Helen Keller - Radcliffe Student, 1900

While Helen was a college student at Radcliffe, how did she write her exams?  She gives us an explanation in her autobiography, The Story of My Life:

Perhaps an explanation of the method that was in use when I took my examinations will not be amiss here. The student was required to pass in sixteen hours--twelve hours being called elementary and four advanced. He had to pass five hours at a time to have them counted. The examination papers were given out at nine o'clock at Harvard and brought to Radcliffe by a special messenger. Each candidate was known, not by his name, but by a number. I was No. 233, but, as I had to use a typewriter, my identity could not be concealed.

It was thought advisable for me to have my examinations in a room by myself, because the noise of the typewriter might disturb the other girls. Mr. Gilman read all the papers to me by means of the manual alphabet. A man was placed on guard at the door to prevent interruption.

Credits

Photo online, courtesy Helen Keller Foundation.

Quoted passage from The Story of My Life, 1905 edition, pages 87-88.  Online, courtesy Google Books.