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pazzesco · 7 months

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~ Helen Keller ~

Helen Keller (colorized)

Miss Helen Keller - Portrait US Library of Congress

Helen Keller was an author, lecturer, suffragists and crusader for the handicapped. Born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, She lost her sight and hearing at the age of nineteen months to an illness now believed to have been scarlet fever. Five years later, on the advice of Alexander Graham Bell, her parents applied to the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston for a teacher, and from that school hired Anne Mansfield Sullivan.

Keller (left) with Anne Sullivan vacationing on Cape Cod in July 1888

Through Sullivan’s extraordinary instruction, the little girl learned to understand and communicate with the world around her. She went on to acquire an excellent education and to become an important influence on the treatment of the blind and deaf.

Helen Keller in 1899 with lifelong companion and teacher Anne Sullivan. Photo taken by Alexander Graham Bell at his School of Vocal Physiology and Mechanics of Speech.

Her unprecedented accomplishments in overcoming her disabilities made her a celebrity at an early age; at twelve she published an autobiographical sketch in the Youth’s Companion, and during her junior year at Radcliffe, she produced her first book, The Story of My Life, still in print in over fifty languages.

Helen Keller — Groundbreaking Girls

Painting of Keller's colorized portrait by Wayne Pascall

Her friendship with Mark Twain

"Helen Keller, Miss Sullivan, Mark Twain and Laurence Hutton."

“From that day until his death we were friends,” Keller recalled later. She was already a fan of his work and thrilled to his deep voice and his many hand gestures, which she followed with her own fingertips. She wrote of him:

"He entered into my limited world with enthusiasm just as he might have explored Mars. Blindness was an adventure that kindled his curiosity. He treated me not as a freak, but as a handicapped woman seeking a way to circumvent extraordinary difficulties. There was something of divine apprehension in this rare naturalness towards those who differ from others in external circumstances."

Helen Keller with Mark Twain - Twain came to Keller’s defense, after reading in her book about a plagiarism scandal that occurred in 1892 when, at only twelve years old, she was accused of lifting her short story “The Frost King” from Margaret Canby’s “Frost Fairies.” Though a tribunal acquitted Keller of the charges, the incident still pissed off Twain. The letter is attached to the photo above

Letters between Mark Twain and Helen Keller.

Though Helen hailed from a respectable Southern family, 19th-century America was flummoxed by the prospect of teaching a deaf-blind girl to talk, read, and learn. Helen’s tutor and governess, Annie Sullivan, fought for her admission to various schools that offered special education. But the cost of educating someone like Helen was high. Clemens wrote to a rich friend on her behalf:

"It won’t do for America to allow this marvelous child to retire from her studies because of poverty. If she can go on with them she will make a fame that will endure in history for centuries. Along her special illness she is the most extraordinary product of all the ages…lay siege to your husband & get him to interest himself and Messrs. John D. & William Rockefeller & the other Standard Oil chiefs in Helen’s case; get them to subscribe an annual aggregate of six or seven hundred or a thousand dollars- & agree to continue this for three or four years, until she has completed her college course…."

Thanks to his intervention, the support of his friend Henry Rogers and Standard Oil, Helen was able to complete her education and graduate cum laude from Harvard’s Radcliffe College. Clemens and Keller remained friends for the rest of his life. They shared an interest in radical politics and a love for life despite their different temperaments. Helen, an avowed optimist, often made fun of Clemens for his avowed pessimism, telling him she didn’t believe a word of his sardonic jokes. As for Clemens, Chambliss writes that he felt she was one of the most important historical figures of all time, “the most wondrous person of her sex that has existed on this earth since Joan of Arc.”

Keller, Sullivan, Twain, & Sullivan’s husband John Macy above at Twain’s home

We also have Twain—not playwright William Gibson—to thank for the “miracle worker” title given to Keller’s teacher, Anne Sullivan. As a tribute to Sullivan for her tireless work with Keller, he presented her with a postcard that read, “To Mrs. John Sullivan Macy with warm regard & with limitless admiration of the wonders she has performed as a ‘miracle-worker.’” In his 1903 letter to Keller, he called Sullivan “your other half… for it took the pair of you to make complete and perfect whole.”

Twain was especially impressed by Keller’s autobiography, writing to her, “I am charmed with your book—enchanted.” (See his endorsement in a 1903 advertisement, above.)

Keller & Clemens also shared a love of dogs

Helen Keller with her dog Sir Thomas.

Helen Keller seated on a window bench with an arm around her dog Sieglinde.

Helen Keller seated on a bench indoors, possibly in the photographer's studio wth a dog seated on the ground beside her.

Helen Keller seated on a slatted bench in front of a Farm House in 1935 with her dogs Dileas, on her lap, Maida beside her & Golden.

Helen Keller teaching a girl sign language.

Widely honored throughout the world and invited to the White House by every U.S. president from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon B. Johnson, Keller altered the world’s perception of the capacities of the handicapped. More than any act in her long life, her courage, intelligence, and dedication combined to make her a symbol of the triumph of the human spirit over adversity.

Helen Keller - 1880-1968

Helen Keller Archive

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startrekvsfaceapp · 1 year

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Quark Twain

#star trek #faceapp #morphing #mashup #samuel clemens #mark twain #quark #next generation #the next generation #star trek the next generation #tng #star trek tng #deep space 9 #star trek deep space 9 #deep space nine #star trek deep space nine #ds9 #star trek ds9

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libinih28 · 6 days

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you guys ever think about how tom sawyer and pride and prejudice take place during the same time period

#tom sawyer #the adventures of huckleberry finn #the adventures of huck finn #the adventures of tom sawyer #huck finn #huckleberry finn #mark twain #samuel langhorn clemens #samuel clemens #pride and prejudice #jane austen #emma #sense and sensibility #northanger abbey #mansfield park #persuasion jane austen #persuasion #emma jane austen

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benedictusantonius · 1 month

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Tom and Huck (1995) starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas as Tom Sawyer and Brad Renfro as Huckleberry Finn

#tom and huck #tom and huck 1995 #jonathan taylor thomas #brad renfro #tom sawyer #huckleberry finn #mark twain #samuel clemens #jtt

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detroitlib · 8 months

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View of Mark Twain, posing at Fairhaven, Massachusetts. Stone balustrade in background. Handwritten on back: "Mark Twain, September 6, 1903. Fairhaven, Mass. By Beatrice Benjamin."

Rare Book Collection, Detroit Public Library

#mark twain #samuel clemens #beatrice benjamin #1903 #fairhaven #authors #writers #icons #detroit public library

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dwellsinparadise · 8 months

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An average American loves his family. If he has any love left over for some other person, he generally selects Mark Twain.

—Thomas Edison

#mark twain #samuel clemens

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thebeautifulbook · 8 months

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A YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT [aka A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT] by Mark Twain [aka Samuel L. Clemens]. (New York: Webster, 1889)

book

#beautiful books #book blog #books books books #book cover #books #vintage books #mark twain #a connecticut yankee in king arthur's court #samuel clemens #victorian era #book design #book binding

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 1 year

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(Mark Twain, left, with John T. Lewis, a lifelong friend and inspiration for the character Jim in 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn')

* * * * *

February 18, 1885: "Mark Twain publishes his famous–and famously controversial–novel 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'. Twain (the pen name of Samuel Clemens) first introduced Huck Finn as the best friend of Tom Sawyer, hero of his tremendously successful novel 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' (1876). Though Twain saw Huck’s story as a kind of sequel to his earlier book, the new novel was far more serious, focusing on the institution of slavery and other aspects of life in the antebellum South. At the book’s heart is the journey of Huck and his friend Jim, a runaway slave, down the Mississippi River on a raft. Jim runs away because he is about to be sold and separated from his wife and children, and Huck goes with him to help him get to Ohio and freedom. Huck narrates the story in his distinctive voice, offering colorful descriptions of the people and places they encounter along the way. The most striking part of the book is its satirical look at racism, religion and other social attitudes of the time. While Jim is strong, brave, generous and wise, many of the white characters are portrayed as violent, stupid or simply selfish, and the naive Huck ends up questioning the hypocritical, unjust nature of society in general. Even in 1885, two decades after the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the Civil War, 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' landed with a splash. A month after its publication, a Concord, Massachusetts, library banned the book, calling its subject matter “tawdry” and its narrative voice “coarse” and “ignorant.” Other libraries followed suit, beginning a controversy that continued long after Twain’s death in 1910. In the 1950s, the book came under fire from African-American groups for being racist in its portrayal of black characters, despite the fact that it was seen by many as a strong criticism of racism and slavery. As recently as 1998, an Arizona parent sued her school district, claiming that making Twain’s novel required high school reading made already existing racial tensions even worse. Aside from its controversial nature and its continuing popularity with young readers, 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' has been hailed by many serious literary critics as a masterpiece. No less a judge than Ernest Hemingway famously declared that the book marked the beginning of American literature: “There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.”"

- history.com 'A heroic deed, a rewarding friendship' - via The Washington Times: https://bit.ly/2V4sHN3 [Random History of the Day]

#literature #quotes #stories #Huck Finn #Tom Sawyer #Samuel Clemens #Mark Twain #racism #The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn #literary masterpiece #history #The South

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mirbisduschoen · 3 months

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Resident Evil AU/original location

What if the Metamycete in Romania and its spinoff in Dulvey wasn't the only humungous fungus around? What if there was another one, in, say, Eastern Oregon? Sort of like a bioweapon version of this:

The major difference in my AU from "just another RE game" is that Metamycetes as a whole tend to amplify and echo the prevalent emotions of the people attuned to it, while granting them immortality. The Romanian fungus is attuned to a sociopath driven mad by grief who's been packing the fungus to bursting with terror, pain, suffering, and anguish for 100 years straight, and the Dulvey spinoff of that fungus is attuned to a mentally unstable and incredibly traumatized child who has never known kindness in her entire life and is so desperate for human contact that she'll brainwash people into being her new family. It's like programming: Garbage In, Garbage Out.

The other fungus, located in and around the fictional town of Devil's Butte, Oregon, isn't like that. Mayor Malder has been very careful to do the exact opposite and ensure the townspeople are doing well emotionally and financially. The town is prospering in a way that small, non-tourist-trappy towns in the United States in the early 21st century generally aren't. As a result, the Mold is healthy (it's colored white instead of black), and Devil's Butte is a pocket of the sort of Norman Rockwell small-town Americana that doesn't exist anymore, with some modern Oregon tweaks like liberalism, racial diversity (to the best of their ability, it's still rural Oregon), legalized weed, and gay marriage.

Mayor Malder, although perpetually the incumbent, has made it his mission to improve on his previous term, every term he serves. How long has he been doing this? He first ran in 1896, went through a stress-induced breakdown, ran off into the woods, encountered the Pale God (the good opposite of the Black God from RE: Village) who gave him immortality and a pep talk, and proceeded to turn the town around. He's got three forms: normal old man (his default form for all public appearances), "Mother Miranda but male and with doves instead of crows" (very rarely used), and "OH MY GOD A BIBLICALLY ACCURATE ANGEL" (never used before, God willing it never will be, because that's the "We're Being Invaded" body).

He also has a Cabinet of people he's given abilities to via the Mold, something that healthy Mold can do naturally and on command but that The Connections crudely modified Eveline's mold to do via disease-like infection and that Mother Miranda had to brute-force via cadou.

His Cabinet includes, but isn't limited to:

Sunshine Daniels, an ex-hippie lady turned weed grower. Producer of the highly-sought-after, Mold-altered strain "The Goodest Shit", which isn't moldy itself per se, but has been modified via the Mold's gene-altering properties to give a longer and stronger high than anything else on the market. Ms. Daniels met the Mayor in the mid to late 70s as the hippie movement was starting to run out of steam, and started her weed-growing career running a small drug empire peddling The Goodest Shit to college students prior to the legalization of weed.

2. Jane Malheur, proprietor of "Jane's Antiques & Curios", an antique store that is rumored to be haunted, and draws tourists in for the creep factor. Jane claims to be the third-generation proprietor of the business, which has been there since the 1890s, but she is Jane I, not Jane III. She has been hiding her immortality from tourists by pretending to be her own granddaughter, who doesn't actually exist. The reason the store is rumored to be haunted is that she used her Mold powers to bring some antique porcelain dolls, other toys, and a vintage department store mannequin to life to help her with the business in her old age. (She was already old when she joined the Cabinet in the 1930s.)

Imagine being a meth addict and breaking into the place at night for cash, and you think there's a person there, counting cash, but you get a good look and there's just a static mannequin. You could have sworn you saw movement though. You look away, and when you look back it isn't there. You whirl around, wondering where the mannequin went, but there's this 50s women's face painted onto a plastic mannequin, with unsettlingly lifelike eyes that you realize aren't painted on at all, leaning in just inches from your face. As you run to get the fuck out of there, antique dolls track your movements with their heads. (Don't worry, they don't hurt anyone, they just like to troll people.)

3. The OG member of the Cabinet and an old fly-fishing buddy of Mayor Malder, an old Southern gentleman named Samuel Clemens. Yes, that Samuel Clemens, the one who's better known by his pen name, Mark Twain. His mold powers allow him to heal any wound instantly, on him or on another Mold-touched individual. Heck, maybe if Ethan Winters swings around town he could get his fingers back! His healing powers are like a more potent and versatile version of Ethan Winters' ability to pour hydrogen peroxide on a severed limb and reattach it, fully functional, in 30 seconds by pressing the stump and the limb together like he's trying to glue something at the arts-and-crafts table. Both Samuel and Ethan's toolkit have one important thing in common, though: G U N

"Pecker, I just might!"

4. Wally Wyman, owner of the local (small) amusement park, Wally's Wonderland. Wally's Wonderland has a sort of "Babes In Toyland" vibe, lots of nutcracker-type antique toy soldiers and other copyright-friendly symbols of childhood joy. He's also the local mechanic who runs Wally's Garage, and his Mold powers include the ability to imbue Mold consciousness into mechanical items. His car, a 1932 Cord 812, is alive and named Henrietta after Wally's mother. The last time someone tried to steal Henrietta's parts, Wally had to convince her to spit the thief out, as she's got flesh and blood under the upholstery and metal and took offense to a meth addict trying to pull her grille off for the scrap metal value. (She's not like Christine. Although she IS pretty attached to Wally, there's more of a platonic "exasperated middle-aged dad/chaos gremlin nine-year-old girl" kind of relationship between them)

The old animatronics at Wally's Wonderland are also alive, and although locals know they are, they act like cheap, unrealistic animatronics for the tourists who stop for chili dogs, go-kart racing, octopus rides, teacup rides, cotton candy, an arcade so old all its games are now nostalgic and retro (Anyone for a game of Street Fighters I? What about Pong?), and the pride and joy of the park, "Devil's Twister", the only British-style helter-skelter amusement park ride in the United States! (It's a slide. That's what a Helter Skelter is. It's a spiraling slide you go down on a little mat. Also the name of a banger Beatles song!)

There's also the Order Of The Pale God, an honest-to-God 19th century secret society a la the Odd Fellows, which is a syncretic mixture of the normal 19th century secret society occultism and very heavy influences (and membership) from the Northern Paiute tribe of Native Americans, who have lived in the area (and known about the Mold) for millennia. As you can probably expect, they worship the Pale God. They also do soup kitchens, run several nonprofits, and generally do their level best to ensure the vibes in town are as immaculate as possible. It is their duty, and their calling. The Pale God demands His supplicants and denizens be happy and content, for only then can He be happy and content as well. The Head Of The Order is a certain William Pamahas, a half-Northern-Paiute-half-white person who founded the Order all the way back in the 19th century, and has been rewarded by the Pale God with long life.)

I'd imagine this place would send Chris Redfield into conniptions because there is CLEARLY bioweapon activity going on but everyone's OK with it??? And there aren't any mysterious disappearances or confirmed kills???? At all????????

I'd imagine he first gets alerted that orbital bioweapon detector scan things have detected a large accumulation of Metamycete in Oregon, so he investigates the town closest to the center. One of the BSAA interns is actually from Devil's Butte but never figured out anything was amiss when they lived there, and is just like "Damn, Jack Malder is still mayor? Man, he's been mayor for as long as anyone can remember!"

And Chris decides to go investigate in person, gets treated with hostility by everyone in town who's in on the secret and quite a few people who aren't (because ACAB here in Oregon), and gets gaslit by Wally's boys when he pokes around to investigate. Imagine Chris going there and asking questions, and The Boys (as the townsfolk know the animatronics) are trolling him by using their internal Mold reservoirs to make their proportions just slightly off every time Chris looks away: he turns away and as he turns he realizes that the Tin Soldier animatronic is looking right at him with an unsettlingly realistic grin with actual teeth that are too long and too numerous, and then when he double-takes the Soldier's face is normal.

EDIT: Sunshine Daniels has to wear very thick gloves at all times, because her Mold power is that she can give a contact high to anyone she makes skin-to-skin contact with, like through a handshake.

ANOTHER EDIT: The Devil's Twister in Wally's Wonderland has a somewhat tinny PA system which plays "Helter-Skelter" by the Beatles on loop. At the exit of the ride, behind theft-proof bulletproof glass with an honestly comedic amount of locks (most of which are just there for show, it's a couple of expensive German locks that do most of the security), lies Wally's greatest achievement: a binding legal document from Columbia Records giving him rights to use the song on his ride in perpetuity, made possible by writing John Lennon and Paul McCartney a letter back in the 60s, asking if he could use it, and the Beatles thought it was cool that there was a helter-skelter in America so they persuaded the execs to allow it, but only for this one tiny little ride in the middle of nowhere (the execs thought they were so clever)

It's theft-proof because meth heads + out-of-the-way area + signed document bearing the signatures of two of the four Beatles = someone not in their right mind looking at this marvel of achievement of the common man's victory over suits in boardrooms, hands trembling from withdrawal, and seeing nothing but dollar signs.

YET ANOTHER EDIT: The hobo who tried to strip Henrietta for parts was fine, just slightly bruised around the midriff where the hood got him and in desperate need of new pants. The local police are vaguely aware of the whole mold thing, but the general consensus among them

STILL ANOTHER EDIT: The local police are considered A-OK by townsfolk, because they're Good Old Town Boys (And Girls And Nonbinary) and the town's adoption of improved screening has done wonders in ensuring that corrupt psychos never get a badge in HIS town. Devil's Butte PD still do foot patrols, an extreme rarity among post-1950s US police forces, are given (informal) training in de-escalation, and are equipped similarly to 1950s police forces: no tanks and assault rifles to be found, only revolvers and spiffy Norman Rockwell uniforms! (They do have bulletproof vests, though, but they're the subtle kind for under the shirt to decrease intimidation factor without compromising protection.) Furthermore, since the foot patrol beat cops most often have stations and patrols in the neighborhood(s) they live in, this incentivizes good behavior as it would be rather awkward as an off-duty cop talking to your next door neighbor over the fence like a pair of 1950s dads and suddenly having to explain why he saw you taking bribes.

The townsfolk don't like authority figures from outside town, though, as they are keenly aware they've got the singular, only-of-its-kind American police department that actually serves and protects instead of shooting people because acorns fall on the shiny cop cars. The town's general feeling in regards to the feds in general and the BSAA in particular is "Fuck off, we're doing just fine on our own. Glory to the Pale God and contentment be upon us."

#resident evil #chris refield #resident evil au #humongous fungus #oregon #re7 #re8 #bioweapon #mark twain #samuel clemens #Mark Twain says ACAB

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