Helen Keller's Watch

Object Details

Description:

This unusual watch, originally made to tell time in the dark, made the perfect present for Helen Keller. Deaf and blind from the age of nineteen months, Keller (1880-1968) grew up to become an accomplished writer and renowned champion for human rights.

In 1892, when she was twelve, Keller met John Hitz, the superintendent of Alexander Graham Bell's Washington, D.C. establishment for the deaf, the Volta Bureau. Hitz, a retired diplomat, was the proud owner of a Swiss-made "touch watch." This uncommon watch has a case studded around the edge with pins that correspond to the hours on the watch dial. A revolving hand stops at a point between the pins that corresponds to the hour and approximate minute. With the hand and pins as locators, it was possible to feel the approximate time in the dark or, in the case of a diplomat like Hitz, discreetly. Hitz presented the watch to Keller, who prized it and used it her entire life.

Once, in 1952, Keller accidentally left the watch behind in a New York City taxi. She feared it was lost forever. With ads in newspaper lost-and-found columns and the help of the head of the city's pawnbrokers, she recovered her prized possession from a hock shop.

Credit Line:

Phillips Brooks Keller & Mrs. Gordon Erwin

See more items in:

Work and Industry: Mechanisms

National Treasures exhibit

Clothing & Accessories

Health & Medicine

Family & Social Life

Date made:

ca 1865

ID Number:

ME.335239

catalog number:

335239

accession number:

314555

associated person:

Keller, Helen

maker:

Rossel & Fils

Related Publication:

Kendrick, Kathleen M. and Peter C. Liebhold. Smithsonian Treasures of American History

National Museum of American History. Treasures of American History online exhibition

Related Web Publication:

http://americanhistory.si.edu/treasures

Place Made:

Switzerland

Physical Description:

gold (watch case material)

brass (watch movement material)

gold-plated, copper alloy, porcelain-enamel, glass (overall material)

Measurements:

overall, watch: 2 5/8 in x 1 7/8 in x 1/2 in; 6.6675 cm x 4.7625 cm x 1.27 cm

overall, case: 2 1/2 in x 2 1/2 in x 3/4 in; 6.35 cm x 6.35 cm x 1.905 cm

Data Source:

National Museum of American History

Object Name:

watch