Biography of anne sullivan teachers

(1866-1936)

Who Was Anne Sullivan?

Anne Sullivan was a gifted teacher best known for her work with Helen Keller, a blind and deaf child she taught to communicate. At only 20 years of age, Sullivan showed great maturity and ingenuity in teaching Keller and worked hard with her pupil, bringing both women much acclaim. Sullivan even helped Keller write her autobiography.

Early Life

Sullivan was born on April 14, 1866, in Feeding Hills, Massachusetts. Her parents immigrated to the United States from Ireland during the Great Famine of the 1840s. The couple had five children, but two died in their infancy.

Sullivan and her two surviving siblings grew up in impoverished conditions, and struggled with health problems. At the age of five, Anne contracted an eye disease called trachoma, which severely damaged her sight. Her mother, Alice, suffered from tuberculosis and had difficulty getting around after a serious fall. She died when Anne was eight years old.

Even at an early age, Sullivan had a strong-willed personality. She sometimes clashed with her father, Thomas, who was left to raise Sullivan and her siblings after their mother's death. Thomas — who was often abusive — eventually abandoned the family. Anne and her infirm younger brother, Jimmie, were sent to live at the Tewksbury Almshouse, a home for the poor. Some reports say that Sullivan also had a sister who was sent to live with relatives.

Tewksbury Almshouse was dirty, rundown and overcrowded. Sullivan's brother Jimmie died just months after they arrived there, leaving Anne alone. While at Tewksbury, Sullivan learned about schools for the blind and became determined to get an education as a means to escape poverty. She got her chance when members from a special commission visited the home. After following the group around all day, she worked up the nerve to talk to them about sending her to a special school.

Education

Sullivan left Tewksbury to attend the Perkins School for the Blin

Teacher and companion of Helen Keller (1866–1936)

This article is about the teacher and companion of Helen Keller. For other uses, see Anne Sullivan (disambiguation).

Anne Sullivan Macy (born as Johanna Mansfield Sullivan; April 14, 1866 – October 20, 1936) was an American teacher best known for being the instructor and lifelong companion of Helen Keller. At the age of five, Sullivan contracted trachoma, an eye disease, which left her partially blind and without reading or writing skills. She received her education as a student of the Perkins School for the Blind. Soon after graduation at age 20, she became a teacher to Keller.

Childhood

On April 14, 1866, Sullivan was born in Feeding Hills, Agawam, Massachusetts, United States. The name on her baptismal certificate was Johanna Mansfield Sullivan but she was called "Anne" or "Annie" from birth. She was the eldest child of Thomas and Alice (Cloesy) Sullivan, who had emigrated from Ireland to the United States during the Great Famine.

When she was five years old, Sullivan contracted the bacterial eye disease trachoma, which caused many painful infections and over time made her nearly blind. When she was eight, her mother died from tuberculosis, and her father abandoned the children two years later for fear that he could not raise them on his own. She and her younger brother, James (Jimmie), were sent to the run-down and overcrowded almshouse in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, today part of Tewksbury Hospital, and their younger sister, Mary, was left to an aunt. Jimmie had a weak hip condition and then died from tuberculosis four months into their stay. Anne remained at Tewksbury after his death and endured two unsuccessful eye operations.

In 1875, as a result of reports of cruelty to inmates at Tewksbury, including sexually perverted practices and cannibalism, the Massachu

Written by Isabelle Shaw

Anne Sullivan is regarded as history’s most inspiring teacher—a ‘miracle worker’—since she devoted most of her life to teaching Helen Keller, who was blind and deaf, to read and converse. Her innovations in teaching blind individuals to communicate using braille and spelling out letters by touching the palm have had a significant impact on modern-day education. 

Early Life 

Sullivan was born in April 1866 in Massachusetts to Irish immigrant parents, who moved to the U.S. during the ‘Great Famine.’ Sullivan herself suffered from impaired vision due to contracting an eye disease, trachoma, when she was a child. This would be important in motivating her resilience to teach Keller later in life. She recognised the importance of education in her early life as a means to escape poverty. Her family fell into great poverty after being abandoned by her abusive father which forced her to move into a Poorhouse: Tewksbury Almshouse. Here she faced tragedy when her brother, her last living relative, died shortly after moving into the Almshouse.  

Education 

Due to her poverty, at age 14 Sullivan was still illiterate and had never received a formal education. In 1880, Sullivan struck luck when a special commission visited the Almshouse; Frank B. Sanborn from the State Board of Charities kindly gave her the opportunity to study at Perkins School for the Blind and she had eight surgeries to improve her vision. Despite Sullivan struggling to fit in at school due to her lack of understanding of “social graces,” her intelligence still meant her time in education was extremely successful and worthwhile. In June 1886, at her graduation, she was even named class Valedictorian. Sullivan’s academic skills made her close to her tutors; one of them had recommended her after receiving a letter from the Keller family looking for a governess for their daughter.  

Her relationship with Helen Keller

Sullivan was well-prepared to educ

Head and shoulders portrait of Anne Sullivan, circa 1894. In this image, Anne faces the camera with a slight smile. Her head is tilted a little to her right. A long thick braid of hair appears to be curled at the top of her head and curly wisps of hair frame her face. Her light-colored dress has a wide neck with lace edging. A rose is pinned to her gown.

Anne Sullivan Macy (1866-1936) was a woman whose brilliance, passion, and tenacity enabled her to overcome a traumatic past. She became a model for others disadvantaged by their physical bodies, as well as by gender or class.

Anne was a pioneer in the field of education. Her work with Helen Keller became the blueprint for education of children who were blind, deaf-blind, or visually impaired that still continues today. Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) dubbed her a "miracle worker." However, Anne's personal story remains relatively unknown. Although some of her letters still exist, it is primarily through the eyes of others that we know her. Sometime after she married John Albert Macy in 1905, the young wife burned her private journals for fear of what her husband might think of her if he should read them. Similarly, she did not want her correspondence to be kept after her death. But for historical purposes, materials were retained, and the American Foundation for the Blind's Helen Keller Archive contains some of her letters, prose, and verse. Other materials about Anne are located at the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts, and the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts.

This website wishes to show Anne Sullivan Macy through her own words as well as through the eyes of others as the remarkable woman whose life and teaching philosophy remain an inspiration to those who educate children who are visually impaired. In 2003, Anne Sullivan Macy was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame and the American Foundation for the Blind was privileged to receive