APH Digital Transformation, IT, Finance, & HR Team

Explore Helen Keller in an immersive exhibit that allows you to live as one of history’s most influential disability advocates, from her childhood in Alabama to her work towards equality across the world.

Water Pump:

A breakthrough research project has allowed The Dot Experience to create the World’s most accurate, unique and accessible representation of the water pump where she had her transformative language epiphany. Just as Helen felt the pump’s flowing water while her teacher Anne Sullivan spelled the word into her hand, visitors can experience a rush from the spout and the heft of the cast iron handle. Sound, light and airflow will transport visitors directly to that important moment.

Archives:

            Helen Keller’s “water pump moment” in Tuscumbia was just the beginning. Helen was the first deafblind person to earn a college degree. At The Dot Experience, a touchable Hammond typewriter ca. 1900 will allow you to use the same tool that Helen used while earning that degree at Radcliffe College. Hard copies of Helen’s FBI file and other materials will be represented in the exhibit. Additionally, an interactive digital kiosk will introduce even more resources from the AFB Helen Keller Archive, allowing a lifetime of adventure and accomplishment to inspire you.

Global Ambassador:

          Working both for the American Foundation for the Blind and as a Good Will Ambassador for the US State Department, Helen Keller traveled to 35 countries during her lifetime. Artifacts from several of those trips will be exhibited along with accurately detailed tactile representations of each. Travel the world as Helen did through interacting with each of these unique artifacts. 

Desk Area:

The desk that Helen Keller used from 1947 to 1968 will be featured in an interactive exhibit that recreates her home office at Arcan Ridge, Connecticut. You can pose with a life-sized representation of Helen Keller and her favorite brailler and touch tactile representations of the items that Helen had on her desk, including a real Remmington-Rand 1947 Noiseless typewriter. Exhibited in front of a loaded bookshelves and and an office window, the desk has a braille clock, an intercom phone, stacks of correspondence and more.