Helen Keller and Braille: How She Read and Wrote

Yes, Helen Keller read braille, and in more than one version of it. In her time, the United States had several competing raised-dot codes, and she learned them all. "I read all the systems," she wrote in 1909, in a letter that helped settle which code American schools would use. She also wrote her manuscripts on a braille typewriter and then copied them on an ordinary typewriter, according to the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB).

Below: how she learned to read, which braille she used, her letter in the "War of the Dots", and what came of it. Facts and quotations are from AFB's biography and its history of the War of the Dots.

Key points

• Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on June 27, 1880, and became deaf and blind at 19 months after an illness.
• Her teacher Anne Sullivan arrived on March 3, 1887, and taught her words by spelling them into her hand.
• She read several raised codes: in 1909 she wrote "I read all the systems".
• She wrote her books on a braille typewriter, then copied them on a regular typewriter.
• In the War of the Dots, she argued for American braille over New York Point, which she found harder to read.
• In 1904 she graduated from Radcliffe College, the first deafblind person to earn a bachelor's degree.

How she learned language

AFB tells the story this way. Anne Sullivan, a 20-year-old graduate of the Perkins School for the Blind, arrived in Tuscumbia on March 3, 1887, a date Keller later said changed her life. A month later, at the water pump, Sullivan held one of Helen's hands under the water and spelled "w-a-t-e-r" into the other. "Suddenly, the signals had meaning in Helen's mind" (AFB biography).

That was the manual alphabet: letters spelled by touch into the palm. Braille came next, as her way of reading on her own.

Which braille she read

In the late 1800s, there was no single braille in the United States. Books for blind readers were embossed in competing systems, among them raised print (letters shaped like print), New York Point, American braille and English braille, the code that came from Louis Braille's French original. A blind reader who wanted access to everything had to learn several. Keller did.

The War of the Dots

The rivalry between those codes was so bitter that it is remembered as the War of the Dots. In 1909, when New York City was deciding which code to teach in its new classes for blind children, Keller wrote to the Board of Education. Her letter, reproduced by AFB from Robert B. Irwin's history As I Saw It (AFB, War of the Dots), says:

"I have been deeply interested these many years in the question of raised types, not so much for my own advantage (I read all the systems) as for that of the large number of blind persons who may not share my good fortune."

She went on to explain why she preferred American braille. New York Point books usually left out capitals, apostrophes and hyphens, which she thought harmed children's spelling, and its letters were shaped differently: "It wears my reading finger more to travel over letters three dots wide and two high as they are in New York Point than over letters two dots wide and three high as they are in American braille."

That last point is still the logic of braille: a cell two dots wide and three high fits under a fingertip.

How the war ended

New York chose braille for its schools. The debate went on for two more decades, until July 19, 1932, when representatives of the blind of Great Britain and the United States signed an agreement on a common code, sometimes called the Treaty of London. Its descendant is the code English-speaking countries use today, Unified English Braille; see braille contractions.

Writing: the braille typewriter

Keller was first of all a writer, and she wrote a great deal. AFB notes that she prepared her manuscripts on a braille typewriter and then copied them on a regular typewriter. A braille typewriter, or braillewriter, embosses braille cells from six keys; the best-known model today is the Perkins Brailler, designed decades later.

Frequently asked questions

Did Helen Keller read braille?

Yes. She read several raised codes, including American braille and New York Point; in 1909 she wrote, "I read all the systems."

How did Helen Keller learn to read?

Anne Sullivan first taught her words by spelling them into her hand with the manual alphabet, starting in 1887. She later read raised print and braille with her fingers.

Did Helen Keller write in braille?

Yes. She prepared her manuscripts on a braille typewriter and then copied them on an ordinary typewriter so sighted readers could read them.

What was the War of the Dots?

The decades-long dispute over which raised-dot code blind people in the United States should use: New York Point, American braille or English braille. It ended with a common code agreed in 1932.

Who invented braille?

Louis Braille, in France, around 1824. See who was Louis Braille.