Editing Anne Sullivan (section)

==Childhood==
[[File:Anne_Sullivan_Memorial.jpg|alt=Sign in a park that says "Anne Sullivan Memorial, Feeding Hills, Massachusetts, Funded by the Community Preservation Act Committee" under the Town of Agawam seal.|thumb|Anne Sullivan Memorial in Feeding Hills, Massachusetts.]]
On April 14, 1866, Sullivan was born in [[Feeding Hills, Agawam, Massachusetts]], United States. The name on her baptismal certificate was Johanna Mansfield Sullivan but she was called "Anne" or "Annie" from birth.<ref name="afb.org2">{{Cite web |author=American Foundation for the Blind |date=2009 |title=Anne Sullivan Macy Biography <!--DUPLICATE |date=2018-04-02--> |url=http://www.afb.org/annesullivan/asmbiography.asp |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180402230158/http://www.afb.org/annesullivan/asmbiography.asp |archive-date=April 2, 2018}}</ref> She was the eldest child of Thomas and Alice (Cloesy) Sullivan, who had emigrated from Ireland to the United States during the [[Great Famine (Ireland)|Great Famine]].<ref name="ReferenceA2">McGinnity, Seymour-Ford, & Andries, 2014</ref>

When she was five years old, Sullivan contracted the bacterial eye disease [[trachoma]], which caused many painful infections and over time made her nearly blind.<ref name="ReferenceA" /> When she was eight, her mother died from [[tuberculosis]], and her father abandoned the children two years later for fear that he could not raise them on his own.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> She and her younger brother, James (Jimmie), were sent to the run-down and overcrowded [[almshouse]] in [[Tewksbury, Massachusetts]], today part of [[Tewksbury Hospital]], and their younger sister, Mary, was left to an aunt. Jimmie had a weak hip condition and then died from tuberculosis four months into their stay. Anne remained at Tewksbury after his death and endured two unsuccessful eye operations.{{fact|date=February 2023}}

In 1875, as a result of reports of cruelty to inmates at Tewksbury, including sexually perverted practices and cannibalism, the Massachusetts Board of State Charities launched an investigation into the institution.<ref name="braillebug.org">{{Cite web |url=https://braillebug.org/hkgallery.asp?frameid=76 |title=A Brief Exit from Tewksbury – Anne's Formative Years (1866–1886) – Helen Keller Kids Museum |website=braillebug.org |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200703190015/https://braillebug.org/hkgallery.asp?frameid=76 |archivedate=July 3, 2020 |date=2019 |author=American Printing House for the Blind }}</ref> The investigation was led by [[Franklin Benjamin Sanborn]], then chairman of the board, and [[Samuel Gridley Howe]], founder of the [[Perkins School for the Blind]] in Boston.{{fact|date=February 2023}}

In February 1877, Sullivan was sent to the [[Sisters of Charity|Soeurs de la Charité]] hospital in Lowell, Massachusetts, where she had another unsuccessful operation. While there, she helped the nuns in the wards and went on errands in the community until July of that year, when she was sent to the city infirmary, where she had one more unsuccessful operation. She was then transferred back to Tewksbury under duress.<ref name="braillebug.org"/> Instead of returning to the facility for predominantly ill and insane patients, she was housed with single mothers and unmarried pregnant women.{{fact|date=February 2023}}

In 1880, during a subsequent inspection of Tewksbury by [[Franklin Benjamin Sanborn]], now State Inspector of Charities, Sullivan implored of him to allow her to be admitted to the [[Perkins School for the Blind]], in [[Watertown, Massachusetts]]. Within a matter of months, her plea was granted.<ref name="braillebug.org"/>