Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller

07/08/2025

Charity Guide Dogs says an innovative squirrel car is the perfect training tool to help guide dogs learn to resist distractions.

07/08/2025

It started with a letter in August 1886.

Anne Sullivan, just 20 years old, was asked by her mentor at the Perkins School for the Blind if she would consider a teaching role with a family in Alabama. Their daughter, Helen Keller, had been deaf and blind since she was 19 months old due to a severe illness.

The Kellers had reached out to the famous inventor and educator of the deaf, Alexander Graham Bell, for advice, who put them in touch with Perkins.

That letter set in motion a partnership that opened the door to language for Helen Keller and changed both of their lives.

Read the letter on AFB’s Online Museum: https://www.afb.org/about-afb/history/online-museums/anne-sullivan-miracle-worker/anne-teacher

03/07/2025

It's officially month! 🎉

And while we're always proud to be a part of it, it's also nice to have time set aside to focus on all the amazing advocates, accomplishments and acceptance that make this community a powerhouse of inclusivity.

Join us in celebrating disability pride - this month, every month, and every day - in the !

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Image: Icons of figures navigating with a cane, a guide dog and in a wheelchair. The wheelchair user is holding a disability pride flag. Text reads: "Let's celebrate disability pride!" The BlindNewWorld logo is tucked into the large wheel of the wheelchair.

27/06/2025

What we can learn about how Helen Keller celebrated her birthday from journals kept by Nella Braddy Henney.

27/06/2025

Nina Livingstone lost sight and hearing to Usher syndrome. With tenacity and talent, she navigated to success as a writer and public speaker

24/06/2025

The fully functional floral clock is displayed Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh, Scotland.

A team of three gardeners began the planting process six weeks ago, as they laid down 40,000 flowers in a design that spans nearly 200 meters.

16/04/2025

Anne Sullivan -- Helen Keller's teacher and close companion for 49 years -- was born on this day in 1866. The child of poor Irish immigrants, Sullivan herself went blind as a child due to untreated trachoma and was sent to the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston. Though her vision was partially restored after surgery, she remained visually impaired throughout her life.

After Sullivan graduated as class valedictorian, the school director recommended the 20 year old for a position teaching 6-year-old Helen Keller in the small town of Tuscumbia, Alabama. Keller, who had been left blind and deaf due to disease as a toddler, had very limited means of communication but her young teacher soon helped her break out of, as Keller later described, the "silence and darkness that surrounded me." Keller's famous breakthrough in understanding that every object had a unique sign identifying it came when Sullivan ran cool water over her student's hand while signing the word "water" with the other. After this realization, Keller became a vigorous learner, eager to learn the signs for all of the other objects in the world around her.

Sullivan stayed by her side for 49 years, helping Keller on her journey to become the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree and to later become world famous as a writer and advocate on behalf of women's suffrage, labor rights, and disability rights. Together, they traveled to over 40 countries as Keller became the world's most prominent voice speaking on behalf of the rights of people with disabilities. In describing the transformative impact Anne Sullivan had on her life, Keller once stated, "Once I knew only darkness and stillness... my life was without past or future... but a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living."

For children's books about the special bond between Anne and Helen, we highly recommend the picture book "I Am Helen Keller" for ages 4 to 8 (https://www.amightygirl.com/i-am-helen-keller), the graphic novel "Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller" for 9 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/trials-of-helen-keller), and the historical fiction novel "Miss Spitfire" for ages 10 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/miss-spitfire)

For more books to introduce Helen Keller to kids, we recommend the chapter book "Helen Keller: The World At Her Fingertips" for ages 4 to 7 (https://www.amightygirl.com/helen-keller-fingertips), the picture book "Helen's Big World: The Life of Helen Keller" for ages 6 to 9 (https://www.amightygirl.com/helen-s-world), and the classic children's biography for ages 7 to 12 (https://www.amightygirl.com/helen-keller)

For adults, we recommend the fascinating biography "Beyond the Miracle Worker: The Remarkable Life of Anne Sullivan Macy and Her Extraordinary Friendship with Helen Keller" at https://www.amightygirl.com/beyond-the-miracle-worker

The Oscar-winning film "The Miracle Worker" also tells the story of Anne and Helen's lifelong friendship, for ages 8 and up, at https://www.amightygirl.com/the-miracle-worker

For a variety of children's books featuring Mighty Girls with disabilities, visit our blog post “Many Ways To Be Mighty: 35 Books Starring Mighty Girls with Disabilities” at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=12992

11/04/2025

Book Talk by David Serlin
Window Shopping with Helen Keller (University of Chicago Press, 2025)
in conversation with Sophie Gonick and Mara Mills
moderated by Andrew Ross

Wednesday April 30th, 12:30 p.m.
Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at NYU
20 Cooper Square, 4th Floor Flex Space

RSVP
Contact [email protected] with any questions about the event.

A particular history of how encounters between architects and people with disabilities transformed modern culture.  Window Shopping with Helen Keller recovers a series of influential moments when architects and designers engaged the embodied experiences of people with disabilities. David Serlin rev...

02/04/2025

On May 9, 1933, Helen Keller wrote a letter to the students in Germany who planned on burning all books deemed “un-German,” including Keller’s own work, How I Became a Socialist.

Helen Keller wrote a letter to the students who planned on burning all books deemed “un-German.”

02/04/2025

The Nazi's burned Helen Keller's books....

Academy officials were told to review the library late last week.

28/03/2025

If there is one woman to thank for the beginning of education, it’s the very first student, Laura Bridgman.

Perkins' director at the time created an entire curriculum to help teach Laura the names of objects and how to communicate her needs. was not yet invented, but Laura’s learning consisted of raised letters that were tactile and paired with familiar objects so she could read and write.

Her foundation in education informed generations of students who are deafblind, including !

11/03/2025

Go behind the scenes on Heart to See, a short film that follows a boy's journey to meet his estranged father before he loses his sight.