Over 150 people joined us for a Museums a la Carte Lecture Program at Springfield Museums titled "Pluck, Luck & Sorrow: Annie Sullivan's Massachusetts." Over lunch, we discussed Anne Sullivan and her connection with Perkins School for the Blind and her work with Helen Keller.
Thank you Springfield Museums!
Hour one of the film presented to Perkins School for the Blind Staff, Trustees, Corporation Members, and Boston Advocates.
"I'm someone who thought they knew a lot about this story, but this work is introducing me to a much bigger story about Keller." -Corinne Grousbeck
Hour one of the film presented to The Gibney Family Foundation in Burlington,VA.
Thank you, Frank Gibney for your ongoing support!
Dr. Charles Musser, Film Studies, "Well, that's not the woman most people think about when they hear Helen Keller's name...."
Dr. James Berger, American Studies, editor Modern Library Edition: Story of My Life, "Lovely, you've nailed something really clearly about this story."
This week we held a work-in-progress screening at Smith College's Neilson Library. Good feedback, many old friends, some new. Thanks to all. Did you know that William Neilson, the President of Smith College from 1917 to 1939, was Keller's tutor at Radcliffe and a friend of many years after that. Thank you to Laura Rauscher, Smith Office of Disability Services, and Mary Irwin Friends of Smith College Libraries.
Work In Progress Screening, Smith College, Neilson Browsing Room, 4:30-6:00 pm, Smith College, Northampton, MA
Springfield, MA: Quadrangle Museums. A noon time talk by Laurie Block, "Pluck, Luck, & Sorrow: Annie Sullivan's Massachusetts, 1870-1918"
Four Freedoms is a novel by John Crowley, one of Becoming Helen Keller's script writers. On Saturday afternoon, January 28, he will be reading selections at the Springfield Armory Museum. Four Freedoms tells the story if a young disabled man who goes to work in a World War II defense plant, along with the many women, African Americans, people with disabilities, and Native Americans who'd been denied jobs in peacetime. The plant is making huge bombers, but with its diverse workforce, its modern nursery and its amenities, it's a workers' paradise – one that comes to an end with peacetime. Tom Brokaw said, ..."it is so rich, and so evocative, and so authentic."
Another work-in-progress screening. This time in Boston at Northern Light Productions. Thanks to all the film makers who came. We appreciated the hands on perspectives, the insightful how to address a problem approach and loved how much you enjoyed the work. Yes, we want to get Hour Two up and rolling, but the finishing funds budget goal is the next TO DO task.
What to do with old media? Straight Ahead Pictures gave the University of Massachusetts, Special Collections and University Archives Social Movement Collection, five cartons of DAT and Video Tape! Interviews from Beyond Affliction: The Disability History Project's four hour series, materials from FIT: Episodes In The History of the Body, and many archival disability related films and promotions sent to us over the years. What will they think of this in 75 years?
