After the Miracle, page 39
6. Ibid.
7. Brian H. Greenwald, “Taking Stock: Alexander Graham Bell and Eugenics, 1883–1922,” in The Deaf History Reader, ed. John Vickrey Van Cleve (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2007).
8. Alexander Graham Bell, “A Few Thoughts Concerning Eugenics,” Annual Report of the American Genetic Association—Breeding, vol. 4, 1908.
9. P. R. Reilly, “Involuntary Sterilization in the United States: A Surgical Solution,” Quarterly Review of Biology (June 1987), pp. 153–70.
10. “Facts about Children and Hearing Loss,” Dallas Hearing Foundation. The foundation reports that “two deaf parents with unknown genetic information have a 10% chance of having a deaf child.”
11. Douglas C. Baynton, Forbidden Signs: American Culture and the Campaign against Sign Language (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 31.
12. Keller, Midstream, p. 107.
13. Annie Sullivan, “How Helen Keller Acquired Language,” American Annals of the Deaf, vol. 37, no. 2 (Apr. 1892), p. 132.
14. Sullivan, “How Helen Keller Acquired Language,” pp. 127–28.
15. Ibid.
16. In her earliest accounts, including a passage that Anagnos cited in the 1891 Perkins annual report, Annie claimed that Helen’s first words were “I am not dumb now,” but later began to tell audiences that the actual words were “I am no longer dumb.” “Throng Thrilled as Famous Blind Woman Appears,” Morning Post (Camden, NJ), Jan. 20, 1926, p. 3.
17. Keller, Midstream, 98. 1955 Video: Helen Keller Speaks Out. In this video, Helen speaks but her words are mostly unintelligible, so Polly translates her words as she and Annie often did when Helen delivered a lecture in front of a live audience.
18. See Edwin Black’s landmark work, War against the Weak, for an important analysis of how the American eugenics movement inspired Hitler’s program.
19. Katie Booth, The Invention of Miracles (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2021), p. 513.
20. Diane Paul. “Eugenics and the Left,” Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 45, no. 4, Oct.–Dec. 1984, pp. 567–590.
21. Jonathan Freedland, “Eugenics and the Master Race of the Left,” Guardian, Aug. 30, 1997.
22. “Deformed Baby Dies,” Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 18, 1915, p. 7.
23. “Helen Keller, Blind, Deaf and Dumb Genius, Writes on Defective Baby Case,” Pittsburgh Press, Nov. 28, 1915, p. 14.
24. “The Sins of the Parents Shall Not Be Visited,” Washington Herald, Dec. 5, 1915, p. 35.
25. “Helen Keller, Blind, Deaf and Dumb Genius, Writes on Defective Baby Case,” Pittsburgh Press, Nov. 28, 1915.
26. Nathalie Oveyssi, “The Short Life and Eugenic Death of Baby John Bollinger,” Psychology Today, Oct. 12, 2015.
27. “Jury Clears, Yet Condemns, Dr. Haiselden,” Chicago Tribune, Nov. 20, 1915, p. 8.
28. Nathalie Oveyssi, “The Short Life and Eugenic Death of Baby John Bollinger,” Psychology Today, Oct. 12, 2015.
29. Helen Keller, “Physicians’ Juries for Defective Babies,” New Republic, Dec. 18, 1915.
Chapter Eleven: Helen vs. Jim Crow
1. United States Census, 1880, “Population by Race, Sex, and Nativity.” The 1880 census recorded the demographic makeup of Colbert County, where Tuscumbia is located, as 9,203 whites vs. 6,950 “colored,” but Joseph Lash (HAT, p. 54) claims that Black people made up “more than half” of Tuscumbia’s population in 1880.
2. United States Federal Census, 1830, fifth census of the United States, microfilm M19, Record Group 29, NARA; author interview with Sue Pilkington, June 14, 2022.
3. United States Federal Census, 1850, Slave Schedule, M432, NARA.
4. “Helen Keller to Mildred Keller Tyson,” June 9, 1933, HKA. In 1947, a woman named Mary White Vinson wrote to Helen (Mary Vinson to Helen Keller, Oct. 1, 1947, HKA) claiming that her mother, Jessie Hart, worked as the Keller family cook in the 1880s and that Mary often played with Helen. The 1880 federal census records confirm that “Jessy Hart” worked as a servant for Arthur and Kate Keller, which would appear to give credibility to Mary’s claim. In 1971, the Helen Keller estate wrote to Mary asking for any correspondence she may have exchanged with Helen, but she had passed away in 1969. Years later, an African American man from Russellville, Alabama, named Thomas McKnight claimed that he had traced his genealogy and discovered that “Martha Washington” was in fact Mariah Watkins, the niece of his great-grandmother, Sophia Napier Watkins, who he claims was the cook at Ivy Green when Helen was growing up. McKnight, however, failed to supply any evidence to back up his assertion. Sophia Napier Watkins is listed in the 1880 federal census as “keeping house” and there’s no known record listing her as a Keller family cook. McKnight failed to return several calls and emails requesting an interview to elaborate on any additional evidence he had to back up his claim.
5. Keller, SOML, p. 25.
6. Ibid, p. 300.
7. “Captain Arthur H. Keller,” Civil War Soldier Service Records, Confederate Army, Fold 3.
8. Lash, HAT, p. 53.
9. “The Ku Klux Klan,” North Alabamian, Jan. 4, 1906, p. 1. This is the only known reference to Arthur’s membership in the Klan and, according to local historian Lee Freeman, it may be “anecdotal.”
10. “Tuscumbia,” Nashville Republican Banner, Sept. 22, 1868, p. 1. The paper reported that “three Negroes”—Fort Simpson, Jake Bell, and Ben Cooper—were dragged by a “body of Ku Klux” from the local jail where they were confined for suspicion of burning down the Tuscumbia Seminary. They were “hung by a bridge.” The following day, the Nashville Tennessean (p. 4) reported that a placard had been found on the back of one of the hanged men announcing that the “Ku Klux Klan was upon them.” Author interview with Lee Freeman, local historian at the Florence Lauderdale Public Library, July 7, 2022.
11. Eugene Debs, “The Negro in the Class Struggle,” International Socialist Review, vol. 4, no. 5 (November 1903).
12. Ray Ginger, The Bending Cross (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 1947), p. 260.
13. Richard Iton, Solidarity Blues: Race, Culture, and the American Left (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), p. 103.
14. Henney, ASM, p. 89.
15. Keller, SOML, p. 272.
16. Ibid., p. 272.
17. Lash, HAT, p. 335.
18. W. E. B. Du Bois, in Double Blossoms, ed. Edna Porter (New York: Lewis Copeland, 1931), p. 64.
19. Helen Keller to Van Wyck Brooks, Jan. 28, 1957, HKA.
20. NAACP, “Our History.”
21. “Notes and Excerpts from ‘The North Alabamian,’ A. H. Keller, Editor and Prop’r,” HKA.
22. Oswald Garrison Villard, “Socialism and Syndicalism,” The Nation, May 30, 1912.
23. Helen Keller to Oswald Garrison Villard, Feb. 3, 1916, HKA.
24. Keller, Midstream, p. 220.
25. Day 2, 1901 Proceedings, Constitutional Convention of Alabama.
26. “Villard and Letter from Helen Keller,” Selma Journal.
27. “The Bourbons and Helen Keller,” The Crisis, June 1916, p. 70.
28. Author interview with Professor Susan Fillippeli, Jan. 19, 2022.
29. “Lynchings: By State and Race, 1882–1968,” TIA.
30. “Helen Keller Indicates Her Attitude anent the Advertisement in Local Paper of Recent Date,” Selma Times, Apr. 8, 1916.
31. Van Wyck Brooks, Helen Keller: Sketch for a Portrait (New York: Dutton, 1956), p. 138.
32. Du Bois, in Porter, Double Blossoms, p. 64.
Chapter Twelve: “A Little Island of Joy”
1. Keller, Midstream, p. 134.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., p. 135.
4. “All Should Wed,” Sisseton Weekly Standard, July 7, 1916.
5. Helen Keller to John A. Macy, Mar. 4, 1914, HKA.
6. “How Helen Keller First Sensed Love,” Boston Post, Nov. 26, 1916, p. 45.
7. Keller, Midstream, p. 178.
8. “Helen Keller Says All Women Should Marry,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 9, 1916.
9. Ibid., p. 179.
10. Ibid.
11. Author interview with Keller Johnson-Thompson, Helen Keller’s great-grandniece, Dec. 24, 2021.
12. “Rumor Helen Keller to Wed,” Boston Globe, Nov. 18, 1916, p. 1.
13. “Love Affair Is Ended by Duty,” Tacoma Daily Ledger, Jan. 7, 1917, p. 37.
14. “Obstacles to Helen Keller’s Marrying,” Boston Globe, Nov. 18, 1916, p. 8.
15. “Helen Keller’s Romance Fades,” Boston Post, Nov. 19, 1916, pp. 1, 13.
16. Keller, Midstream, p. 180.
17. “Unalloyed Rot. Says Peter Fagan,” Boston Globe, Nov. 23, 1916, p. 2.
18. “Mrs. Macy Has Left Her Pupil,” Boston Post, Nov. 21, 1916, p. 1.
19. Ibid.
20. “Miss Keller Not to Marry,” Selma Times, Dec. 1, 1916, p. 4.
21. “Helen Keller’s Romance Fades,” New York Herald Tribune, Nov. 19, 1916, p. 1.
22. Kim E. Nielsen, The Radical Lives of Helen Keller (New York: New York University Press, 2004), p. 40.
23. Author interview with Keller Johnson-Thompson, Dec. 24, 2021.
24. Lash, HAT, p. 224.
25. “Love and Socialism on the Front Porch,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 11, 1984.
26. Interview with Ann Fagan Ginger, in The Real Helen Keller, produced by Liz Crow and Ann Pugh, Roaring Girl Productions, 2000.
27. Interview with Bill Johnson, in ibid.
28. Ann Fagan Ginger to Helen Keller, Feb. 4, 1960, HKA.
29. “Correspondence between Fred Elder and Anne Sullivan Macy searching for a mutual acquaintance in Kansas City,” Sept. 20, 1922, HKA.
30. Keller, Midstream, p. 182.
31. Ibid., p. 181.
Chapter Thirteen: Helen vs. Teddy Roosevelt
1. Helen Keller to Anne Sullivan Macy, Mar. 26, 1917, HKA.
2. Ibid.
3. Anne Sullivan Macy to Helen Keller, 1917, HKA.
4. “Helen Keller Helps the Blind in Germany,” Twin-City Daily Sentinel, Jan. 10, 1917, p. 10.
5. Helen Keller to Kate Keller, Oct. 9, 1914, HKA.
6. “Helen Keller’s speech ‘America against Wars’ delivered on the Midland Chautauqua Circuit,” 1916, HKA.
7. Ibid.
8. M. J. Stevenson to Polly Thomson, May 5, 1916, HKA.
9. “Haywood’s Expulsion,” South Bend Tribune, March 5, 1913, p. 8. In a party-wide plebiscite, Haywood was expelled from the Socialist party National Executive Committee by a nearly 2–1 margin for calling for “direct action” and “sabotage.” He left the Party soon afterward.
10. “Helen Keller Would Be IWW’s Joan of Arc,” New York Herald Tribune, Jan. 16, 1916, p. 41.
11. Ibid.
12. Helen Keller to Woodrow Wilson, Nov. 16, 1915, vol. 35, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Papers, Oct. 1, 1915–Jan. 27, 1916, LOC.
13. Wilson to Helen Keller, Nov. 17, 1915, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Papers, vol. 35, Oct. 1, 1915–Jan. 27, 1916, LOC.
14. “Transcript for telegram from Helen Keller to Governor William Spry of Utah asking for a stay of execution for Joe Hill,” Nov. 1915, HKA.
15. “Helen Keller Speech at Carnegie Hall,” Jan. 5, 1916, HKA; “War-Mad Men and Women to Blame for Europe’s Cataclysm,” Buffalo Evening Times, Jan. 10, 1916, p. 2.
16. “Miss Keller on the War,” Outlook, Dec. 29, 1915.
17. Helen Keller to Sister Mary Joseph, May 5, 1902, HKA.
18. “War-Mad Men and Women to Blame for Europe’s Cataclysm,” Buffalo Evening Times, Jan. 10, 1916, p. 2.
19. Anne Terry White, Eugene Debs: American Socialist (New York: Hill, 1974), p. 93.
20. Helen Keller to Annie Sullivan, Mar. 1, 1917, HKA.
21. “Note from Helen Keller about her letter to Henry Ford and his work for peace,” Nov. 30, 1915, HKA.
22. Helen Keller, “The Ford Peace Plan Is Doomed to Failure,” New York Call, Dec. 16, 1915.
23. “War-Mad Men and Women to Blame for Europe’s Cataclysm—Helen Keller,” Buffalo Evening Times, Jan. 7, 1916.
24. Emma Goldman to Helen Keller, Feb. 8, 1916, HKA.
25. Annie Sullivan to Helen Keller, 1917, HKA.
26. Ibid.
27. “Doing Her Bit,” Lincoln Journal Star, Oct. 31, 1918, p. 12.
28. “Raids on I.W.W. Show Germans Back of Plots,” Brooklyn Times Union, Sept. 6, 1917.
29. “America Calls,” New York Herald Tribune, Nov. 2, 1917, p. 8.
30. “Letter to Morris Hillquit,” New York Call, Nov. 5, 1917, p. 3.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Foner, p. 125.
34. Helen Keller to Woodrow Wilson, Dec. 12, 1917, HKA.
35. Ibid.
Chapter Fourteen: “The Human Wonder”
1. Advertisement, B.F. Keith’s, Philadelphia Evening Ledger, May 8, 1920, p. 12.
2. Annie Sullivan to Eleanor Hutton, Mar. 22, 1905, HKA.
3. Helen Keller to Horace Traubel, Sept. 25, 1918, Box 152, Folder 22: Communist Party of the United States, “Helen Keller Correspondence,” WLA.
4. “Film script by Francis T. Miller, for movie Deliverance about Helen Keller,” HKA.
5. Keller, Teacher, p. 147.
6. Keller, Midstream, p. 194.
7. “Helen Keller Cheers Actors’ Strike Pickets,” Illustrated Daily News, Aug. 21, 1919.
8. Helen Keller to Judge Nieman, Aug. 13, 1919, HKA.
9. “Stagehands Quit, 3 More Shows Hit; Film Strike, Too?” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Aug. 17, 1919, p. 5.
10. Keller, Midstream, p. 208.
11. “Eugene V. Debs on the Three L’s,” Labor Action, vol. 13, no. 5 (Feb. 1919).
12. Debs v. the United States, 249 U.S. 211 (1919).
13. “To Eugene V. Debs,” New York Call, Apr. 29, 1919.
14. “Letter from the American Civil Liberties Bureau, NYC to Helen Keller, Forest Hills, NYC regarding the restructuring of the Bureau,” Dec. 30, 1919, HKA.
15. “Documents relating to Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan’s income and investments, including lists of assets and letters,” HKA.
16. “1920 Statistics of Income,” United States Treasury Department, Internal Revenue. Washington Government Printing Office, 1922. The average income of an American family in 1920 was $3,269.40.
17. Helen Keller, The Story of My Life: The Restored Edition (New York: Random House, 2003). Very little is known about Myla, who reputedly had a daughter with John during the early ’20s and died five years later, leaving him a single parent.
18. Annie Sullivan to Eleanor Hutton, Mar. 22, 1905, HKA.
19. Helen Keller to Kate Keller, July 7, 1920, HKA.
20. Helen Keller to Mildred Keller Tyson, June 9, 1933.
21. “Helen Keller Buys Forest Hills Home,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Sept. 7, 1917.
22. John A. Macy to Helen Keller, Jan. 4, 1918, HKA.
23. John A. Macy to Helen Keller, Jan. 2, 1918, HKA.
24. Ibid.
25. John A. Macy to Helen Keller, Feb. 1, 1918, HKA.
26. John A. Macy to Helen Keller, Jan. 4, 1918, HKA.
27. Keller, Midstream, p. 209.
28. Keller, Teacher, p. 154.
29. “Script for Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy’s Vaudeville Performances,” HKA.
30. “Helen Keller Tells of Her Novel Sensations on Stage,” New York Sun and Herald, Feb. 29, 1920, p. 4.
31. “Helen Keller, as Vaudeville Star, Wins Audience by Her Personality,” Sandusky Star Journal, Mar. 6, 1920, p. 2.
32. “Receipt from Andrew J. Lloyd Company Opticians, Boston, MA for an artificial eye for Helen Keller,” Sept. 1911, HKA.
33. “Helen Keller Tells of Her Novel Sensations on Stage,” p. 43.
34. In his 1988 memoir Lilly (New York: Morrow, 1988), about his lifelong friendship with Lillian Hellman, Peter Feibleman writes (p. 102) about a party for Helen given by Polly. Both Hellman and her friend Dorothy Parker were invited, but Parker declined the invitation. Later, Hellman came back from the party and told her friend that she was disgusted by all the pious chatter. To this, Parker is alleged to have said, “It’s your own fault, dear. Didn’t I tell you she was a con woman and a dyke?” Although some interpret this as a reference to Helen, it is more likely that it referred to Katharine (“Kit”) Cornell, since the party he refers to was Helen’s eighty-first birthday party hosted by Cornell at her Martha’s Vineyard home, Chip Chop, in July 1961. Although she was married to Guthrie McClintic, it was an open secret that Cornell was a lesbian, the longtime lover of Helen’s friend Nancy Hamilton. Feibleman himself wasn’t present at the party, so he could have only heard the anecdote secondhand.
35. “Helen Keller: The Unconquerable,” Coronet, Mar. 1949, p. 132.
36. Helen and Annie had prepared for the vaudeville tour by anticipating some of the questions and preparing answers in advance, so it’s likely that not all of Helen’s responses were as quick-witted as they might have appeared.
37. “List of questions asked to Helen Keller by her Vaudeville audiences,” HKA.
38. Ibid.
39. Keller, Midstream, p. 210.
40. Ibid., p. 209.
41. Susan Crutchfield, “‘Playing Her Part Correctly’: Helen Keller as Vaudevillian Freak,” Disability Studies Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 3 (Summer 2005).
42. Ibid.
43. Helen Keller to Yvonne Pitrois, undated, HKA.
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid.
46. Helen Keller to Daisy Sharpe, Dec. 19, 1923, HKA.
Chapter Fifteen: The Foundation
1. Helen Keller to Mildred Keller Tyson, Dec. 1, 1922, HKA.
2. Helen Keller to Mildred Keller Tyson, Dec. 17, 1923, HKA.
3. Ibid.
4. Koestler, Unseen Minority, pp. 15–16.
5. M. C. Migel to Charles F. F. Campbell, Nov. 27, 1923, HKA.
6. Charles F. F. Campbell to M. C. Migel, Nov. 30, 1923, HKA.
7. F. F. Campbell to M. C. Migel, Nov. 30, 1923, HKA.
8. M. C. Migel to Charles F. F. Campbell, Apr. 18, 1924, HKA.
9. Annie Sullivan to M. C. Migel, Nov. 10, 1924, HKA.
10. Annie Sullivan to M. C. Migel, Aug. 6, 1924, HKA.
