11/12/2022 0 Comments The miracle worker bookNielsen shows how tragic Annie’s ‘secret’ and ‘shameful’ past had been-a drama worthy of Dickens. “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, Disability Studies Quarterly “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.”- Booklist Anne Sullivan Macy is a feminist hero.-Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia and Seeking Peace 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. 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.”- Journal of American HistoryĪ remarkable story of a vulnerable woman in a culture that allowed women neither freedom nor power. Beyond the Miracle Worker seeks to correct this oversight, presenting a new tale about the wounded but determined woman and her quest for a successful, meaningful life.īased on privately held primary source material-including materials at both the American Foundation for the Blind and the Perkins School for the Blind- Beyond the Miracle Worker is revelatory and absorbing, unraveling one of the best known and least understood friendships of the twentieth century. 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. 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.īased on privately held primary source material-including materials at both the American Foundation for the Blind and the Perkins School for the Blind- Beyond the Miracle Worker is revelatory and absorbing, unraveling one of the best known and least understood friendships of the twentieth century.Īfter many years, historian and Helen Keller expert Kim Nielsen realized that she and her peers had failed Anne Sullivan Macy. She went on to teach Helen Keller, who became a loyal and lifelong friend. Seeking escape, in love with literature, and profoundly stubborn, she successfully fought to gain an education at the Perkins School for the Blind. Beyond the Miracle Worker seeks to correct this oversight, presenting a new tale about the wounded but determined woman and her quest for a successful, meaningful life.īorn in 1866 to poverty-stricken Irish immigrants, Macy suffered part of her childhood in the Massachusetts State Almshouse at Tewksbury. A moving portrait of Anne Sullivan Macy, teacher of Helen Keller-and a complex, intelligent woman worthy of her own spotlightĪfter many years, historian and Helen Keller expert Kim Nielsen realized that she and her peers had failed Anne Sullivan Macy.
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