AFB Blog

Image: Inside pages from Helen Keller's passport issued December 1950, including headshot of Keller wearing a hat. This week on Inside the Helen Keller Digitization Project, University of California, Berkeley, English professor and author of Blind Rage: Letters to Helen Keller Georgina Kleege, describes her excitement at the prospect of gaining access to previously unavailable materials including transcripts of Keller's performances on the Vaudeville circuit, travel itineraries from her work…

Image: Helen Keller with Robert Irwin, feeling the vibrations from the speaker of a Talking Book playback machine in the library of the American Foundation for the Blind, no date. Welcome back to Inside the Helen Keller Digitization Project. Did you know that the American Foundation for the Blind was instrumental in creating the first Talking Book audio recordings? Mara Mills, Assistant Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University has written this fascinating piece…

Image: Helen Keller holds baguettes and stands next to Polly Thomson, 1952 This week’s blog for Inside the Helen Keller Digitization Project is a wonderful piece by David Serlin, associate professor of communication and science studies at the University of California, San Diego. Enjoy! One of my favorite objects in the Helen Keller Archives is this photograph of Keller and her secretary and companion Polly Thomson, taken in Paris in 1952. I discovered it, about five years ago, among a…

We are delighted to present the first of the many blog posts that will appear over the next two years as part of the Helen Keller Digitization Project. We are kicking off with a post by Kim E. Nielsen, professor of Disability Studies at the University of Toledo, and Helen Keller expert. Enjoy! Every year my spring is marked by phone calls, emails, letters and Skype conversations about Helen Keller initiated by nervous middle- and high-school students. These participants in National…

Helen Keller was born on June 27th 1880 and we've made a cake to celebrate her birthday! It's inscribed with the Helen's words "Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much" This is very appropriate as we are also celebrating the beginning of our digitization project! We are thrilled that as a result of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, AFB has begun the task of digitizing the over 80,000 items contained in the Helen Keller Archives. Correspondence, press…

I’ve made it back to West Virginia after all of the excitement and fun at the American Foundation for the Blind's Helen Keller Achievement Awards. I had the honor to attend last year, when Christine Ha won a Helen Keller Achievement Award; she’s a connection of mine and an inspiration, so that was a real blessing. This year took it to a whole different level, though, as I was able to assist our AFB Board Trustee, Cathy Burns, in presenting Charlie Cox with his Helen Keller Achievement Award.…

Helen Keller was interviewed in her home in Forest Hills, Queens by Hazel Gertrude Kinscella in 1930 for Better Homes and Gardens. The article, entitled "Helen Keller Sees Flowers and Hears Music" is excerpted here; it appeared in their May issue. Read on and enjoy! "...You wish to know what home and garden mean to me,” she said, at once. " "My garden is my greatest joy. I feel that I am in the seventh heaven when among my plants. I feel the little heads pop up to look at me — my…

In honor of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, please enjoy and share these resources, and add your own suggestions in the comments! 1. AccessWorld®—AFB's free online magazine is devoted to technology news for people who are blind or visually impaired. AccessWorld keeps people with vision loss and their families, teachers, rehabilitation counselors, product developers and manufacturers up to date about the technologies that can transform their lives: smart glasses, fitness tools, mobile…

Crista Earl, Director of AFB Web Services I love tools and gadgets, and I love accessible gadgets the most. Since I have a visual impairment, I'm used to having to wait around for the "special" stuff. So, the things I love the most are mainstream gadgets that come out of the box being accessible. Now that I've had my Apple Watch, the sport version, for thirty-six hours, I hope I can clear up some of your first-day questions. (See the earlier AFB Blog post, A First Look at the Apple Watch and…