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The people we see in old photos...do you ever wonder if anyone living has memories of them? Or are they like, those old photos, fading and forgotten. I took this image in San Diego's Historic Old Town.
OLYMPE DE GOUGES
(born Marie Gouze)
Montauban, France, 07/05/1748 – Paris, 03/11/1793
Olympe de Gouges, born Marie Gouze, was a playwright, pamphleteer, and political thinker of the French Revolution. Coming from a modest social background, she became one of the most radical and uncompromising voices of her time, challenging both societal norms and revolutionary authorities. She fought tirelessly for the education of the people, civil equality, and the full political participation of women, asserting that true freedom and citizenship cannot exist without access to knowledge.
In 1791, she published the “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen,” a groundbreaking and subversive document exposing the hypocrisy of a revolution that proclaimed equality yet systematically excluded women and the broader populace from education and political power. Olympe de Gouges used writing as a tool of emancipation, speaking directly to the people in accessible language rather than elite academic discourse, believing that the spread of knowledge was itself a political act.
Her insistence on equality, education, and awareness made her a threat to the Jacobin revolutionary government. She was arrested, charged with subversion, and guillotined on 03/11/1793. Olympe de Gouges was eliminated because she sought to form an educated, conscious, and politically autonomous people—a persistent danger to those who hold power.
I publish these portraits to remember those who gave their lives for humanity, human rights, justice, and freedom. This work is meant especially for younger generations, to make visible stories that are too often forgotten or never taught, and to keep alive the memory of those who paid the highest price for truth and dignity.
This image by Dr Sparky Booker, a postgraduate researcher in the department of History and Classics within the College of Arts and Humanities, in collaboration with Dr Deborah Youngs, won the 2015 Research as Art competition.
Dr Booker said “This image symbolises two key challenges of my research on women and their access to justice during the Middle Ages. Firstly, I am reliant on written, legal sources that are formulaic, often brief and incomplete, and rarely record the woman's voice. Secondly, in my attempts to interpret this information, how do I lift them off the page and produce a rounded picture of medieval women?
I collate the material, look for patterns, shape arguments and create my own theories about their experiences. But in doing so, there is always the danger that I assume their experiences are the same and, like this paper chain of women, produce a homogenised view. I know, nevertheless, that it is still worthwhile to try to reconstruct and understand, and the figures rising out of the manuscripts represent the hopefulness of historical research as well as its dangers.”
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Enillodd y ddelwedd hon a grëwyd gan Dr Sparky Booker, ymchwilydd ôl-raddedig yn yr adran Hanes a'r Clasuron o fewn Coleg y Celfyddydau a'r Dyniaethau, mewn cydweithrediad â Dr Deborah Youngs, y gystadleuaeth Ymchwil fel Celf 2015.
Meddai Dr Booker "Mae’r ddelwedd hon yn symboleiddio dwy o’r prif heriau sydd ynghlwm wrth fy ymchwil i fenywod a’u hawliau i gyfiawnder yn ystod yr Oesoedd Canol. Yn gyntaf, rwyf yn ddibynnol ar ffynonellau cyfreithiol ysgrifenedig sy’n fformiwläig, yn aml yn fyr ac yn anghyflawn ac yn anaml maent yn cofnodi llais y fenyw. Yn ail, yn fy ymdrechion i ddehongli’r wybodaeth hon, sut rydw i’n eu codi o’r dudalen ac yn creu darlun cyflawn o fenywod canoloesol?
Rydw i’n coladu’r deunydd, yn chwilio am batrymau, yn llunio dadleuon ac yn creu fy namcaniaethau fy hun am eu profiadau. Ond, wrth wneud hyn, mae perygl bob amser fy mod yn cymryd yn ganiataol bod eu profiadau'r un peth ac, fel y gadwyn bapur hon o fenywod, yn cynhyrchu darlun unffurf. Rwy’n ymwybodol, er hynny, bod yr ymdrech i ail-greu a deall yn werth ei gwneud, ac mae’r ffigurau sy’n codi o’r llawysgrifau yn cynrychioli natur obeithiol ymchwil hanesyddol yn ogystal â’i pheryglon."
An artwork by Taos modernist Beatrice Mandelman (1912-1998) that will appear in our historic women artists show. Come see six others at the opening this Friday! #womeninhistory #womenartists #art #artist #abstractart #painter #painting #red #blue #orange
Collage from vintage book pages and vintage slides, peyote stitched seed beads, knotted threads, silver/crystal button. 15" x 15", 2022.
Clockwise from upper left: Shirley Temple, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn
see detail view: www.flickr.com/photos/dembicer/51899260526
A really interesting find at the recycling center today - Alice Bunker Stockham - She promoted gender equality, dress reform, birth control, and male and female sexual fulfillment for successful marriages. She was the 5th woman to become a doctor in the United States! you can read more about her here- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Bunker_Stockham
Sneak peek at the banner for this Friday's NEW LANDSCAPES, NEW VISTAS show. That's Dorothy Brett's silhouette over a watercolor by Dorothy Morang. We can't wait to tell the stories of New Mexico women artists throughout history! #art #womeninhistory #wome
Collage from vintage book pages and vintage slides, peyote stitched seed beads, knotted threads, silver/crystal button. 6.5" x 6.5", 2022.
see Full Art Work: www.flickr.com/photos/dembicer/51898227890
Description: Newspaper clipping from the New York Herald Tribune on October 21, 1936. Headline: Mrs. Anne Macy, Helen Keller's Teacher, Dies- 50-Yr. Companionship Ends Week Before Both Were to Receive Roosevelt Medals- Tutor's Own Eyes Failed- Pupil at Bedside, Prays for Strength in Silent Dark.
Full Text: Mrs. Anne Sullivan Macy, who taught the famous Helen Keller to read and speak and thus to be an inspiration for the deaf, mute and blind throughout the world died at 7: 50 a. m. yesterday in the home which she shared with her pupil at 71-11 Seminole Avenue, Forest Hills, Queens. Miss Keller and Miss Polly Thomson, who twenty-two years ago became her secretary when Mrs. Macy’s own eyesight weakened, were at the bedside. Mrs. Macy was seventy years old.
Mrs. Macy, who was Miss Keller’s constant companion for half a century, died just a week before she and her pupil were to receive Roosevelt medals on the anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday for their work in bringing hope to the blind. The announcement that she would receive the medal, however, was made on October 6. Mrs. Macy had been ill almost a year. Suffering from heart trouble, she had a relapse last week and she was in a coma when she died.
As she left the bedside, Miss Keller said: “My teacher is free at last from pain and blindness. I pray for strength to endure the silent dark until she smiles upon me again. She has gone from me a little while, but I shall feel her presence anew when my eyes are blessed with light, my ears saved unto harmony and my imprisoned life set free.”
Funeral To Be Tomorrow
It was announced at the home that funeral services will be held at 2 p. m. tomorrow in the Park Avenue Presbyterian Church, 1010 Park Avenue, and that the Rev. Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor of the Riverside Church, will officiate. Mrs. Macy had no immediate survivors.
The life of Mrs. Macy was inextricably bound to that of Helen Keller. In 1886 Mrs. Macy became the teacher to an unfortunate little girl who had been made blind, deaf and mute by disease. In that year she spelled laboriously into the child’s hand a word of the manual alphabet and began the process which was to open the world to Helen Keller and make her a brilliant, educated, cultivated woman.
Years pass in which the two women were almost inseparable, and then, late in 1933, came a dramatic reversal in their relationship. Mrs. Macy’s own sight failed, and Helen Keller set patiently to work teaching Braille to the woman who had taught it to her years before because Mrs. Macy had forgotten the fingertip reading code after her pupil had mastered it.
Mrs. Macy was born on April 14, 1866, into a poor Irish family at Feeding Hills, a village near Springfield, Mass. A few days later the infant was taken to the cathedral in Springfield and baptized Joanna Mansfield Sullivan. She was called Annie most of her life and eventually shortened this to Anne, never using her real baptismal name.
Early in life her sight was affected by trachoma, and although a series of operations cleared her vision greatly her eyes never ceased to bother her, strained as they were by the double task of serving two women of above-normal intellectual curiosity. Annie Sullivan was reared in poverty. Her mother died and the little girl subsisted for a time on the charity of relatives, then was sent to Tewksbury Almshouse, where she encountered “rats, maniacs, sexual perversions, delirium tremens, epilepsy and corpses,” to quote from the biography of Mrs. Macy written by Nella Braddy and published in 1933.
“Very much of what I remember of Tewksbury,” Mrs. Macy recalled many years after, “is indecent, cruel, melancholy, grewsome [sic] in the light of grown-up experience: but nothing corresponding with my present understanding of these ideas entered my child mind. Everything interested me. I was not shocked, pained, grieved or troubled by what happened. Such things happened. People behaved like that – that was all there was to it. It was all the life I knew.”
Demanded to Go to School
The little Sullivan girl finally gathered up her courage and when a party of officials came to inspect the almshouse she bearded the leader, Frank Sanborn, and loudly demanded to be sent to school. Her appeal succeeded, and she was sent, still as a state charge, to the famous Perkins Institution for the Blind at Watertown, Mass., where she studied under Laura Bridgman. When she was graduated, in 1886 she was twenty years old and her sight had been mainly restored. She sought a teaching position, and through the school obtained the post of governess to the handicapped daughter of a former Confederate Army officer, Arthur Keller.
When Miss Sullivan arrived at Tuscumbia, Ala., in 1887 she found Helen Keller a strong, healthy child of seven. At the age of nineteen months the little girl had been stricken with a peculiar congestion of the brain and stomach which nearly took her life but finally left her sound in body but totally bereft of speech, sight and hearing.
Members of the family had lacked the courage to train and discipline the child, and had treated her so indulgently that she was utterly spoiled. The new governess took over her training and there followed a terrific conflict of wills which not infrequently resulted in physical struggle. Annie Sullivan’s problem was to control Helen without breaking her spirit, and within a month she had succeeded.
“Doll” First Word Learned
She was then ready to start the great undertaking of opening lines of communication between the world and the child’s blockaded bind. The first word Helen Keller learned was “doll.” Miss Sullivan spelled the word out in the manual alphabet against the little girl’s hand, meanwhile touching the doll she was holding. Helen thought that the governess was trying to get the doll away from her, and put up a battle, but after many repetitions she grasped the connection between the object and the manual symbols.
“Cake” was the second word, and the child began to take a mild interest in the process of learning. The words “mug” and “milk” were the first great stumbling block, for she found it hard to dissassociate [sic] the container from the fluid. This was solved one day out at a pump as Helen stood holding a cup and felt the water gush out over her hands. That single incident gave her a sudden impetus, and within a few minutes she had added thirty new words to her vocabulary.
Miss Sullivan had noticed that two-year-old children are able to understand things they cannot say themselves, and began to converse with Helen just as though the child were still only nineteen months old and normal. In this way she taught her words not easily explained by material objects.
Next came the task of breaking down Helen’s concept of words into a concept of letters of the alphabet. At the end of three years the child had mastered the alphabet, knew how to read and write, and could use both the manual (sign language) system and Braille raised type. Miss Sullivan then began to teach her charge how to speak, dividing sound into various categories and analyzing the muscular movements of throat and tongue needed to produce each. Helen Keller’s speaking voice never could become normal or easy, but she learned to speak and make herself understood, and was no longer completely mute.
She made rapid progress in her studies and soon caught up with the usual public school curriculum. She studied for a brief period at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf, in Boston, then passed her entrance examinations and entered Radcliffe College, in 1900. Although warned that she was impairing her own weak vision, Miss Sullivan accompanied Miss Keller to every class and interpreted lectures and discussions to her. Helen studied in Braille whenever possible and Miss Sullivan read to her out of textbooks. A few of the blind girl’s instructors became sufficiently interested in her to learn the manual alphabet themselves so that they might talk with her directly.
Miss Sullivan had taught Helen to type, and all her papers and examination answers were done on the typewriter. Miss Sullivan also mastered the Morse telegraphic code and imparted it to Helen so that they might converse without touching hands directly. Helen’s response to vibrations developed keenly.
Married to Harvard Instructor
Helen was graduated cum laude from Radcliffe in 1904 with an A. B. degree and special mention for excellence in English literature. Soon afterward she moved to a farm at Wrentham, Mass. Miss Sullivan was still with her, serving not only as guide, philosopher and friend, but as companion, interpreter and amanuensis. While they were at Wrentham, Miss Sullivan was married to a Harvard instructor, John A. Macy, but it was with the understanding that Helen was not to be neglected, and after a brief wedding trip, they returned to Wrentham and the farm. The Macys later separated, Mrs. Macy remaining with her pupil. Mr. Macy, who became a critic and essayist, died in 1932.
By 1914, Mrs. Macy’s sight had begun to trouble her again, and a third woman joined the household as Miss Keller’s secretary. She was Miss Thomson, who took over many of the routine duties of reading and correcting manuscripts. Helen Keller and her aids went on lecture tours and embarked on a great campaign to raise funds for the blind. They traveled through Europe and America, and Mrs. Macy occasionally had the fun of hearing visitors ask, “Whatever had become of Annie Sullivan?”
Two things helped to brighten Mrs. Macy’s last years. In May, 1935 a delicate operation almost completely restored the sight of her left eye, making it possible for her to move around again and read. And on October 6, 1936, the Roosevelt Memorial Association announced that the Roosevelt medals for that year would be awarded to Miss Keller and Mrs. Macy in recognition of “a co-operative achievement of heroic character and far-reaching significance-the release and development of an imprisoned personality which, by its emergence and its effective activity, has become for millions a symbol of hope and inspiration to effort.”
Their Collaboration Acclaimed
James R. Garfield, president of the association, noted that this was the first time that two Roosevelt medals had been awarded for one deed or accomplishment.
“The achievement has been in the truest sense a collaboration,” he said, “having been possible only because the devotion and native genius of Mrs. Macy were matched in Miss Keller by intelligence, courage and indomitable determination. It constitutes one of the most notable instances in history of the triumph of the mind and spirit over bodily affliction.”
In recent years Miss Keller, Mrs. Macy and Miss Thomson have lived in Scotland or at their American home, in Forest Hills. Mrs. Macy received an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Temple University and was decorated with the medal of St. Sava by the Jugoslavian [sic] government, but most of her days were spent in her accustomed place, but most of her days were spent in her accustomed place, the shadow of the bright publicity which has always focused upon Helen Keller. The public which knew so much about the result of her work knew little about the work itself. But this was her own choice, for even Helen Keller once wrote that her friend hid her inner life “behind an almost impenetrable reserve.” It required a year to persuade Mrs. Macy that she should accept the Temple honor.
In 1932, when the University of Glasgow conferred an honorary degree upon Miss Keller. Sir Robert Ralt, principal of the institution, said of Mrs. Macy: “We honor also the teacher and friend whose devotion and whose genius rendered the triumph possible."
Both women also were elected honorary fellows of the Educational Institute of Scotland. Mrs. Macy’s citation praised her “devotion, patience and resource without parallel.”
Many educator have described the Helen Keller-Annie Sullivan relationship as the meeting of a perfect teacher with a perfect pupil. When Helen was learning her first words, she asked what the new friend’s name was and was told, in manual symbols, “teacher.” “Teacher” was what Helen Keller called her then, and to the end.
Miss Keller took personal charge of all arrangements for the funeral. During the time Mrs. Macy was in a coma, Miss Keller was with her teacher almost continuously, leaving the bedside only rarely to walk in her garden. Members of the household said that Mrs. Macy was last conscious a week ago today when she cried: “Oh, Helen and Polly! My children, I pry God will unite us in love!”
Honorary Pallbearers
Honorary pallbearers include M. C. Migel and Robert Irwin, president and director respectively of the American Foundation for the Blind; Russell Doubleday; Harvey D. Gibson; Dr. Conrad Berens, the physician who operated upon Mrs. Macy a year ago; Dr. Phillip Smith, chief Alaskan Geologist of the United States Geological Survey; Dr. William Saybolt, Mrs. Macy’s physician; Dr. John H. Finley, William Ziegler Jr., Louis Bamberger, Dr. William Allan Neilson, president of Smith College, and the Rev. Dr. Edward C. Allen, rector emeritus of the Perkins Institute of the Blind.
Among the hundreds of telegrams of condolence received was one from Hermann Hagedorn, executive director of the Roosevelt Memorial Association, who announced that the presentation of the medal to Miss Keller would be postponed until next year. Others wiring their regrets included Mr. And Mrs. William Ziegler jr. and Gilbert Grosvenor.
Mr. Hagedorn’s announcement follows: “The trustees of the Roosevelt Memorial Association have heard with profound regret of Miss Macy’s death. They recognize, of course, that it will be impossible for Miss Keller to come to the dinner on October 27 to receive the Roosevelt Distinguished Service Medal and will postpone the presentation until next year. The dinner, however, will be held as usual. The speakers will be announced later.”
Creator: New York Herald Tribune
Date: 1936
Format: newspaper clipping
Digital Identifier: AG88-n-4
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Newspaper clipping from the New York Times on October 21, 1936. Headline: Mrs. Macy is Dead; Aided Miss Keller- Teacher and Famous Blind and Deaf Pupil Associated Since They Met in 1887- She Kept in Background- In Recent Years Her Sight Failed and Younger Woman Heroically Looked After Her. Article has one photograph of Mrs. Macy.
Full text: Mrs. Anne Mansfield Sullivan Macy, who for nearly fifty years, was the kindly, patient and brilliant teacher of Miss Helen Keller, noted blind and deaf woman, died yesterday at their home, 71-11 Seminole Avenue, Forest Hills, Queens. She had been suffering from a heart ailment, which became acute early this Summer. Mrs. Macy was 70 years old.
Mrs. Macy taught Miss Keller to read, speak, and know the world about her by use of her fingertips. Their lifelong devotion to each other was internationally famous and one was seldom seen or heard of without the other. Blindness, which had shadowed the child Anne Sullivan's life and which she had conquered before she met Miss Keller, had returned to darken her last days, and Miss Keller had to become the teacher and Mrs. Macy the pupil.
Miss Keller yesterday paid this tribute:
"Teacher is free at last from pain and blindness. I pray for strength to endure the silent dark until she smiles upon me again."
Miss Polly Thomson, Miss Keller's secretary, said yesterday that Miss Keller was "bearing up magnificently" under her loss. During the last week Miss Keller was almost constantly at Mrs. Macy's side. Mrs. Macy was in a coma from Thursday until she died. On Wednesday she said: "Oh, Helen and Polly, my children, I pray God will unite us in His love."
Mrs. Macy, so long the link to light for Miss Keller, lost the sight in her own right eye in 1929, due partly to a cataract, for which an operation was performed. In May, 1935, a cataract operation was done on her left eye, but thereafter she was able to distinguish only light and color with it. She could no longer read or guide her beloved Miss Keller, who despite her own handicaps, devoted herself to her friend.
Pupil Guides Teacher in Braille
As early as 1933 Miss Keller had commenced to teach Mrs. Macy to read Braille. But the Braille system had changed since Mrs. Macy taught it to Miss Keller and the teacher found it difficult.
When it became known that year that Miss Keller, who had been led [part of article missing from image] out of the black silence in which she had existed since childhood by the ingenuity, perseverance and patience of her teacher, was in tern preparing her teacher to "see" with her fingers.
Teaching Along New Paths
Teacher and pupil remained for a time at the Perkins Institution. Then, in 1894, Helen was enrolled in the Wright-Humason Oral School for the Deaf in New York. Later Miss Sullivan took her to a school in Cambridge to prepare her for Radcliffe College and finally Helen passed triumphantly her entrance examinations, entered Radcliffe and in 1904 was graduated cum laude.
Throughout the college course, Mrs. Macy was with Helen, spelling into her hands the words of the textbooks and the books of required reading. Miss Keller's career thereafter brought her more and more into the public eye. She became famous as an author, she raised huge sums for the blind, she traveled, she was everywhere acclaimed, and Mrs. Macy went everywhere with her.
'My own life," Mrs. Macy said once, 'is so interwoven with my my Helen's life that I can't separate myself from her.'
Honored by Foreign Lands
When Mrs. Macy's sixty-seventh birthday was celebrated Miss Keller proposed a toast:
"Here's to my teacher, whose birthday was the Easter morning of my life."
In 1931 Mrs. Macy received the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Temple University and the Order of St. Sava from the King of Yugoslavia.
In 1932 she became an honorary fellow of the Educational Institute of Scotland. Mrs. Macy stayed in seclusion for several months in 1933 in Scotland while Miss Keller nursed her. Mrs. Macy's blindness grew even more pronounced and on her return from Scotland she said:
"Helen is and always has been thoroughly well behaved in her blindness as well as her deafness, but I'm making a futile fight of it, like a bucking bronco. It's not the big things in life that one misses through the loss of sight, but such little things as being able to read. And I have no patience, like Helen, for the Braille system, because I can't read fast enough."
Early this month the Roosevelt [part of article missing]
Teacher
On a day nearly fifty years ago, Helen Keller, the blind and deaf child, whom Anne Sullivan had undertaken to teach, had put into her hand (literally) the key to the universe. Mrs. Macy, whom Anne Sullivan came to be, tells of the day of the miracle when Helen, with a new light in her face, learned the word for "water":
Suddenly turning around and pointing to me she asked my name. I spelled, "Teacher".
To the end of that miracled companionship which ended yesterday morning, she was "Teacher". She literally "spelled the world into Helen's hand." The story of Mrs. Macy's own life - of a half-blind child, lonely and neglected in an almshouse, who was transplanted to the Perkins Institute for the Blind, and as a young woman was then transported fifteen hundred miles to teach a child deprived of both hearing and sight - is one of a triumph over a dark and sordid environment and terrible poverty. But it takes a Promethean significance in its relation of how she brought light to one in a double prison of darkness and silence and liberated her spirit. She deserves a place among the world's greatest teachers. Helen Keller said in a letter about what she "saw" from one of our tall buildings, which was as a "giant shaft groping toward beauty and spiritual vision," that until we have looked into darkness we can never know what a divine thing vision is. Mrs. Macy in giving vision to eyes that could never literally see performed a divine service in which others than her blind pupil shared.
The lamp which, as the emblem of Prometheus, was borne through the "divine gloom" of Shelley's line should be here as well who carried the torch that lighted the way of this child into glorious womanhood - the torch of hope across 'the night of life' and bore it most triumphantly - and will even beyond the grave carry it to the far goal of Time. For what this teacher has done for one prisoned soul cannot be forgotten, and may now be repeated for others.
Creator: New York Times
Date: 1936
Format: newspaper clipping
Digital Identifier: AG88-n-5
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Newspaper clipping from the Suffolk Bulletin, Huntington, New York on October 30, 1936. Headline: Anne Sullivan Macy and Helen Keller Stand Out As Lessons In Courage, by Evelyn Rowley.
Full text: On Tuesday this week in the glorious month of October, the gold medal of the Theodore Roosevelt award for great human achievement was to have been presented jointly to Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy, as a token of recognition to one who has never been able to appreciate the beauty of this or any other season, who has by superhuman effort managed to emerge from the utter darkness to a situation where the world is reality; and to the other, that sincere and quiet woman who has given her all as teacher, guide, and friend, with that full-measure of devotion which has no thought of self!
The sad death of Mrs. Macy last week this impossible. Helen Keller alone could receive the award. And Helen Keller alone must go on, without that gentle guidance, which has for fifty years been the closest and dearest thing in her life. In her own words, "My teacher has gone from me a little while, but I shall feel her presence anew when my eyes are blessed with light, my ears have saved unto harmony and my imprisoned life set free."
What a lesson for us of small courage there is in the life of Helen Keller! What a lesson in the life of Anne Sullivan Macy, who like her pupil fought the shadow of blindness from childhood! What shame we must feel, we who have gone through life magnifying our pin pricks into mortal wounds! Surely these two have exemplified the potentialities that lie buried with each individual being, and that too often are never brought into the light!
In their meeting years ago, there was created a truly American epic of devotion and achievement. To Miss Keller, who fought seemingly unconquerable obstacles to free herself from her dark bondage, and to the one who dedicated her life to make that freedom possible, we bow in reverent praise.
Creator: Evelyn Rowley, Suffolk Bulletin.
Date: 1936
Format: newspaper clipping
Digital Identifier: AG88-n-8
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
detail view - Embroidery, seed beads, microbeads, sequins on sepia toned photo of Harriet Tubman from Library of Congress archives, cotton rag paper. 8.5" x 11", 2021
see Full Art work: www.flickr.com/photos/dembicer/51116010675
A really interesting find at the recycling center today - Alice Bunker Stockham - She promoted gender equality, dress reform, birth control, and male and female sexual fulfillment for successful marriages. She was the 5th woman to become a doctor in the United States! you can read more about her here- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Bunker_Stockham
Historic women artists trading cards, anyone? Come collect 'em all and learn about our upcoming show! #womeninhistory #womenartists #arthistory #artworld #artnews #artshow #exhibitions #arttovisit #santafenm #simplysantafe #howtosantafe #newmexico #newmex
Description: Newspaper clipping from the New York Times. Headline: Anne Macy Dies; Helen Keller Loses Teacher- Two Women Were Close Companions For the Last 49 Years- Stricken Last Summer- Tutor in Coma for Six Days - Her Pupil Overwhelmed with Grief
Full text: Mrs. Anne Sullivan Macy, 70, who for forty-nine years was the companion-teacher of Helen Keller, died this morning in the home she shared with Miss Keller and Miss Polly Thomson, who is Miss Keller's secretary, at 71-11 112th St., Forest Hills, Queens.
Mrs. Macy became ill last summer and seemed to be recovering when she suffered a setback last week. She had been in a coma for the last six days.
Miss Keller and Miss Thomson were at Mrs. Macy's bedside when she died. Miss Keller was overwhelmed with grief.
"My teacher is free at last from pain and blindness," she said. "I pray for strength to endure the silent dark until she smiles upon me again. She has gone from me for a little while, but I shall feel her presence anew when my eyes are blessed with light, my ears saved unto harmony, and my imprisoned life set free."
Anne Sullivan Macy's life was inextricably woven into that of Miss Keller. The results of Mrs. Macy's work with Miss Keller, who blind and deaf from childhood, became the world's marvel, are better known than Mrs. Macy herself. Mrs. Macy's life, nevertheless, was a thrilling and heroic one.
A few years back Mrs. Macy lost her own sight, which had been dim since childhood. And Helen Keller, whom Mrs. Macy had taught to read and to speak through her finger tips, returned the service and kept the world alive for her friend by teaching her Braille and reading to her with her magically fluent finger tips.
On April 23, 1935, hope dawned again for Mrs, Macy, Dr, Conrad Berens, noted specialist, had decided to operate on her her left eye.
The operation was performed at Doctors Hospital. It involved the removal of a cataract and the correcting of other defects which had been with Mrs. Macy since childhood.
Saw Again
It was a difficult and delicate surgical feat, but eight days later, the bandages were removed from Mrs. Macy's eye. After two weeks she was reported still improving. Less than a month after the operation she returned home at 71-11 112th St.. Forest Hills, which she occupied with Miss Keller. She had regained her sight and her physician informed her she would be able to see better than ever before.
The next year Mrs. Macy and Miss Keller received word that on October 27, 1936, the birthday of Theodore Roosevelt, they would be awarded Roosevelt medals "for co-operative achievement of heroic character and far-reaching significance - the release and development of an imprisoned personality which, by its emergence and its effective activity, had become a symbol of hope and an inspiration to effort." Mrs. Macy at that time was 70 years old.
Miss Keller once wrote, "What a blind person needs is not a teacher but another self." With the death of Mrs. Macy, Miss Keller has lost that other self.
Began in 1887
Mrs. Macy came into Helen Keller's life March 3, 1887, when Miss Keller, daughter of Southern aristocracy, was not quite 7. The little girl's violence of rebellion was overcome by Anne Sullivan's sympathy, fortified by patience and authority.
Those qualities which Mrs. Macy had emerged from her own terrible struggle. She was born in 1866 in Massachusetts, the daughter of outcast immigrants whose own memories were terrible with pictures of the great Irish famine of 1847. Her mother was crippled and tubercular, and her father a drunkard. Abandoned by him, on her mother's death, she was dumped into Tewksbury Almshouse. Her sight was dim but no one bothered for years, when a priest took her to Boston for the first of innumerable operations on her eyes.
When investigators came to the almshouse for an investigation of its horrors a girl followed the party from ward to ward and at last, when the men were standing by the gate about to go, hurried blindly into the midst, saying, "I want to go to school." The girl was Anne Sullivan. A little later, at 14, she entered the most famous of all the blind schools, the Perkins Institution. She remained there for six years when she went South to teach Helen Keller.
From the letters that have been preserved by her friends, it is clear that the young girl who never met a normal, happy child until she was 20, groped through her adversity to educational principles that later were to inspire the work of Madame Montessori for defective children, and more recently have become the cornerstones of modern education.
All through her life she was content that the limelight should fall on Helen Keller. Miss Keller always came first. Even when she married the brilliant young teacher and critic, John Macy, it was understood by all that her work for Helen Keller must come first. Through that marriage and after it, Helen Keller remained the center of her life.
Funeral services will be conducted at 2 P. M. Thursday in Park Avenue Presbyterian Church in Manhattan by the Rev. Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick.
Creator: New York Times
Date: 1936
Format: newspaper clipping
Digital Identifier: AG88-n-2
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Poem titled "The Teacher (To Anne Sullivan Macy)" printed in "The Sun Dial" section of the New York Evening Sun. Author is unknown.
Full Text:
Tutor and guide and friend
throughout the years--
For half a century a source of
light,
That, coming through the voice
and spirit, pierced
The darkness of deep and dismal
night.
For fifty years the mirror of a
world
Invisible to sighless, yearning
eyes,
You helped a gallant woman
through the mists
To sit among the noble and the
wise.
You found her as a helpless,
groping child,
A babe who could not speak, or
see, or hear,
And helped her clinb the
mountains to the heights
Where fear and doubt and shadows
disappear.
The bleak and dark imprisonment
you broke,
An Easter morn to one with senses
dead;
That was the perfect tribute, you
recall...
"My Easter morning"... that
is what she said.
The name of Helen Keller stirred
the world,
Her life a symbol of unconquered
will,
But your devotion paved the weary
way
And smoothed the long, hard
journey up the hill.
The pall of blindness as a child
you'd known,
You gloried in the priceless gifts
of God,
And served as only gallant women
do.
To Helen Keller, deaf and dumb
and blind,
You came as might an angel in
the night;
Communion of two dauntless
souls took place,
And darkness and despair took
silent flight.
Long, trying days to make this
child perceive
And sense and feel and fully
comprehend...
The years so full of dark
discouragement...
And then the child's first words,
"My teacher!...Friend!"
The honors and the praise of far-
flung lands,
Great years of triumph and
contented days:
Two lives so interwoven that the world
Stood conscious of its selfish,
petty ways.
Heroic woman, in the final days
To know again the sudden, fading
scene-
Yet face it with the courage and
the smile
That marked the bruised and
bleeding Nazarene.
"But you will smile and walk with
me again"...
Thus whispers Helen Keller. So
'twill be:
With eyes wide open, lips and ears
made quick,
You both shall walk through all
eternity.
Creator: New York Evening Sun
Date: 1936
Format: newspaper clipping
Digital Identifier: AG88-n-22
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Excerpt from the feature documentary, Victorian Cycles-Wheels of Change. Produced and directed by Jim Kellett.
Today the bicycle is mainly known as a recreational vehicle and is enjoyed by people in every corner of the world. But at its outset, this controversial machine forged roads into society that revolutionized politics, fashion, and social policy as well as paved the way for the mechanized world of motion to come. Victorian Cycles, Wheels of Change is a fascinating documentary about the bicycle’s coming of age and its tremendous impact on society. It is filled with images of a by-gone era, and the people who embraced its change.
copyright, Jim Kellett 2004
Description: Text of the tribute to Anne Sullivan Macy. Dr. Finley was the Editor-in-Chief of the New York Times, President of the New York Association for the Blind for twenty-six years and the chairman of the New York State Commission for the Blind.
Full Text:
Dr. John Finley
Oct. 22nd, 1936
The wish having been expressed by Helen Keller that I should say a word in tribute to the memory of her teacher, I cannot do otherwise than attempt this, however inadequate the word, as all words must be.
Some months ago when the ceremonies in dedication of the new building of the American Foundation for the Blind were to be held, Mrs. Macy, blinded herself, was lying in a hospital, but it was arranged that she might hear by radio, all the speaking and singing including the voice of her whom she had taught to speak. On that occasion I repeated sentences from the address sent to me by Helen which she had made on receiving the honorary degree from the University of Glasgow, and I am sure that her pupil would wish them to be repeated here:
"When I think of what one loving human being has done for me, I realize what will some day happen to mankind, when heart and brains work together. Darkness and silence need not bar the progress of the immortal spirit."
That one loving human being we would by a spiritual radio reach today and say again, as we said that day:
"In all the annals of the race of men,
From Homer's time till now in all our ken,
What no one else had ever done, you've done;
Wrought two great loving miracles in one."
She once said in a letter to Helen, "God Himself cannot make this a kindlier world without us." And even He could not have done what was done for this blind, deaf, speechless child without the assistance of the genius of this Teacher, herself lifted from misery and blindness by human help.
It has been said that Mrs. Macy literally put the whole world into the hand of Helen, her pupil. As illustrations of this terrestrial and cosmic relationship, I quote two letter that I have had from Helen: one which she sent me from the Thomas Hardy country, and the other from New York City. From the ten page letter about her sojourn in the Hardy country:
"From the cottage we drove through winding lanes of bluebells, ragged robins, and showers of other flowers to the little church, dating back to 1196, so poetically associated with the name of Hardy. Like so many English chapels, it stands in a private park. When I stepped into the burying-ground, my hand reached out, and on the white face of a stone, I read 'Here is the heart of Thomas Hardy.' The sun shone upon it caressingly, and flowers garlanded it with living sweetness. All round the birds in the hedges were singing their joyous life - song in the presence of death - as if they knew it was not death, but the beginning of life. The thought came to me, 'The bludgeonings of fate were powerless to make Thomas Hardy flinch, he received them with lifted head like a free spirit. Now Strife has passed with all its drums, and his heart rests here among his dear ones, his mother and father and neighbors -- in the Heart of Peace."
And in response to my inquiry as to what she saw from the tower of the Empire State Building, this beautiful cosmic fragment: -
"There was the Hudson - more like the flesh of a sword-blade than a noble river. The little island of Manhattan, set like a jewel in its next of rainbow waters, stared up into my face, and the solar system circled about my head! Why, I thought, the sun and the stars are suburbs of New York, and I never knew it! I had a sort of wild desire to invest in a bit of real estate on one of the planets. All sense of depression and hard times vanished, I felt like being frivolous with the stars. But that was only for a moment.......... Let cynics and supersensitive souls say what they will about American materialism and machine civilization. Beneath the surface are poetry, mysticism, and inspiration that the Empire Building somehow symbolizes. In that giant shaft I see a groping toward beauty and spiritual vision. I am one of those who see, and yet believe."
She was to have received a medal from the Roosevelt Association, and I tried to have it put into her hands before she went. But after all, she needed no such passport to immortality. The Lord of Light could but know of her light - giving labor through the years, a sacrificing service that was as heroic as that of the mythical Prometheus who brought fire to mortals. The lamp which was his emblem, borne through the "divine gloom" in Shelley's phrase, was also here, who in carrying it triumphantly, lighted the way of the sightless child into glorious womanhood and will be carried by others beyond her grave to the far goal of time.
She will herself no longer need it for she is in the assembly of those who need not the light of the sun or the moon or the man-made lamp, for the Lord God giveth them light."
Creator: Dr. John Finley
Date: 1936
Format: text
Digital Identifier: AG88-n-19
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
A really interesting find at the recycling center today - Alice Bunker Stockham - She promoted gender equality, dress reform, birth control, and male and female sexual fulfillment for successful marriages. She was the 5th woman to become a doctor in the United States! you can read more about her here- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Bunker_Stockham
Description: Typewritten letter to Helen Keller from Eleanor Roosevelt on White House stationery
Full Text: The White House, Washington, October 20, 1936.
Dear Miss Keller:
Thank you very much for sending us the telegram. Both the President and I were distressed to hear of your teacher's death and we realize what her loss means to you. You have our deep sympathy.
Very sincerely yours,
Eleanor Roosevelt
Creator: Eleanor Roosevelt
Date: 1936
Format: letter
Digital Identifier: AG88-1
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Newspaper clipping from the New York Evening Sun. Headline: Macy Funeral Plans.
Full Text:
Last rites for Mrs. Anne Sullivan Macy, companion and teacher of Helen Keller for nearly fifty years, will be conducted at 2 o'clock tomorrow afternoon in the Park Avenue Presbyterian Church, at 1010 Park Avenue. The Rev. Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick and the Rev. Edmund M. Wylie, the pastor, will officiate. Mrs. Macy died yesterday.
Cremation, in accordance with Mrs. Macy's wish, will take place at the Fresh Pond Crematory in Queens.
The honorary pallbearers will be Mr. C. Migel, president, American Foundation for the Blind; Robert Irwin, executive director of the foundation; Harvey D. Gibson, Russell Doubleday, Dr. Conrad Berens, Dr. Philip S. Smith, Dr. William F. Saybolt, Dr. John H. Finley, Louis Bamberger, the Rev. Dr. Edward E. Allen, director emeritus of the Perkins Institution; Dr. William Allan Nelson, president of Smith College, and William Zeigler Jr.
Miss Keller, who, according to her intimates, preferred to be 'alone with her thoughts', did not receive any of the numerous friends who called at the home at 71-11 Seminole avenue in Forest Hills, L. I., yesterday to extend condolence.
Among those who sent messages were Fraser Hunt, newspaper correspondent; Dr. Otis W. Caldwell of Columbia University, Reginald Allen, president of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra; the New York Association for the Blind, the Thomas Payne Memorial Association and Dr. Gilbert Grosvenor of the National Geographic Society.
Miss Keller, according to friends, will continue her support of the American Foundation for the Blind. Her friend and secretary, Polly Thomson, who lived with Mrs. Macy and Miss Keller in Forest Hills, will assist her. Miss Thomson has been associated with Miss Keller for twenty-two years and is thoroughly familiar with the work.
The presentation of Roosevelt memorial medals to Miss Keller and Mrs. Macy, which was to have taken place in Manhattan next Monday, has been postponed, according to Herman Hagedorn, biographer of the late Col. Theodore Roosevelt. The presentation of one of the medals will be made to Miss Keller next year.
Creator: New York Evening Sun
Date: 1936
Format: newspaper clipping
Digital Identifier: AG88-n-6
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Article by Jacob Tarshish, of The Lamplighter titled: "The Life and Death of a Noble Woman" with headline: "Mutual Broadcasting System, WOR WLW WJJD CKLW KWK WBAL WCAE, on Sunday October 25, 1936.
Full Text: On Tuesday last, there was weeping on earth and rejoicing in Heaven. A golden spirit had winged its way into eternity. In her seventieth year, Anne Sullivan Macy peacefully breathed her last. There has never been a woman quite like her, and perhaps there never will be. In the Bible, we are told, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for another: -- but Anne Sullivan Macy did more than die for someone else -- she gave fifty years of her life to make another great. Almost like God, she performed a miracle of miracles.
Her name may not be known to you, but her pupil's fame has been heralded from one end of the earth to the other. Wherever man and women read, the unprecedented story of Helen Keller stirs admiration and tears. And without Anne Sullivan Macy, Helen Keller stirs admiration and tears. And without Anne Sullivan Macy, Helen Keller would probably have lived and died, miserable, unhappy, one of those whom Nature forgot. As Helen Keller once said, "What a person like myself needs is not a teacher, but another self," and Anne was that other self.
Who was this remarkable self-sacrificing woman -- a heroine equal to the mightiest? Her beginnings were hard beyond description ... She herself was born half-blind. ... Anne knew only hard work, tears, despair at its blackest. One day this nearly-blind girl, pitifully asked if she might get some kind of education, just enough to read and write... At fourteen she entered Perkins Institute for the Blind in Massachusetts, where kind people had her eyes operated upon and gave her an education. The young woman took on hope and courage.
Then came her big moment. From far away Alabama came a southern aristocrat. Into his home a great tragedy had come. His seven year old daughter was deaf, dumb, blind. Was there someone in this world who would undertake to teach a child who was completely cut off from the world? Anne Sullivan knew the misery of blindness, and her heart had not forgotten the suffering of her early years. Yes, she would go down to Alabama and try. It was a superhuman task, -- how could anybody tech anything to a child who could not see, hear, or speak?
Slowly and with infinite patience, the twenty-one year old teacher began her divine work. Of Helen's fingers she made ears, and then she gave her a tongue to speak. Can you, my friends, imagine the enormity of that task? I cannot. To this day, I do not understand how this miracle of education was performed. But the fact remains, -- Anne Sullivan taught Helen Keller to hear and understand with her hands, to speak words which her ears could not hear. Under the wonderful wisdom and ingenuity of this teacher, the miracle-woman of all history actually went to college, graduated with the highest honors, and today, at fifty-six years of age, she can speak in public, understand what you say be feeling your throat, and has written some of the most inspiring books in the English language. The impossible [end of document]
Creator: Jacob Tarshish
Date: 1936
Format: text
Digital Identifier: AG88-n-21
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Newspaper clipping from October 26, 1936. Headline: Anne Sullivan Macy is Dead at 70; Helen Keller's Life Companion. Photograph of Helen Keller with Mrs. Macy.
Full text:
Famous Teacher Succumbs in Forest Hills
Anne Sullivan Macy is dead. Helen Keller goes on alone. For the first time in the 40 years, since she was a helpless child of seven, Helen Keller today is without her teacher, companion, and friend. Mrs. Macy died at 7:50 this morning in Miss Keller's home at 71-11 Seminole avenue, Forest Hills, where they have lived together since 1917. She was 70.
Mrs. Macy because ill last summer but seemed to be recovering until last week when she suffered a relapse. It was evident to her friends that the end was near.
By her side when she died was Miss Keller and Polly Thompson, Miss Keller's secretary.
Mrs. Macy was heroic and self-effacing and as a result of her teaching, Miss Keller, blind, deaf and mute from childhood, became an intellectual marvel, Mrs. Macy's life was poured into Helen Keller's triumphs.
On Monday next - the anniversary of the birthday of Theodore Roosevelt - Mrs. Macy and Miss Keller were to have received the medals for "a cooperative achievement of heroic character and farreaching significance - the release and development of an imprisoned impersonality which, but its emergence and its effective activity, has become a symbol of hope and an inspiration to effort."
Mrs. Macy was born in 1866, daughter of poor Irish immigrants who settled in Massachusetts. Her childhood held little happiness.
Added to the terrors of a drunken father, who, after his tubercular wife died, called on the devil to choke all his children who raised their voices above a whisper, was the little girl's realization that her own eyes were not like those of other children.
Anne Sullivan was taken to an almshouse where was reared, until it was discovered she was (Continued on Page Two)
'My Teacher is Free'
Helen Keller, world-famous sightless educator overwhelmed with grief at the death of her teacher and companion, Mrs. Anne Sullivan Macy, today issued a statement through her friends in which she said:
"My teacher is free at last from pain and blindness. I pray for strength to endure the silent dark until she smiles upon me again."
"She has gone from me a little while but I shall feel her presence anew when my eyes are blessed with light, my ears saved unto harmony and my imprisoned life set free."
Creator: Long Island Daily Press
Date: 1936
Format: newspaper clipping
Digital Identifier: AG88-n-3
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Newspaper clipping from the New York Evening Sun on October 20, 1936. Headline: Mrs. Anne Macy is Dead at 70- End Comes at Forest Hills to Helen Keller's Teacher- Became Ill Last Summer
Full text: Mrs. Anne Sullivan Macy, who for nearly 50 years has been the teacher and companion of Helen Keller, famous blind, deaf and mute author and lecturer, died early today in the home she shared with Miss Keller and the latter's secretary, Miss Polly Thomson, in Forest Hills, L.I.
Miss Keller said: "My teacher is free at last from pain and blindness. I pray for strength to endure the silent dark until she smiles upon me again.
"She has gone from me a little while, but I shall feel her presence anew when my eyes are blessed with light, my ears saved unto harmony and my imprisoned life set free."
Mrs. Macy, who was 70 years old, became ill last summer, recuperated to some extent but suffered a relapse last week.
Mrs. Macy and Miss Keller were to have received the Roosevelt medals next Monday for "a co-operative achievement of heroic character and far-reaching significance - the release and development of an imprisoned personality which, by its emergence and its effective activity, has become a symbol of hope and an inspiration to effort."
For forty-nine years, Mrs. Macy devoted her life to Miss Helen Keller, the blind and deaf author, teaching her to speak and how to read. Then a few years ago her own sight failed and their positions were reversed. Mrs. Macy became the pupil and Miss Keller the teacher. They system of Braille had changed since Mrs. Macy first began instructing her pupil, then a little girl of six and a half years old.
Miss Keller Learns to Speak
In those forty-nine years Miss Keller had overcome her muteness and had gained from Mrs. Macy a knowledge of the world which she had never seen. She had become an inspiration to others afflicted with blindness and had won fame as a writer and scholar. The two remained inseparable through the years and Miss Keller never miss an opportunity to express her gratitude.
"Mrs. Macy's birthday was the Easter morning of my life," she once said.
Mrs. Macy, then Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan of Wrentham, Mass., was a pupil-teacher at the Perkins Institute for the Blind in 1888, when Miss Keller's father went to the school to select a teacher. Helen was then 6 1/2. Her teacher was 21.
Miss Keller's father selected Mrs. Macy and the job became her life work, Even after she was married to John A. Macy, author and critic, in 1905, she continued as Miss Keller's companion. Mr. Macy died on August 26, 1932.
"My own life," Mrs. Macy said once, "is so interwoven with Helen's life that I can't separate myself from her."
Her own eyes, never strong, began to fail in 1933, but she kept up Miss Keller's lessons as long as she was able. She lost sight one one eye and the the sight of the other began to grow dim. [Illegible word] to learn the modern Braille system of reading and turned to Miss Keller for help.
In June of 1933 she and Keller sailed for Scotland and went into seclusion in the Highlands, at Urray in Ross-Shire. They remained there for several months and then returned to this country. Miss Keller and Mrs. Macy went to Forest Hills, where they lived at 71-11 112th street, with Miss Polly Thomson, Miss Keller's secretary.
In November 1934 she underwent an operation for cataract at Doctors' Hospital, East End avenue and Eighty-seventh street. The operation restored her sight partially, remedying defects from which she had suffered since childhood.
Temple University offered honorary degrees of Doctor of Humane Letters to both Mrs. Macy and Miss Keller. Miss Keller accepted, but Mrs. Macy could not be persuaded to accept until the following year. In 1932 Sir Robert Rait, principal of the University of Glasgow, conferring an honorary LL. D. degree on Miss Keller, said, "We honor also the teacher and friend whose devotion and whose genius rendered the triumph possible."
Both women were elected honorary fellows of the Educational Institute of Scotland.
Funeral services will be held at 2 P. M. Thursday in the Park Avenue Presbyterian Church, it was announced at Miss Keller's home. The services will be conducted by the Rev. Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick.
Creator: New York Evening Sun
Date: 1936
Format: newspaper clipping
Digital Identifier: AG88-n-1
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Typewritten letter from John Haynes Holmes of the Community Church of New York, on October 21, 1936. Holmes was a Unitarian minister and pacifist, who helped to found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) .
Full Text: Dear Miss Keller:
I have read this morning with a deep sense of grief the news of the death of Mrs. Macy, and my heart goes out to you in profound sympathy and compassion. Your companionship with Mrs. Macy through the years of your life constitutes one of the immortal friendships of history. I know nothing quite to compare with the beauty and nobility of its spirit. This has made glorious a relationship which in itself has been the very essence of all that we mean by love, the heart of religion. Now that Mrs. Macy is gone, it must seem to you as though a very part of your own life had died, and as though you were divided, so to speak, between this present world and the world to come.
Your own sense of loss must be so poignant that I hardly dare to think of it. Just for this reason, however, I find myself moved almost beyond expression by the exalted words which you spoke in farewell to your immortal teacher and friend. That your own spirit could thus be lifted up in the hour of your greatest grief, is an inspiration to us all.
I never had the pleasure and honor of knowing Mrs. Macy, but I feel as though I knew her through you. She was a great woman in the truest and highest sense of the word, one of the greatest women of our time. If I had the power of the Pope, I would canonize her, that she might be known forever as the second Saint Anne.
Very sincerely yours,
John Haynes Holmes
Creator: John Haynes Holmes
Date: 1936
Format: letter
Digital Identifier: AG88-5
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Today's word is Griselda, named after a woman in various medieval tales, who suffers without ever complaining as her husband puts her through various tests. The name Griselda is from Germanic roots meaning “gray battle-maid”. Talk about misnaming your character (see below)! Earliest documented use: 14th century.
Griselda has appeared in many stories over the years, including Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, and was the inspiration for Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. The best-known version of the story is the one told by Giovanni Boccaccio, c. 1350.
In the story, Gualtieri, Marquis of Saluzzo, marries a peasant girl named Griselda. After some time when a daughter is born, Gualtieri decides to test his wife and declares that the newborn is to be killed and sends her away supposedly to be killed. Griselda accepts her husband’s will without ever complaining.
A son is born a few years later and again: lather, rinse, repeat.
For the final test, he leaves her. After a few years he announces he’s remarrying and asks Griselda to come work as a servant in the wedding. She meekly complies.
The woman he’s supposedly marrying is their daughter who is now grown up, all of 11 years old. Seeing Griselda remain steadfast and loyal through all this, he finally declares: It has been a test. Only a test. Congratulations, you passed!
The whole family reunites. Happy ending. Good old times!
Learn more at: wordsmith.org/words/griselda.html
Description: Newspaper clipping from the New York Times on November 2, 1936. Headline: Mrs. Macy's Ashes Placed in Chapel- Bishop J. E. Freeman Eulogizes Helen Keller's Teacher in Washington Cathedral.-Famous Pupil Present- Tribute to Friend Tapped Out for Blind and Deaf Woman On Hand During Service.
Full text: Special to the New York Times. Washington, Nov 2. - The ashes of Mrs. Anne Sullivan Macy, lifelong teacher, companion and friend of Helen Keller, who, though deaf and blind, learned to speak, were placed today in the Washington Cathedral on Mount St. Albans, where rest the bodies of Woodrow Wilson, World War President; Admiral George Dewey and other famous people, among whom she is the first teacher and the first woman to receive the distinction in her own right.
"The cathedral in the nation's capital honors itself in giving sepulture to Mrs. Macy," Bishop James E. Freeman said at the committal service, which was held at 3 P. M. in the chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea.
"Among the great teachers of all time she occupies a commanding and conspicuous place. Possibly no record of service rendered by a woman bears comparison with her supreme accomplishment in bringing light to one whose life was enveloped in black darkness. The touched of her hand did more than illuminate the pathway of a clouded mind; it literally emancipated a soul.
"In bringing light and understanding to the mind of Helen Keller, Mrs. Macy gave to the world one of the rarest women of our generation. Her friendship with her great pupil constitutes a record of service of incomparable value, utterly reminiscent of the ministry of Him who restored men and women to the normal ways and habits of life, and in many ways and habits of life, and in many respects the nearest approximation of Divine service of which this generation has knowledge."
The tribute to Mrs. Macy was paid in the presence of Miss Keller, to whom it was interpreted by secretary Miss Polly Thompson, who sat beside her, tapping out on her hand with gentle fingers the words of the brief and impressive service, and of other friends, including Mrs. Amelia Bond and Dr, Conrad Berens, who accompanied them from New York, and Dr. and Mrs. Gilbert Grosvenor, Herbert Putnam, librarian of Congress, and Mrs. Phillip Sidney Smith of Washington.
Representatives of the Columbia Institute for the Blind, the Columbia Polytechnic Institute and the National Education Association were among those present in a company which numbered approximately 125.
Canon Anson Phelps Stokes opened the service with the Twenty-seventh Psalm, which begins with "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?" After other selection from the reading of the Scriptures, "Lead, Kindly Light" was sung, at the request of Miss Keller, by Ross Farrar, tenor soloist of the Cathedral.
Bishop Freeman's tribute and the committal service from the order of burial concluded the ceremony.
Only Miss Keller and close friends were present when the urn containing the ashes of Mrs. Macy was placed in the columbarium adjoining the chapel in a niche where space will be reserved for Miss Keller.
Miss Keller, who had been the guest here of Mrs. Philip Sidney Smith, since Saturday, returned to New York tonight, accompanied by the members of her party.
Creator: New York Times
Date: 1936
Format: newspaper clipping
Digital Identifier: AG88-n-12
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Western Union Cablegram from William Nelson Cromwell on October 21, 1936 at 9:33 a.m. Cromwell was a lawyer and philanthropist that was a charter board member of Helen Keller International.
Full Text: [Code]: NAJ28 Cable = Paris 128 1/57 21/1315
LC [Deferred Cablegram] Miss Helen Keller = Forest Hills (NY) =
October Twenty-First
Permit me to share with you in your unspeakable grief in the departure of your lifelong teacher and dear companion who brought light to you who have in turn brought illumination happiness and blessings to the whole world STOP What a comfort it must be to you that you could reciprocally give your loving aid to her in the final epoch of a remarkable career STOP I wish I could be at your side in these days of sorrow but beg you to consider me there in person as I shall be by representative STOP Give my dearest sympathy to the ever faithful Miss Thompson STOP With affection and devotion which has no limit=
William Nelson Cromwell 22 Avenue Foch Paris.
Creator: William Nelson Cromwell
Date: 1936
Format: telegram
Digital Identifier: AG88-4
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Newspaper clipping from the Forest Hills Post, Queens on October 29, 1936. Headline: Hundreds at Services for Mrs. A. Macy: Tutor of Helen Keller Called "The Great Emancipator".
Full text:
Services for Mrs. Anne Sullivan Macy, for fifty years the devoted teacher and friend of Helen Keller, were held Thursday at the Park Avenue Presbyterian Church, Manhattan. Mrs. Macy died last Tuesday at her home, 71-11 Seminole Avenue. She was seventy.
The church was filled and hundreds stood outside as the quartet of Marble Collegiate Church opened the services with 'Nearer My God To Thee'.
Describing Mrs. Macy as the "great emancipator", the Rev. Dr. Emerson Fosdick, who delivered the eulogy, said that 'the consequences of her work will be a shining beacon to blind people all over the world for generation after generation.'
A Great Artist.
'We stand in awe of her great achievement,' he continued. 'We see that her outstanding qualities and characteristics were her deathless and in indefatigable friendship, and her craftsmanship that enabled her to do a beautiful piece of work for the satisfaction of doing it that way. She was truly a great artist.'
With Miss Keller at the service was her secretary, Miss Polly Thompson [sic], Mr. and Mrs. M. C. Migel, Mrs. Phillip S. Smith, Dr, and Mrs. Conrad Beherens, Mr. and Mrs. Keith Henney, Leslie Fadenwider, Mrs. Amelia L. Bond, and Herbert Haas. The body was cremated at the Fresh Pond Crematory. The ashes are to be placed in the National Cathedral at Washington.
Broadcast Tonight
The devotion and self sacrifice of Mrs. Macy will be commemorated in a nation-wide broadcast tonight. Her name will be submitted for the Kate Smith Award for outstanding heroism, which is accompanied by $500 in cash. The names of two other persons, selected by an award committee for performance of acts of unusual heroism, will also be submitted for the award during the broadcast over the Columbia network. The recipient will be chosen by public vote. A cash sum of $100 each is to be given the two nominees not receiving the principal award.
At the request of Miss Keller, the money to Mrs. Macy's estate - either the $500 or $100 - is to be given to the American Foundation for the Blind.
Creator: Forest Hills Post, Queens, New York
Date: 1936
Format: newspaper clipping
Digital Identifier: AG88-n-7
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Newspaper clipping from the Washington Daily News. Headline: Bishop Praises Mrs. Macy in Simple Cathedral Rites. Photograph of Helen Keller with her secretary Polly Thomson with caption: "Helen Keller (left), deaf and blind writer and lecturer, is guided from the Cathedral chapel by her secretary, Polly Tompson, after services yesterday for the late Mrs. Anne Sullivan Macy, who for 40 years was Miss Keller's teacher."
Full text: One spot remote from politics yesterday was the chapel at Washington Cathedral, where commitment services were held for the ashes of Helen Keller's great teacher, Mrs. Anne Sullivan Macy.
Hardly more than 100 people were present and 25 per cent heard the services thru somebody's fingers or by reading the lip movements of Bishop James E. Freeman and Canon Anson Phelps Stokes.
Miss Keller herself heard thru the fingers of her companion, Polly Tompson. Twenty-five young men and women came from Gallaudet College, where the government gives higher education to youths who are deaf and dumb.
Called 'Great Teacher'
Bishop Freeman called Mrs. Macy, who taught Miss Keller to speak and to understand the words of others, 'the greatest teacher of all time.'
Miss Keller say inconspicuously in the front row chair, in the small chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea. She was attractively dressed in a black wool suit, small black hat, silk stocking and smart black shoes. Beside her sat her companion, Miss Tompson, also in black, with a silver fox fur. Miss Tompson's fingers translated Bishop Freeman's words.
"In bringing light and understanding to the mind of Helen Keller," the Bishop's deep voice continued, "Mrs. Macy gave the world one of the rarest women of our generation."
'Example of Service'
"In a period that is characterized by a quest for material things and material values, the work of Mrs. Macy furnishes an example of Christian service and devotion that encourages us to believe that the ministry of Christ is not without witnesses in our modern age."
After the public chapel service, the urn containing Mrs. Macy's ashes was placed in a niche in an adjoining crypt.
In the chapel proper are buried Dr. W. H. Wilmer, Washington's great eye surgeon; James Parmelee, wealthy Cathedral benefactor, and Edgar Priest, Cathedral organist who used to play for Mrs. Macy and Miss Keller when the two lived near the Cathedral, 20 years ago.
Thru Mrs. Macy's teaching, Miss Keller overcame the combined handicap of blindness and deafness, the latter causing inability to talk. Mrs. Macy died Oct. 20, after devoting 40 years to her pupil.
Creator: Washington Daily News
Date: 1936
Format: newspaper clipping
Digital Identifier: AG88-n-14
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Handwritten letter from Pearl S. Buck, novelist, women's rights activist, first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and Pulitzer Prize winning author of "The Good Earth".
Full Text: Dear Helen Keller:
I am one of many thousands, I know, who are thinking of you today with especial affection and sympathy. I count meeting your Teacher as one of the great experiences of my life - one was instantly impressed with the sense of greatness in her presence. What a glorious life you and she made together! How much you both achieved for the world, and what immense strength you have given to us all! I know of no human source so full of inspiration to others as the story of your life with her.
Please, then, accept my deepest admiration, my faith in you that you are able, now, as you always have been, to live triumphantly. I know what this means to you - this parting - I know a little of what this must mean, rather- but I have no fears for you. And will you count me among your friends now more than ever, and if ever I can help you, let me know - I shall be so glad. And when you feel able, I should like to come and see you.
Please remember me kindly and warmly to dear Polly Thomson.
Faithfully yours,
Pearl S. Buck
(Mrs. Richard J. Walsh)
480 Park. Ave.
New York City
Wednesday
Creator: Pearl S. Buck
Date: 1936
Format: letter
Digital Identifier: AG88-2
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Western Union telegram to Helen Keller from Ian Fraser, British politician. Blinded in World War I, he later became the Chairman of St. Dunstan's, a charity for blind servicemen in Britain.
Full Text: [Code]: "C531CC 1Q VIA RCA CD London 27 21
NLT [Cable Night Letter] Helen Keller Forest Hill LongIslandNY
Affectionate Sympathy to you and all teachers friends. British blind world will remember and admire her devoted work.
Ian Fraser
Creator: Ian Fraser
Date: 1936
Format: telegram
Digital Identifier: AG88-17
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Letter to Mr. Norman Brocks from the Washington Cathedral Offices at Mount Saint Alban Washington, D. C. from Anson Phelps Stokes
Full Text: Washington Cathedral Offices Mount Saint Alban Washington D.C.
October 21, 1936
My dear Mr. Brock:
Confirming my telephone message to you this morning, I write to say that the Bishop and Chapter of Washington Cathedral will consider it a privilege to offer the right of sepulchre in the Cathedral for Mrs. Anne Sullivan Macy, the honored teacher of Miss Helen Keller.
Further, it is my privilege to tell you that although under the regulations of the Bishop and Chapter of Washington Cathedral, only the Chapter can act with reference to permissions for burial for persons still living, and the only in 'exceptional' cases, The Bishop has authorized me to inform you that he will recommend the Chapter at its next meeting that the privilege of sepulchre at the Cathedral should also be offered to Miss Keller. I have every reason to believe that the Chapter will confirm this recommendation at its meeting on Nov. 19th.
In connection with the above offers, we understand that your speaking with authority for those responsible for the disposition of Mrs. Macy's remains and with the approval of Miss Keller.
I further understand that there is to be a funeral service for Mrs. Macy in the Park Avenue Presbyterian Church tomorrow, and her body is to be cremated, and that interment services will take place in the Cathedral at some mutually acceptable date in the near future, probably within ten days or two weeks.
I assure you that the officers of the Cathedral feel it will be an inspiration to the hundreds of thousands Cathedral pilgrims who come here every year to feel that Mrs. Macy is buried here and that Miss Keller will, in all probability, ultimately rest beside her.
I understand that you are to call me up at my house, Potomac 0369, tomorrow morning after eight o'clock, to confer further with reference to the date of interment and other matters.
Will you please extend to Miss Keller on behalf of the Cathedral authorities our very deep sympathy? We shall see that a wreath from the Cathedral is sent to the Park Avenue Presbyterian Church for the funeral service.
With assurance of our sympathy for you and off Mrs. Macy's other intimate friends, I am
Very truly yours,
Anson Phelps Stokes
Mr. Norman Brock
63 E/ 86th Street
New York City
Creator: Anson Phelps Stokes
Date: 1936
Format: text
Digital Identifier: AG88-n-18
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Sims, Cross, Mandelman, Blue Corn... everyone's here! Come see spectacular artwork by influential women artists of New Mexico tonight, 5-7 pm. #art #womeninhistory #arthistory #womenartists #artworld #arttovisit #artshows #instaart #artgram #artnews #arti
Description: Black and white newspaper cartoon (unknown publication) by Fay King with three cells showing Mrs. Macy and Helen Keller Together as adults, Mrs. Macy as a young woman teaching Helen her first words, and then the Anne Sullivan Macy's grave with a wreath in front labeled "The World".
Full Text:
Above the cartoon is the headline: Fay King Mourns Death of Helen Keller's Friend
Text: Opportunity seldom comes in rainbow hues with jingle bells. To Anne Sullivan, fifty years ago, opportunity came in a particularly sad disguise.
Her childhood was unhappy. Almost sightless, she was educated in an institution for the blind. After graduating she received, through the school, an opportunity to teach a little girl who deaf, dumb, and blind, at Tuscumbia, Alabama.
Anne Sullivan was 21. Helen Keller was 7.
Thus began their long, inspiring association. So conscientious, faithful, patient and untiring in her efforts were the teacher, that in time the pupil could read, write, and speak. Now death has parted them.
Will the devoted teacher find a way to penetrate this denser darkness, more profound silence, to communicate again with her beloved pupil? We wonder.
First frame: Drawing of Anne Sullivan Macy and Helen Keller, with the text: "For fifty years the 'Perfect Teacher' and her 'Perfect Pupil' were together."
Second Frame: Anne Sullivan as she was when first came to the Keller Household, presenting the young Helen Keller with a doll, and spelling the word into her hand. Text is: "Anne Sullivan was 21 and Helen Keller was 7 when they first met in 1887." Other text is: "learning the first word."
Third Frame: Anne Sullivan Macy's grave, her name and the years 1866-1936 written on the headstone, along with the wreath labeled as 'the world'.
Creator: Fay King
Date: 1936
Format: newspaper clipping
Digital Identifier: AG88-n-16
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Western Union telegram to Helen Keller from Russell Doubleday. Mr. Doubleday was an American author, editor, and publisher, who was the son of William Edwards Doubleday, founder of Doubleday Publishing Company.
Date: Oct. 21, 1936
Full Text:
[Code]: "NBE45 8 XC=" Glencove NY 21 1045A
Miss Helen Keller= 7111 Seminole Ave Forest Hills NY=
My love and sympathy goes out to you= Russell Doubleday.
Creator: Russell Doubleday
Format: telegram
Digital Identifier: AG88-10
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Handwritten letter from Zoe Beckley on October 21, 1936 on Hotel Padre stationery from Hollywood, California. Zoe Beckley was a writer and novelist, whose works include "A Chance to Live" (1918), and "Twilight Sleep" (1922), an article in McClure's magazine on new techniques for painless childbirth.
Full Text: Helen my dear:
Today, reading of Teacher's passing, I was too distressed to do more than just sit there in silence, sending you my love and loving sympathy-
My heart is sad, but though yours will also be, you have within it the beautiful knowledge of a lifelong bond that no change or bodily parting can affect-
I clasp hands with you, and with your incomparable Polly-
Zoe Beckley
Creator: Zoe Beckley
Date: 1936
Format: letter
Digital Identifier: AG88-8
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: December, 1936, Volume XXX, Number 5 of Outlook For The Blind, published by the American Foundation for the Blind with article on front by Nella Braddy titled: Anne Sullivan Macy: World Figure.
Full Text: It was not under her own name so much as under that of her celebrated pupil that Anne Sullivan Macy became a world figure. She was known, as she wished to be known, and she will be remembered, as she wished to be remembered, as Helen Keller's teacher. She had no other pupil, but her achievement with this single one has placed her, by general acclamation, in the pantheon of great teachers of all time. She was not without forerunners, but her work was original in the way implied by George Santayana when he ways, "Originality and genius must be largely fed and raised on the shoulders of some old tradition." She had the tradition (though it was not old) in the accomplishment of Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe with Laura Bridgman and other deaf-blind pupils, but, to use the words of the Educational Institute of Scotland which made her an Honorary Fellow in 1932, she proved herself "to be a teacher of genius who made discriminate use of all known methods of reaching the child mind and herself devised many others which anticipated some of the best features in present-day teaching practice." (Mrs. Macy would not approve the word "genius" in this paragraph; for her sake I point out that it is in quotation marks).
The words "liberator," "emancipator," and "deliverer," applied to her as they have been by Dr. Maria Montessori (who also called her a pioneer), by Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, her British publishers, editorial writers from San Francisco to Zagreb, and others, are synonymous with the word "teacher." Her task when she went to Helen Keller nearly fifty years ago was to liberate a soul; it was the kindest of all good fortunes that gave her a soul worth liberating. "I have never thought that I deserve more praise than other teachers who give the best they have to their pupils," she said. "If their earnest efforts have not released an Ariel from the imprisoning oak, it is no [end of document]
Creator: Outlook for the Blind
Date: 1936
Format: text
Digital Identifier: AG88-n-20
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Newspaper clipping from the New York Herald Tribune on November 2, 1936. Headline: Ashes of Mrs. Anne Macy Are Placed in Cathedral: Service Held in Washington for Helen Keller's teacher.
Full text:
Washington, Nov. 2 - In the presence of Miss Helen Keller, her distinguished pupil and lifelong companion, the ashes of Mrs. Anne Sullivan Macy were granted sepulture this afternoon in the Columbarium of Washington Cathedral Crypt adjoining the Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea, where Bishop James E. Freeman conducted a brief service.
This honor was accorded to Mrs. Macy by the cathedral chapter in recognition of the commanding place she occupied among the great teachers because of her success in teaching Miss Keller to read and understand the world about her.
Miss Keller was accompanied to the cathedral by Miss Polly Tompson, her secretary; Dr. Philip S. Smith, chief Alaskan geologist of the Geological Survey, and Mrs. Smith, Dr, Conrad Berens, of New York, her physician and surgeon, and Mrs. Amelia Bond. She sat in the front row of chairs close to the chancel, where Miss Tompson interpreted the service to her by the touch of her hand.
Canon Anson Phelps Stokes, who represented Bishop Freeman and the cathedral chapter in making arrangement for the interment, read the Psalm and Scripture lesson. Bishop Freeman delivered the committal service from the order for burial of the dead and offered prayers. Among the cathedral clergy in the chancel were Canon G. Freelan Peter, Canon Albert H.. Lucas and Canon Raymond L. Wolven. Ross Farrar, tenor soloist of the cathedral choir, sang 'Lead Kindly Light', with Robert G. Barrow, choirmaster of the cathedral at the organ.
Creator: Herald Tribune Bureau
Date: 1936
Format: newspaper clipping
Digital Identifier: AG88-n-13
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Photograph of Anne Sullivan Macy in profile with an oval vignette and her name and dates (1866-1936) printed at the bottom.
Date: circa 1936
Format: print
Digital Identifier: AG88-portrait
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Front cover of condolence letter and newsclippings scrapbook, bound in dark brown leather with gold embossed border and letterning with "In Memory of My Teacher" at the top and "Helen Keller" at the bottom.
Date: circa 1936
Format: leather bound scrapbook
Digital Identifier: AG88-cover
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Western Union Cablegram from General Evangeline Booth on October 21, 1936 at 11:28 p.m. Booth served as the General of the Salvation Army at this time. She was the first female general.
Full Text: [Address code: 5085 London 133 1/33 21]
NLT [Cable Night Letter] Miss Helen Keller Forest Hills NY.
Distressed news teacher but she is liberated from the darkness and conflict of earth with mortal blindness lost in immortal vision and looks upon the face of the divine teacher STOP At the halting place of her sweet spirits departure we get a glimpse of things beyond and catch the dawn that breaks upon all earthly night STOP The friend of all good wherever she found it the champion of every cause that had for its object the betterment of mankind a heart of overflowing mercy which touched the sorest of human wounds with heavenly skill the loss of so choice a one cannot but be great but it is only for a season STOP We shall soon look for her beautiful face in the morning.
General Evangeline Booth.
Creator: General Evangeline Booth
Date: 1936
Format: telegram
Digital Identifier: AG88-3
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Typewritten letter from Lillian D. Wald, from House on the Pond, Saugatuck, Westport, Connecticut on October 21, 1936. Wald was an activist for women's rights, civil rights, and peace. She helped to found the Women's Trade Union League in 1903.
Full Text: Beloved Helen Keller:
Of course you feel the enveloping love and gratitude to your other half for what she did for you and that means for the whole world. She did more than unlock the doors for you, that was a service for all of us.
My deep affection and the hope that someday you will find your way to the House On The Pond and know in what affection and love we hold you.
Lillian D. Wald
Creator: Lillian D. Wald
Date: 1936
Format: letter
Digital Identifier: AG88-6
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Description: Postal telegraph from Carrie Jacobs-Bond, singer-songwriter, on October 20, 1936. Jacobs-Bond began performing in Vaudeville theaters after Helen Keller was persuaded to join for a season. Jacobs-Bond is known for playing music by ear and was inspired by a musician named "Blind-Tom" as a child. More information at: www.musicofyesterday.com/biographies/Jacobs-BondCarrie/in...
Full Text: [Code:] N120 10 NM [Night Message]=TDS Hollywood Calif Oct 20 1936
Helen Keller=7111 Seminole Ave. Forrest Hills LI NY=
Darling Helen Keller my love and sympathy are with you= Carrie Jacobs Bond.
Creator: Carrie Jacobs Bond
Date: 1936
Format: telegram
Digital Identifier: AG88-9
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA