Helen Keller Holds Doll in Newfound Photo
Melissa Trijillo, Associated Press
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/03/06/helen-keller-photo.html
March 6, 2008 -- Researchers have uncovered a rare photograph of a young Helen Keller with her teacher Anne Sullivan, nearly 120 years after it was taken on Cape Cod. The photograph, shot in July 1888 in Brewster, shows an 8-year-old Helen sitting outside in a light-colored dress, holding Sullivan's hand and cradling one of her beloved dolls.
Experts on Keller's life believe it could be the earliest photo of the two women together and the only one showing the blind and deaf child with a doll -- the first word Sullivan spelled for Keller after they met in 1887 -- according to the New England Historic Genealogical Society, which now has the photo.
"It's really one of the best images I've seen in a long, long time," said Helen Selsdon, an archivist at the American Foundation for the Blind, where Keller worked for more than 40 years. "This is just a huge visual addition to the history of Helen and Annie."
For more than a century, the photograph has belonged to the family of Thaxter Spencer, an 87-year-old man in Waltham.
