Cold Open

It’s April 5th, 1887 in Tuscumbia, Alabama.

20-year-old governess Anne Sullivan walks slowly along a rural lane with her 6-year-old student, Helen Keller, clutching her arm. Birds sing in the trees and rabbits scamper across the fields, but young Helen is oblivious to what’s happening around her. Since falling ill at nineteen months old, Helen has been deaf and blind, leaving her cut off from the world. But Helen's governess Anne is also no stranger to disability. She’s visually impaired herself, and since being appointed Helen’s governess a month ago, Anne has been determined to give Helen the skills she needs to interact with her family and friends.

Anne and Helen pass a water pump where a local farmer’s wife works the handle to fill up a bucket. Before they move on, Anne guides Helen toward the pump, picks up a cup and places it in Helen’s hand.

For the past month, Anne has been trying to get Helen to understand the fundamentals of language. She’s tried to teach Helen words by having her hold onto an object like a doll while Anne traces the letters that make up “doll” on her palm—but Helen’s shown little interest in Anne’s instructions so far, and Anne wonders if Helen will ever be able to communicate.

Still, Anne hasn’t tried the word “water” before, so she pumps water into the cup that Helen’s holding. When the cup is full, she traces the letters W-A-T-E-R on the palm of Helen’s other hand.

Then, Anne guides Helen to pour the water over the hand she’s just traced the word “water” on. Helen’s face is blank as usual, so Anne tries again.

But this time, when Anne pumps water into the cup, Helen’s face suddenly brightens into a smile.

Helen drops the cup and holds both hands under the water flow, then thrusts her palms at Anne. Anne traces the letters spelling water once again, and Helen nods emphatically. Anne can’t resist enveloping Helen in a hug. Because for the first time, Helen is showing an understanding of language and “Water” is Helen’s first word.

Over the next few months, Helen Keller will learn hundreds of words as Anne patiently writes them letter by letter on Helen’s palm—and with the gift of language, Helen’s life will be transformed. She will no longer be condemned to a lifetime of dark and silent isolation. Instead, she will become a campaigner and activist who will try to exert a huge impact on the lives of other people with disabilities, a career that opened up to Helen when she learned her first word on April 5th, 1887.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is April 5th, 1887: Deaf and Blind Helen Keller Learns Her First Word.

Act One

It’s fall 1900, at Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts; thirteen years after Helen Keller’s language breakthrough.

Helen is now 20 years old and takes a seat at the back of a lecture hall next to Anne Sullivan. Around her, students excitedly whisper while they shoot curious glances in Helen’s direction. Not only are these undergraduates about to hear their first lecture, they’re wondering how their new classmate is going to take part.

Ever since Helen understood her first word at the age of six, she’s had a voracious appetite for learning. Her governess Anne taught her a large vocabulary of words and how they fit together in sentences. Helen then left home to attend several specialist schools for the deaf and blind—but such were Helen’s disabilities that even those institutions couldn’t adequately cater to her needs. Thankfully, Anne was with her every step of the way.

Anne taught Helen how to read the tactile writing system Braille, use a Braille typewriter, and transcribed teachers’ words on Helen’s palm. The governess and her student even devised a remarkable method by which Helen could understand speech. While Anne talked, Helen put her fingers on Anne’s mouth and throat and deciphered what she was saying by the movement of Anne’s lips and vocal cords. Thanks to her extraordinary abilities, Helen has won a place at Radcliffe College, the women-only annex of the prestigious Harvard University—and today, Helen is about to embark on the next stage of her education.

When the lecturer begins addressing students, Anne writes the words on Helen’s palm as quickly as possible, using the same technique that Anne invented to teach Helen the word for “water.” As the minutes pass, Helen’s fellow students stop watching Helen and Anne and turn their attention to the lecturer. Soon, they completely forget that Helen is in the room learning with them—and that’s exactly the way Helen and Anne want it.

Although Helen soon becomes just another student at Radcliffe, the rest of the country becomes fascinated by her achievements. Between lectures and classes, Helen finds time to write her autobiography, which is serialized in newspapers. Her fame leads to luminaries like author Mark Twain and industrialist Henry Huttleston Rogers asking to meet her, and wealthy Henry even offers to pay for Helen’s college fees.

So, four years after this lecture, Helen becomes the first deaf-blind American to graduate college. Helen then shifts from listening to lectures to giving them. She’s invited to give talks about her life, and although Helen’s speech isn’t easily understood by most people, the ever-loyal Anne remains by her side to translate.

And now that Helen is an adult, her relationship with Anne changes. The two women are no longer governess and student— Anne is still employed as Helen’s companion and aide, but the two women also have an intense friendship. Even when Anne marries a Harvard professor, there’s no question of her leaving Helen behind. Rather than Anne moving into the professor’s home, the professor moves into the house that Anne shares with Helen.

And with Anne’s backing, Helen uses her celebrity to campaign for causes close to her heart. In 1907, Helen writes an article encouraging midwives to wash newborn babies’ eyes to remove bacterial and viral contaminants. And thanks to Helen’s input, maternity procedures are updated to include this easy but effective way to prevent childhood blindness.

But Helen has other, more radical causes that she believes in. She supports the activities of American suffragists campaigning to give women the vote. She speaks out in favor of birth control, a controversial subject at the time. And Helen joins the Industrial Workers of the World, a labor union that agitates for better conditions for employees.

But Helen’s radical opinions cost her the sympathetic reporting she’s benefited from since childhood. Newspapers used to gush over her ability to overcome barriers, but now they minimize her achievements and call attention to her disabilities in a way that portrays Helen and her beliefs as naïve.

The negative reporting continues when war breaks out in Europe in 1914, and Helen fiercely opposes the idea of American intervention. But nine months into the conflict, the sinking of a transatlantic liner will inspire one of its passengers to dedicate his life to charitable work, and in doing so, he will give Helen the means to enact lasting change for visually impaired Americans everywhere.

Act Two

It’s 2 PM, on May 7th, 1915 on board a British passenger liner in the Atlantic Ocean, eleven years after Helen Keller graduated from Radcliffe College.

52-year-old George Kessler steps out of the liner’s smoking room and breathes in the fresh sea air on deck.

As a successful wine importer, George has spent the last few weeks in France choosing the best vintages for his American customers—but thanks to the impact of World War One, the pickings are slim this year. With orders in place with as many vineyards as possible, George is now making his way back to New York in comfort on board the opulent liner Lusitania.

George leans over the side and watches the ship’s wake as it speeds through the calm water—but after a few moments, an odd wave in the distance catches his eye. George’s brow furrows as the wave comes closer to the Lusitania—and then, with a sharp intake of breath, George realizes that it’s not a wave at all. It’s the wake of a torpedo.

Before he can shout a warning, an explosion rocks the Lusitania, a screech of tearing metal echoing through the ship. Within moments, the deck is flooded with panic passengers. The crew begins loading the lifeboats with women and children, but their task takes on new urgency when a second explosion hits the Lusitania and the ship lurches to one side. After that, the crew shout at the passengers to clear the deck, and George clambers into the nearest lifeboat just before it’s lowered.

When the boat reaches the water, George takes an oar and helps row the lifeboat away from the Lusitania—but the liner is sinking fast. And as it disappears below the surface, the suction of the doomed vessel going under flips George’s lifeboat over. He is pulled beneath the waves and dragged downwards until he finally manages to kick clear and re-emerge on the surface, gasping for breath.

George swims until he’s picked up by another lifeboat, but so many people are aboard the vessel that it’s unbalanced and keeps tipping over. Each time it does, fewer people have the strength to haul themselves back aboard—but George keeps fighting, and as he clings to the lifeboat, he makes a vow: if he survives this day, he’ll dedicate his life to helping victims of war.

After he’s rescued by a British warship, George does survive, and he lives up to his promise. In the days after the sinking of the Lusitania, George is interviewed by a newspaper publisher who happens to be blind. Inspired by the publisher’s dedication to his job, George sets up the Blind Relief War Fund in Paris to help Allied soldiers blinded by gas attacks and other injuries. Soon, this fund has enough money to pay for treatment and rehabilitation of hundreds of soldiers who’ve been wounded in service. By the time the United States enters the war in 1917, George’s fund is functioning so smoothly that he leaves the French office in the hands of an administrator and returns to the United States to launch an American offshoot.

But back in America, the war is more distant, and George finds fundraising efforts tough. The American office for the Blind Relief War Fund only really gets off the ground after George is introduced to Helen Keller. Like many others before him, George is impressed with Helen and invites her to become a trustee of the Blind Relief War Fund. Despite her opposition to the conflict, Helen agrees. And with the backing of America’s most famous visually impaired person, the American Blind Relief War Fund begins to receive donations from across the country.

Only three years later in 1920, George dies, but his charity lives on. And under Helen’s guidance, the Blind Relief War Fund expands and begins helping civilians as well as soldiers. It sets up a publishing house and quickly becomes the world’s largest Braille publisher, making books and magazines available to blind people at a reasonable price. But Helen doesn’t work exclusively for the Blind Relief Fund. She becomes an enthusiastic patron of another newly established charity, the American Foundation for the Blind. There, she helps create a new form of media—the talking book, or as it will later come to be known, the audiobook.

Soon, though, Helen’s charities will face a new challenge. A surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 will plunge the United States into another war—and this time, Helen will support America's involvement. But in this new era of conflict, Helen will be confronted with the destructive power of modern technology, and she will redouble her efforts to help those blinded by war - even America’s enemies.

Act Three

It’s October 13th, 1948, in Hiroshima, Japan; thirty-one years after Helen Keller began working for the Blind Relief Fund.

The now 68-year-old Helen walks through streets that three years ago were targeted by the world’s first atomic weapon. Although Helen can’t see the buildings, she’s been told of the annihilation that took place here—and what makes it more painful for Helen is that she remembers the bustling atmosphere of pre-war Hiroshima.

Eleven years earlier, Helen visited the city as part of a world tour to raise awareness of the Blind Relief Fund. But today, Hiroshima is completely different. Hardly any tall buildings still stand, and residents are struggling to rebuild their city. Many survivors still bear the marks of the day they were bombed—and one of the most common ailments they suffer is damaged eyesight. On the day the bomb was dropped, most people in Hiroshima thought the American plane that flew overhead was just a reconnaissance aircraft. Rather than seeking shelter, they went on with their daily routines and were out in the open when the bomb was dropped. Then they were blinded by the bright flash that accompanied the nuclear detonation. Now, Helen is here on a fact-finding mission for the Blind Relief Fund to discover how her charity can help.

After her tour of Hiroshima is complete, Helen meets with civic leaders and praises them on their rebuilding efforts so far. But Helen knows there’s a long way to go before this city and its people can get back to anything approaching life as normal. So, on her return to America, Helen throws herself into fundraising to help the hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians whose eyesight was damaged in the atomic blasts.

Thanks to her efforts on behalf of the Japanese, and her lifetime of work for blind and disabled people in America, Helen will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. And in 1977, nine years after her death, the Blind Relief Fund will be renamed Helen Keller International in recognition of her global campaigning. The organization continues its work today, giving blind and visually impaired people the support they need to succeed in life, just as Helen Keller was given support, when her governess helped her learn her first word at the age of six on April 5th, 1887.

Outro

Next on History Daily. April 8th, 1994. After going missing for nearly a week, lead singer of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain is found in his Seattle home, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Gabriel Gould.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Scott Reeves.

Edited by Dorian Merina.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.