Ann Sullivan ( Annie Sullivan , Joanna Mansfield Sullivan Macy , English Anne Sullivan ); April 14, 1866 - October 20, 1936 ) - American teacher. Was widely known as teacher Helen Keller .

Anne Sullivan
Anne sullivan
Birth name	Joanna mansfield sullivan
Date of Birth	April 14, 1866 ( 1866-04-14 )
Place of Birth	Feeding hills, usa
Date of death	October 20, 1936 ( 1936-10-20 ) (70 years old)
Place of death	New York , USA
A country
Occupation	Teacher
Awards and prizes	National Women's Hall of Fame ( 2003 )

At the age of five, Sullivan suffered a trachoma , an infectious eye disease that caused her to become blind and unable to write or read. She graduated from Perkins School for the Blind , where she later became a teacher Helen Keller at the age of 20.

Biography

Anne Sullivan was born in the , Massachusetts . Her parents, Thomas Sullivan and Alice Coelsi, were poor Irish farmers who left their homeland in 1847 due to the Potato Hunger . Father Anne Sullivan drank a lot , and often offended her, but it was he who conveyed Irish traditions and folklore to her. When Anne was eight years old, her mother died of tuberculosis, and at the age of ten her father left her and her brother, leaving them in an orphanage in Tewkesbury , Massachusetts. Sullivan spent all her time with her disabled disabled brother Jimmy (who, like his mother, suffered from tuberculosis), but Jimmy soon died at the shelter.

At the age of three, Ann Sullivan started having vision problems; at five, she contracted trachoma (eye disease; often ends in blindness). A number of operations at the Tewkesbury Shelter Hospital were unsuccessful. After that, with the participation of a Catholic priest and a cappellan from a nearby hospital named Father Barbara, she underwent two more operations at a shelter in Boston . However, even after that, her vision did not improve, remaining blurry. After operations, Sullivan returned to Tewkesbury against her will. Four years later, in 1880 , she entered the Perkins School for the Blind , where she underwent surgery and partially restored her vision. After graduating in 1886, the director of the Perkins School for the Blind, Michael Onanes, invited her to teach Helen Keller .

She taught the deaf-blind Helen Keller the names of things in sign language in her palm. In 1888, they traveled together to the Perkins School, then to the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf in New York , then to the Cambridge School for Girls, and finally to Radcliffe College. Keller graduated from Radcliffe in 1904 , and after that they moved to Waretham ( Wrentham ; Massachusetts).

In 1905, Anne Sullivan married Harvard University professor John A. Macy, who helped Keller with her autobiography. A few years later their marriage began to break up. By 1914, they parted, although they never officially divorced. Sullivan stayed with Keller at her home, and also accompanied her on trips. In 1935, Ann Sullivan was completely blind.

She died in New York on October 20, 1936 .