A Letter from John Hitz to Judge Job Barnard in Reference to a Letter from Helen Keller, a Copy of Which Has Been Included. HITZ (John); KELLER (Helen).

HELEN KELLER QUESTIONS ARTHUR GRAHAM BELL'S PROFITABILITY

Written in black ink on four pages of folded 8vo sheet. Envelope with a United States Postage 2 cents stamp on top right, letterhead of the Volta Bureau, Washington City, USA on top left corner, stamp marks on both front and rear dated November 3 1902 and addressed Washington DC. Addressed in black ink to Judge Job Barnard, Rhode Island Avenue, Washington DC. Annotated in black ink on the left hand side: "Letter from Mr Hitz, enclosing letter from Helen Keller". Envelope [90 x 152 mm]. Unfolded letter [177 x 259 mm].

Enclosed:

A copy of a typed letter in purple ink folded on a folio sheet, addressed to Mr Hitz, sent from Helen Keller at 73 Dana Street, Cambridge on October 11 1902. [370 x 200 mm].

Washington DC 1902.

Envelope has a short tear to the left side, otherwise neatly opened. John Hitz's letter to Barnard has the occasional minor ink smudge however is still entirely legible, horizontal tear through fold at centre with old tape repair. Helen Keller's letter to Hitz is extended at foot, folded with a few short tears where is has been folded.

An intriguing and significant private correspondence between John Hitz and Job Barnard (Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia), in reference to a seemingly unrecorded letter sent from a young Helen Keller to Hitz, a copy of which has been included.

John Hitz, born in Switzerland in 1828 moved to California in 1849, he succeeded his father upon his death as Consul General from Switzerland and held the position until 1881. In 1887 he became the first superintendent at the newly established Volta Bureau which was founded by Arthur Graham Bell "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge relating to the deaf". In 1893, at the age of thirteen, Helen Keller performed the sod-breaking ceremony for the construction of the new Volta Bureau building. Keller and Hitz became close friends and kept in regular communication for the rest of his life. Indeed they were so close that Keller affectionately referred to Hitz, in his native German, as "pflegevater" (foster father) and in the copy of this letter she signs off as "your tochter" (your daughter). Hitz died of a stroke on March 24th 1908 whilst travelling to the train station in Washington to welcome both Helen and her companion Anne Sullivan on one of their visits. In a touching eulogy by Keller titled John Hitz as I knew Him, she states: "only those who know Mr Hitz can realize what his friendship meant to me. Nothing that I can write will recall one who was so noble and beloved. I shall not attempt to outline the facts of his life; but I will try to impart to others the sense that a wise, good man has lived among us like a benediction, that no one more lovable than Mr Hitz has come into this world and gone out of it".

Within Helen's letter to Hitz she updates him with her recent news: she mentions a visit from Dr Jastrow who spent four days with her in Wrentham MA as well as a subsequent visit where he brought the Dean of Pembroke College to meet her. Joseph Jastrow was a psychologist renowned for his contributions to experimental psychology, one such experiment being a study into whether blind people could see in their dreams. With the help of Keller as one of his test subjects he eventually ascertained that people who had lost their eyesight after the age of six were still able to visualise in their dreams whereas those who had lost their eyesight before the age of five could not.

Keller further mentions a visit from William Wade, an individual with whom she had a strained relationship due to some negative remarks he had made about Keller's close friend and tutor, Anne Sullivan. However, in this instance it seems that she was pleased that he was able to briefly visit.

Keller proceeds to give Hitz news of Anne or "Teacher", as she is affectionately referred to. She explains that Anne is recovering from an illness and that they are "anxiously looking for someone to help her" due to her inflamed eyes whoch meant she was unable to cook and found difficulty in reading to Helen.

Helen goes on to describe in detail her new apartment and assures Hitz that "the leopard skin you gave us last year is there, spread out before the sofa". She enlightens Hitz about the courses she is attending at Radcliffe College, being: "philosophy, economics, Elizabethan literature and Shakespeare". She declares: "I am delighted with them all and with the professors, especially Prof. Kittredge. He is the genius of of his department and it is most inspiring to hear him. He makes us feel what it is to read Shakespeare". Professor Kittredge refers to George Lyman Kittredge, a professor of English Literature at Harvard University who specialised in Shakespeare and was instrumental in the formation and management of the Harvard University Press.

It is at the end of Helen's letter however, that is perhaps most noteworthy, when she references the Bells. She writes: "I suppose the Bells and Grosvenors are all back in Washington, and that Mr Bell has nothing but kites and flying machines on his tongue's end. Poor dear man, how I wish he would stop wearing himself out in this unprofitable way - at least it seems unprofitable to me". Mr Bell of course refers to the Scottish born inventor, Alexander Graham Bell. His invention of the telephone came about largely due to his work and research surrounding deaf people, no doubt heavily influenced by both his mother and wife being deaf. Throughout his life Bell sought to assimilate the deaf and hard of hearing into wider society and it was thus through his educational work with the deaf and the aforementioned Volta Bureau that he met a young Helen Keller and formed a close personal friendship. Bell continued to correspond with and mentor Keller for the rest of his life and in 1903 she dedicated her autobiography The Story of My Life to Bell "who has taught the deaf to speak".

Whilst referencing Helen's letter to Barnard, Hitz makes it perfectly clear that he does not want the contents widely shared, he states: "kindly treat it as strictly personal and private. No objection to your reading it to certain of your friends but I do not want any publicity given to its statements". Hitz admits to Barnard that he finds Keller to be perhaps too outspoken in certain regards, he informs Barnard that "for one of her age she is entirely too much given to expressing her opinions". Certainly, in regards to Keller's remarks about Mr Bell, Hitz believes that she is being "rather assuming" and assures Barnard that "what he [Bell] is now doing - he did in the case of the telephone - and it proved anything but 'unprofitable', neither did it wear him out. This I shall call to her attention when I write to her in braille". Besides patenting the first practical telephone, Bell is further credited with many other inventions as well as ground breaking work in fields such as aeronautics and optical telecommunications, he further served as president of the National Geographic Magazine from 1898 to 1903 and co-founded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1885. It is unclear therefore why Helen believed Mr Bell's ventures to be "unprofitable".

Hitz proceeds to explain that although he enjoys the candid nature of his correspondence with Helen, "one needs be very careful in writing to her... as she is liable to accept as truth what I say as if it is contrary to already conceived notions [and] will catechise me some time about what I may have written as her memory rarely fails her".

Overall, the correspondence is a truly wonderful insight into Keller's opinions, personality and tendencies from a close and lasting friend. There are a number of letters from Keller to Hitz held in institutions such as the American Foundation for the Blind's Helen Keller Archive as well as in the Library of Congress, however we have been unable to locate the original copy of this letter between Keller and Hitz and have found no mentions of it on any databases.

Image three is cropped to show the top half of the letter.

Stock no. ebc8705