{"product_id":"beyond-the-miracle-worker-isbn-9780807050507","title":"Beyond the Miracle Worker","description":"\u003cb\u003eThis moving biography is an ode to one of the most famous friendships of the 20th century and reveals the remarkable story of Anne Sullivan Macy, teacher of Helen Keller—and a complex, intelligent woman worth of her own spotlight. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter many years, historian and Helen Keller expert Kim Nielsen realized that she and her peers had failed Anne Sullivan Macy. While Macy is remembered primarily as Helen Keller’s teacher and a straightforward educational superhero, the real story of this brilliant, complex, and misunderstood woman has never been completely told. \u003ci\u003eBeyond the Miracle Worker \u003c\/i\u003eseeks to correct this oversight, presenting a new tale about the wounded but determined woman and her quest for a successful, meaningful life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBorn in 1866 to poverty-stricken Irish immigrants, Macy suffered part of her childhood in the Massachusetts State Almshouse at Tewksbury. Seeking escape, in love with literature, and profoundly stubborn, she successfully fought to gain an education at the Perkins School for the Blind. She went on to teach Helen Keller, who became a loyal and lifelong friend. As Macy floundered with her own blindness, ill health, depression, and marital strife in her later years, she came to lean on her former student for emotional, physical, and economic support.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBased on privately held primary source material—including materials at both the American Foundation for the Blind and the Perkins School for the Blind—\u003ci\u003eBeyond the Miracle Worker\u003c\/i\u003e is revelatory and absorbing, unraveling one of the best known and least understood friendships of the 20th century.Chapter 1\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eFeeding Hills\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 2\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eTewksbury Almshouse\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 3\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003ePerkins, 1880-1885: Part One\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 4\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003ePerkins, 1880-1886: Part Two\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 5\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eBecoming a Teacher\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 6\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eTuscumbia, 1888-1891\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 7\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Battle for Helen, Round 1, 1891-1984\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 8\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Battle for Helen, Round 2, 1894-1900\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 9\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eRadcliffe, 1900-1904\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 10\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eJohn, 1904-1914\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 11\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eOn the Road, 1914-1924\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 12\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe American Foundation for the Blind, 1924-1930\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 13\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eConcluding, 1930-1936\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Conclusion\u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments\u003cbr\u003e Notes\u003cbr\u003e Index“Kim E. Nielsen’s richly  textured biography provides a more interest­ing and complex narrative of Macy’s  early years and the later life that she and Keller shared…Nielsen writes about  disabil­ity and America’s past as well as any scholar today, and she does so  unsentimentally and with subtlety, sensitive to the nuance and ambiguity that  characterize the best history and biography.”—\u003ci\u003eJournal of American History \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA remarkable story of a vulnerable woman in a culture that allowed women neither freedom nor power. Still, somehow Anne, an almost blind orphan living in a poorhouse, managed to secure an education and carve out an independent life for herself and her student, Helen Keller. Anne Sullivan Macy is a feminist hero.—Mary Pipher, author of \u003ci\u003eReviving Ophelia\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eSeeking Peace\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A considerate yet equitable biography of a complex woman whose singular contributions to the burgeoning field of education for the blind have often been misjudged.\"—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Nielsen overcomes all the obstacles her recalcitrant subject throws in her path, and creates a portrait of Sullivan's life that is complex with all its contradictions and inconsistencies.\"—Georgina Kleege, \u003ci\u003eDisability Studies Quarterly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Engaging and excellently researched . . . Nielsen shows how tragic Annie's 'secret' and 'shameful' past had been-a drama worthy of Dickens. . . . The extraordinary story of Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller is an exemplary reminder that perseverance in the face of obstacles can yield miracles.\"—Sidney Callahan, \u003ci\u003eAmerica\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"How remarkable it is to learn about the complicated, flesh-and-blood person behind the feisty legend at the water pump. Kim Nielsen's biography reveals so much about one of the greatest teachers of all time, and her compassionate and honest writing made my heart go out to Annie Sullivan.\"—Rachel Simon, author of \u003ci\u003eRiding the Bus with My Sister\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Fascinating and beautifully crafted, \u003ci\u003eBeyond the Miracle Worker\u003c\/i\u003e reinterprets Macy's life, challenging the mythology of her work with Helen Keller to reveal a powerful, rich, and surprising personal story. . . . Conveying the complexity and humanity of Macy and her world, this is an appealing biography for general readers and scholars alike.\"—Susan Burch, author of \u003ci\u003eSigns of Resistance: American Deaf Cultural History, 1900 to World War II\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Rejecting hagiography, Nielsen offers a complex portrait of the woman Helen Keller called 'Teacher.' Especially interesting are Nielsen's reflections on Sullivan's own vision impairment and her lifelong struggle to support herself. It's time we all move beyond the sentimental trope of the 'miracle worker' as we consider the actual predicaments of those who care for and instruct people with disabilities.\"BR\u0026gt;—Ralph James Savarese, author of \u003ci\u003eReasonable People: A Memoir of Autism and Adoption\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Kim Nielsen's absorbing biography of Anne Sullivan Macy not only captures the complexity of Sullivan's character, but also offers fresh insights into her relationship with her famous pupil. Thoroughly researched, persuasive, and readable, \u003ci\u003eBeyond the Miracle Worker\u003c\/i\u003e is both a compelling story and an important contribution to women's history and the history of the disabled.\"—Elisabeth Gitter, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Imprisoned Guest: Samuel Howe and Laura Bridgman, the Original Deaf-Blind Girl\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Nielsen's engaging and comprehensive account of Annie Sullivan reveals a woman of great intellect and complexity who overcame many challenges in her own right. This book will irrevocably change what you thought you knew about the 'Helen-Annie' story.\"—Judith Heumann, Disability Rights Advocate and former U.S. Assistant Secretary Department of Education\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A significant contribution...Nielsen has provided a learned, readable narrative of Macy, one that succeeds admirably in foregrounding a woman who, during her own life, stood in the shadow of Keller. Their relationship was complex and fluid, but nothing if not tender, and Nielsen's careful scholarship does justice both to the intricacies and to the warmth of the friendship.\" —Daniel S. Goldberg, H-Disability: An H-Net Discussion Network\u003cb\u003eKim E. Nielsen\u003c\/b\u003e is an award-winning educator, the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities We the People stipend, a Fulbright lecturer, the author of many journal articles, and frequent public speaker. Her books include \u003ci\u003eHelen Keller: Selected Writings\u003ci\u003e (2005), \u003ci\u003eThe Radical Lives of Helen Keller\u003ci\u003e(2004) and \u003ci\u003eUn-American Womanhood: Antiradicalism, Antifeminism and the First Red Scare\u003ci\u003e (2001). She also served as an advisory editor to the forthcoming\u003ci\u003eEncyclopedia of American Disability History\u003ci\u003e (2009). She lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin where she is Professor of History \u0026amp; Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eIt’s temp ting to begin this book like a fairy tale. \u003ci\u003eOnce upon a\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003etime a poor, blind, and orphaned child named Annie magically grew into a\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003ehappy, sighted, and successful adult woman. She became a miracle worker,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003elighting the intellectual fire and imagination of the deaf-blind girl Helen\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eKeller at a water pump in the wilds of Alabama. \u003c\/i\u003eWe know this kind of\u003cbr\u003e story. Many of our books and movies, the morality tales and parables\u003cbr\u003e we tell, even the heroes we’ve created, are versions of the same inspirational\u003cbr\u003e tale. The cheerful and uplifting message is that yes, you too can\u003cbr\u003e conquer anything in order to do the impossible.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e But I won’t.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Any book about me,” Anne Sullivan Macy reflected near the end of\u003cbr\u003e her life, “must be full of contradictions.”1 \u003ci\u003eBeyond the Miracle Worker \u003c\/i\u003eis\u003cbr\u003e a book that reflects these contradictions—the contradictions of a delightful,\u003cbr\u003e gloomy, charismatically fascinating, and annoying woman who\u003cbr\u003e was neither blind nor sighted. Though she was born in 1866, her life\u003cbr\u003e is a surprisingly contemporary tale. It is the story of a caring, fiercely\u003cbr\u003e proud, and intelligent woman trying to forge meaningful human relationships\u003cbr\u003e despite her own ingrained flaws and wounds. It is the story\u003cbr\u003e of a woman deeply frightened of depending upon anyone else for emotional,\u003cbr\u003e economic, or social sustenance.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e And yet—in one of those contradictions that Macy warned us\u003cbr\u003e about—she made one notable exception: she did not hesitate to lean\u003cbr\u003e on her famous student, and later friend, Helen Keller. While the whole\u003cbr\u003e world assumed that Keller’s deaf-blindness forced her to depend on\u003cbr\u003e her teacher, Anne Sullivan Macy, my research suggests that the reverse\u003cbr\u003e more accurately characterizes their relationship of nearly fifty\u003cbr\u003e years. Macy leaned on Keller, juggling her uneasy combination of emotional\u003cbr\u003e vulnerability and a fierce desire for independence. Her lifelong\u003cbr\u003e struggle with chronic illness and depression was far more debilitating\u003cbr\u003e than Keller’s deaf-blindness. Keller provided love, acceptance, daily assistance,\u003cbr\u003e an income, and a home. Their deep friendship, and Macy’s\u003cbr\u003e willingness to allow herself to be dependent on Keller, gave meaning\u003cbr\u003e to Macy’s life. Macy regarded herself as a “badly constructed human\u003cbr\u003e being,” perceptively providing a way to understand the complex adult\u003cbr\u003e that the orphaned and deserted child of the Tewksbury Almshouse\u003cbr\u003e became. Yet, we shouldn’t confine her to that characterization. As she\u003cbr\u003e herself admitted, “some of us blunder into life through the back door.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Though it may have been through the back door, and blunder she did,\u003cbr\u003e she entered into life fully.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Indeed, she saw the benefits of blundering, and faltering through life\u003cbr\u003e didn’t bother her. “If all people knew what was good for them and acted\u003cbr\u003e accordingly, this world would be a different world, though not nearly\u003cbr\u003e so interesting. But we don’t know what’s good for us, and I’m spending\u003cbr\u003e my days in experimenting. The experiments are amusing—and sometimes\u003cbr\u003e costly, but there’s no other way of getting knowledge.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e This remark characterizes Anne Sullivan Macy perhaps better than\u003cbr\u003e anything else. From childhood on, many others had held firm opinions\u003cbr\u003e about what was good for her. Those opinions could amuse her, wound\u003cbr\u003e her, or strengthen her, but in the end her determination to discover\u003cbr\u003e her own life path lay at the very core of her character. She knew she\u003cbr\u003e had made mistakes—some of them profoundly painful. Whatever the\u003cbr\u003e benefit, whatever the cost, she had to discover for herself what was\u003cbr\u003e best. The marvel is the ferocity with which she thirsted to discover life,\u003cbr\u003e in its pains and its joys, for herself. As she said in concluding one of\u003cbr\u003e her 1916 letters to Helen, “We have only to keep a stiff upper lip and\u003cbr\u003e do our damnedest.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e After comp leting two previous books on Helen Keller I swore\u003cbr\u003e I would never again write anything even remotely related to her. I\u003cbr\u003e started a project far removed from Keller. I informed everyone in my\u003cbr\u003e professional circle about that far-removed project in order to commit\u003cbr\u003e myself to it.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Then I reread Anne Sullivan Macy’s 1916 letters to Helen Keller.\u003cbr\u003e Macy had written them as she dealt with the illness that she thought\u003cbr\u003e would kill her. The letters reveal an introspective woman trying to\u003cbr\u003e understand her life. Vacillating between urgency and detachment, she\u003cbr\u003e reflected on pleasure, anger, complacency, and amazement. It struck\u003cbr\u003e me that her life embodied both contradictions and intensity: physical\u003cbr\u003e pain, emotional pain, isolation, friendship, joy, intellect, tenacity, success,\u003cbr\u003e and near constant self-doubt. Yet, as she thought about death,\u003cbr\u003e as she pondered her life, she took immense joy in the daily life of the\u003cbr\u003e Puerto Rican countryside where she was staying.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e As I reconsidered Macy, I became convinced that I, and nearly everyone\u003cbr\u003e else, had shortchanged the woman known only as the teacher\u003cbr\u003e of Helen Keller. A new biography of Anne Sullivan Macy is greatly\u003cbr\u003e needed, not only to do justice to her and to provide a peephole into\u003cbr\u003e Keller and Macy’s multifaceted, and often surprising, friendship, but\u003cbr\u003e also because our cultural memory mythologizes and simplifies Macy\u003cbr\u003e as a straightforward educational superhero. She deserves more.\u003cbr\u003e In addition, the increasing but still slow integration of people with\u003cbr\u003e disabilities into education, the workplace, and the public world makes\u003cbr\u003e this project significant. Macy’s disability did not occur in a vacuum,\u003cbr\u003e isolated and abstract. Her daily experience of it was often defined by\u003cbr\u003e context—by institutions, by the expectations of others, and by the\u003cbr\u003e lack of social welfare support. Her life story, particularly when placed\u003cbr\u003e alongside that of Keller, reminds us of the diversity of disability experiences\u003cbr\u003e historically and today—and of the multiple ways that we, as individuals,\u003cbr\u003e as institutions, and as a country, contribute to the disabling\u003cbr\u003e nature of physical and mental impairments.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Surprisingly, telling the life story of Anne Sullivan Macy with her\u003cbr\u003e as the central figure is a markedly new strategy. Numerous Keller biographies,\u003cbr\u003e both older and more recent, discuss Macy but primarily as\u003cbr\u003e an ancillary figure to the real star of the story. These include Joseph P.\u003cbr\u003e Lash’s \u003ci\u003eHelen and Teacher: The Story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eMacy \u003c\/i\u003e(1980) and Dorothy Herrmann’s \u003ci\u003eHelen Keller: A Life \u003c\/i\u003e(1998).\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eHelen and Teacher \u003c\/i\u003eprovides the most complex analysis of Macy but retains\u003cbr\u003e a nearly exclusive focus on her development and life as a teacher.\u003cbr\u003e The most comprehensive biography of Macy is that of Nella Braddy\u003cbr\u003e Henney, \u003ci\u003eAnne Sullivan Macy: The Story Behind Helen Keller \u003c\/i\u003e(1933). Endorsed\u003cbr\u003e by Keller, approved by Macy, and written by an intimate friend\u003cbr\u003e of both women, this book sought to establish Macy as a pedagogical\u003cbr\u003e hero. Macy’s most recent adult biography, published over forty years\u003cbr\u003e ago by Lorena Hickok, also defines her only according to Keller—even\u003cbr\u003e in its title: \u003ci\u003eThe Touch of Magic: The Story of Helen Keller’s Great Teacher,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eAnne Sullivan Macy \u003c\/i\u003e(1961). Macy was Keller’s teacher, and proud of it,\u003cbr\u003e but her life story is so much more complicated and interesting than\u003cbr\u003e that single-minded characterization.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The goal of \u003ci\u003eBeyond the Miracle Worker \u003c\/i\u003eis to present Anne Sullivan\u003cbr\u003e Macy in all of her complexity. First and foremost, by telling and analyzing\u003cbr\u003e Macy’s life as \u003ci\u003eher \u003c\/i\u003estory—not Helen’s—this biography tells a new\u003cbr\u003e tale. \u003ci\u003eBeyond the Miracle Worker \u003c\/i\u003efollows the accidental and unexpected\u003cbr\u003e path an orphaned asylum child took to become a world-famous educator.\u003cbr\u003e This includes an intimate depiction of growing up amidst the\u003cbr\u003e horrors of a mid-nineteenth-century asylum, a rarely if ever told story\u003cbr\u003e in U.S. history. It chronicles a tumultuous marriage. It analyzes the\u003cbr\u003e adult life of a chronically ill, disabled woman whose public identity\u003cbr\u003e excluded nearly all acknowledgment of her disability. It follows a smart\u003cbr\u003e and ambitious woman trying to make a professional life in a patriarchal\u003cbr\u003e society. And it traces the ever-changing friendship between Macy and\u003cbr\u003e Keller, in which the deaf-blind Keller eventually cared for and became\u003cbr\u003e the personal aid of her former teacher.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e In many ways, Macy resembles an archetypal American figure—the\u003cbr\u003e self-made man. As a young orphan housed in Massachusetts’s Tewksbury\u003cbr\u003e Almshouse, she pleaded her way out with single-minded determination\u003cbr\u003e by literally pulling on the sleeves of touring philanthropists\u003cbr\u003e and begging for an education. Later on in her life, she exercised further\u003cbr\u003e determination and retained control of the child Helen Keller—and\u003cbr\u003e thus of her own professional life—despite the machinations of numerous\u003cbr\u003e others who were far more powerful. With intense purposefulness,\u003cbr\u003e she repeatedly created herself. The obvious complication, however, is\u003cbr\u003e that though a “self-made man,” she was female, disabled, and of (to her)\u003cbr\u003e shameful beginnings. Her life raises questions about the opportunities\u003cbr\u003e available to women to reinvent themselves in turn-of-the-century\u003cbr\u003e America.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e A related theme is that of the narrow but changing economic and\u003cbr\u003e professional opportunities available to women. Macy is contemporary\u003cbr\u003e with the first generation of female college students who embraced pivotal\u003cbr\u003e and important roles in U.S. social reform, education, and civic life.\u003cbr\u003e She is a contemporary of those who—like Jane Addams, Julia Lathrop,\u003cbr\u003e and Florence Kelley—developed and energized the settlement\u003cbr\u003e house movement. She is, however, dramatically different. Though an\u003cbr\u003e extremely brilliant woman, she lacked any educational training or advanced\u003cbr\u003e degree, came from a family with no connections to wealth or\u003cbr\u003e prestige, was deeply ashamed of her past, and had little involvement\u003cbr\u003e in broad social reform. Other than her relationship to Keller, she had\u003cbr\u003e few opportunities to build on for personal advancement. Those she\u003cbr\u003e had came from flirtatious relationships with older men. From the time\u003cbr\u003e of Keller’s college graduation in 1904 until the early 1920s the two\u003cbr\u003e constantly sought new economic opportunities and stability as various\u003cbr\u003e money-making attempts failed. While she and Keller clearly valued\u003cbr\u003e one another, Macy clung to the relationship with such tenacity partially\u003cbr\u003e because of the narrow options available for a woman of her class\u003cbr\u003e and background, let alone one with a disability.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Also important to this biography and Macy’s life is the theme of\u003cbr\u003e education. As a child, Macy grasped for an education as an escape,\u003cbr\u003e and a redemption, from poverty and the almshouse. As an untrained,\u003cbr\u003e inexperienced, and isolated young woman she accomplished a task\u003cbr\u003e many had thought impossible: teaching language to the almost sevenyear-\u003cbr\u003e old deaf-blind Helen Keller. Though not a Radcliffe student, she\u003cbr\u003e attended the prestigious female college alongside Keller, fingerspelling\u003cbr\u003e for her all lectures and books. Ironically, the woman who became\u003cbr\u003e one of the world’s most famous educators had no educational training,\u003cbr\u003e and did little regarding the education of others after her one student\u003cbr\u003e became an adult.","brand":"Beacon Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304332054757,"sku":"NP9780807050507","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780807050507.jpg?v=1767722538","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/beyond-the-miracle-worker-isbn-9780807050507","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}