Anne Sullivan

Anne Sullivan Macy, born Johanna Mansfield Sullivan on April 14, 1866, in Feeding Hills, Massachusetts, is remembered as the teacher and lifelong companion of Helen Keller. Her parents, Thomas and Alice Sullivan, were Irish immigrants who had fled the Great Famine. At five, a bacterial eye disease called trachoma left her nearly blind and unable to read or write. Her childhood was marked by poverty and abuse from her alcoholic father. After her mother died of tuberculosis when Anne was eight, her father abandoned the children two years later. Anne and her younger brother, Jimmie, were sent to a crowded almshouse in Tewksbury, Massachusetts; their sister Mary was taken in by an aunt. Jimmie, who had a weak hip, died of tuberculosis after four months. Anne stayed on at the almshouse, enduring two failed eye operations.

In 1875, reports of cruelty—including sexual abuse and cannibalism—at Tewksbury prompted an investigation by the Massachusetts Board of State Charities, led by Franklin Benjamin Sanborn and Samuel Gridley Howe of the Perkins School for the Blind. In February 1877, Sullivan was moved to a hospital in Lowell, Massachusetts, for another unsuccessful operation. She helped the nuns there until July, when she was sent to a city infirmary for yet another failed surgery. Forced back to Tewksbury, she was housed with single mothers and unmarried pregnant women rather than with the ill and insane. During a subsequent inspection in 1880, Sullivan pleaded with Sanborn, “Mr. Sanborn, I want to go to school!” Within months, she was admitted to the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts.

Sullivan began her studies at Perkins on October 7, 1880. Though her rough manners caused early humiliation, she connected with some teachers and made academic progress. There, she befriended Laura Bridgman, a blind and deaf Perkins graduate, and learned the manual alphabet. A series of eye operations during her time at Perkins significantly improved her vision. In June 1886, she graduated as valedictorian at age 20.

That summer, Perkins director Michael Anagnos received a request from Arthur Keller, father of seven-year-old blind and deaf Helen Keller. Anagnos recommended Sullivan, who began work on March 3, 1887, at the Kellers’ Alabama home. She immediately clashed with Helen’s parents over the Civil War and slavery, but quickly bonded with Helen. Their relationship lasted 49 years, evolving from teacher to governess to companion and friend. Sullivan initially used a strict schedule and constant vocabulary drills, but soon shifted to teaching words based on Helen’s interests, spelling them into her palm. Within six months, Helen had learned 575 words, some multiplication tables, and Braille.

Sullivan urged Helen’s parents to send her to Perkins for a proper education. They agreed, and in 1888 Sullivan took Helen to Boston, staying with her there. Helen’s remarkable progress made her famous, and with Anagnos’s help, she became a public symbol for the school, boosting its funding and reputation. A plagiarism accusation against Helen deeply upset Sullivan, who left Perkins and never returned, though she remained influential there. Sullivan stayed by Helen’s side, helping her through her education, which culminated in a degree from Radcliffe College. Sullivan died on October 20, 1936.