herself and her student, Helen Keller. “A remarkable story of a vulnerable woman in a culture that allowed women neither freedom nor power. Yet as Macy floundered with her own blindness, ill health, and depression, as well as a tumultuous and triangulated marriage, she came to lean on her former student, emotionally, physically, and economically.īased on privately held primary source material, including materials at both the American Foundation for the Blind and the Perkins School for the Blind, Beyond the Miracle Worker is revelatory and absorbing, unraveling one of the best known-and least understood-friendships of the twentieth century.
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Seeking escape, in love with literature, and profoundly stubborn, she successfully fought to gain an education at the Perkins School for the Blind.Īs an adult, Macy taught Keller, helping the girl realize her immense potential, and Macy’s intimate friendship with Keller remained powerful throughout their lives. It presents a new and fascinating tale about a wounded but determined woman and her quest for a successful, meaningful life.īorn in 1866 to poverty-stricken Irish immigrants, the parentless and deserted Macy suffered part of her childhood in the Massachusetts State Almshouse at Tewksbury. By telling the life from Macy’s perspective-not Keller’s-the biography is the first to put Macy squarely at the center of the story. While Macy is remembered primarily as Helen Keller’s teacher and mythologized as a straightforward educational superhero, the real story of this brilliant, complex, and misunderstood woman, who described herself as a “badly constructed human being,” has never been completely told.īeyond the Miracle Worker, the first biography of Macy in nearly fifty years, complicates the typical Helen-Annie “feel good” narrative in surprising ways. In doing so, it’s implied, Annie not only triumphs where many other doctors have failed-she also comes to terms with her own traumatic past.The first biography to unearth the fascinating relationship between Anne Sullivan Macy and Helen KellerĪfter many years, historian and Helen Keller expert Kim Nielsen realized that she, along with other historians and biographers, had failed Anne Sullivan Macy. In the end, Annie succeeds in teaching Helen the concept of meaning-that is, the relationship between words in sign language and the things they represent. Annie is shown to be a highly capable teacher-not so much because she’s a genius, but because she’s persistent and has a personal stake in helping her pupils succeed.
#Anne sullivan the miracle worker how to#
Annie tries to teach Helen Keller how to communicate by introducing her to sign language. In a way, taking care of children is her way of atoning for having “abandoned” James as a child. She seems to be attracted to teaching, not just because she’s benefitted from education personally but because she continues to feel guilty for James’s death. Later, Annie attended the Perkins Institute for the Blind, where she learned how to read and write, and eventually received surgery to help her regain her sight. James (or “Jimmie”) died at the almshouse, and Annie appears to feel personally responsible for the death of her beloved brother. A Massachusetts “Yankee,” as several of the Kellers like to call her, Annie grew up blind in a squalid almshouse with her younger brother, James Sullivan. Annie Sullivan is the “miracle worker” of the play’s title, and the play’s protagonist.