News

Roberts Library to Host Book Talk on Helen Keller

11/10/21

An untold story about one of Helen Keller’s lifelong friendships will be presented at Dalton State next week.

Author Elizabeth Emerson, who lived in Dalton for several years, will speak on her book “Letters from Red Farm: The Untold Story of the Friendship between Helen Keller and Journalist Joseph Edgar Chamberlin” on Thursday, Nov. 18 at noon in room 201 of the Derrell C. Roberts Library on campus. The event is free and open to the public, and attendees are invited to bring their lunch.

Emerson lived in Dalton from 1994 until 2001 and is Chamberlin’s great-great-granddaughter. Chamberlin, an editor and columnist for the Boston Transcript, was Keller’s literary mentor and close friend. The book provides more insight into Keller’s life and personality, introduces Chamberlin to a modern public and follows Keller’s interest in social activism as she took on disability rights, women’s issues and pacifism.

Emerson is a former grant writer and award-winning artist based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She contributed material to PBS’s film biography Becoming Helen Keller and written guest articles for the American Foundation for the Blind.