helen keller full biography

Helen Keller

(1880-1968)

Who Was Helen Keller?

Helen Keller was an American educator, advocate for the blind and deaf and co-founder of the ACLU. Stricken by an illness at the age of 2, Keller was left blind and deaf. Beginning in 1887, Keller's teacher, Anne Sullivan, helped her make tremendous progress with her ability to communicate, and Keller went on to college, graduating in 1904. During her lifetime, she received many honors in recognition of her accomplishments.

Early Life and Family

The family was not particularly wealthy and earned income from their cotton plantation. Later, Arthur became the editor of a weekly local newspaper, the North Alabamian .

Keller was born with her senses of sight and hearing, and started speaking when she was just 6 months old. She started walking at the age of 1.

Loss of Sight and Hearing

Keller lost both her sight and hearing at just 19 months old. In 1882, she contracted an illness — called "brain fever" by the family doctor — that produced a high body temperature. The true nature of the illness remains a mystery today, though some experts believe it might have been scarlet fever or meningitis.

Within a few days after the fever broke, Keller's mother noticed that her daughter didn't show any reaction when the dinner bell was rung, or when a hand was waved in front of her face.

As Keller grew into childhood, she developed a limited method of communication with her companion, Martha Washington, the young daughter of the family cook. The two had created a type of sign language. By the time Keller was 7, they had invented more than 60 signs to communicate with each other.

During this time, Keller had also become very wild and unruly. She would kick and scream when angry, and giggle uncontrollably when happy. She tormented Martha and inflicted raging tantrums on her parents. Many family relatives felt she should be institutionalized.

Keller's Teacher, Anne Sullivan

Keller worked with her teacher Anne Sullivan for 49 years, from 1887 until Sullivan's death in 1936. In 1932, Sullivan experienced health problems and lost her eyesight completely. A young woman named Polly Thomson, who had begun working as a secretary for Keller and Sullivan in 1914, became Keller's constant companion upon Sullivan's death.

Looking for answers and inspiration, Keller's mother came across a travelogue by Charles Dickens, American Notes, in 1886. She read of the successful education of another deaf and blind child, Laura Bridgman, and soon dispatched Keller and her father to Baltimore, Maryland to see specialist Dr. J. Julian Chisolm.

After examining Keller, Chisolm recommended that she see Alexander Graham Bell , the inventor of the telephone, who was working with deaf children at the time. Bell met with Keller and her parents, and suggested that they travel to the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston, Massachusetts.

There, the family met with the school's director, Michael Anaganos. He suggested Keller work with one of the institute's most recent graduates, Sullivan.

On March 3, 1887, Sullivan went to Keller's home in Alabama and immediately went to work. She began by teaching six-year-old Keller finger spelling, starting with the word "doll," to help Keller understand the gift of a doll she had brought along. Other words would follow.

At first, Keller was curious, then defiant, refusing to cooperate with Sullivan's instruction. When Keller did cooperate, Sullivan could tell that she wasn't making the connection between the objects and the letters spelled out in her hand. Sullivan kept working at it, forcing Keller to go through the regimen.

As Keller's frustration grew, the tantrums increased. Finally, Sullivan demanded that she and Keller be isolated from the rest of the family for a time, so that Keller could concentrate only on Sullivan's instruction. They moved to a cottage on the plantation.

In a dramatic struggle, Sullivan taught Keller the word "water"; she helped her make the connection between the object and the letters by taking Keller out to the water pump, and placing Keller's hand under the spout. While Sullivan moved the lever to flush cool water over Keller's hand, she spelled out the word w-a-t-e-r on Keller's other hand. Keller understood and repeated the word in Sullivan's hand. She then pounded the ground, demanding to know its "letter name." Sullivan followed her, spelling out the word into her hand. Keller moved to other objects with Sullivan in tow. By nightfall, she had learned 30 words.

In 1905, Sullivan married John Macy, an instructor at Harvard University, a social critic and a prominent socialist. After the marriage, Sullivan continued to be Keller's guide and mentor. When Keller went to live with the Macys, they both initially gave Keller their undivided attention. Gradually, however, Anne and John became distant to each other, as Anne's devotion to Keller continued unabated. After several years, the couple separated, though were never divorced.

In 1890, Keller began speech classes at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf in Boston. She would toil for 25 years to learn to speak so that others could understand her.

From 1894 to 1896, Keller attended the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf in New York City. There, she worked on improving her communication skills and studied regular academic subjects.

Around this time, Keller became determined to attend college. In 1896, she attended the Cambridge School for Young Ladies, a preparatory school for women.

As her story became known to the general public, Keller began to meet famous and influential people. One of them was the writer Mark Twain , who was very impressed with her. They became friends. Twain introduced her to his friend Henry H. Rogers, a Standard Oil executive.

Rogers was so impressed with Keller's talent, drive and determination that he agreed to pay for her to attend Radcliffe College. There, she was accompanied by Sullivan, who sat by her side to interpret lectures and texts. By this time, Keller had mastered several methods of communication, including touch-lip reading, Braille, speech, typing and finger-spelling.

Keller graduated, cum laude, from Radcliffe College in 1904, at the age of 24.

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'The Story of My Life'

With the help of Sullivan and Macy, Sullivan's future husband, Keller wrote her first book, The Story of My Life . Published in 1905, the memoirs covered Keller's transformation from childhood to 21-year-old college student.

Social Activism

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Keller tackled social and political issues, including women's suffrage, pacifism, birth control and socialism.

After college, Keller set out to learn more about the world and how she could help improve the lives of others. News of her story spread beyond Massachusetts and New England. Keller became a well-known celebrity and lecturer by sharing her experiences with audiences, and working on behalf of others living with disabilities. She testified before Congress, strongly advocating to improve the welfare of blind people.

In 1915, along with renowned city planner George Kessler, she co-founded Helen Keller International to combat the causes and consequences of blindness and malnutrition. In 1920, she helped found the American Civil Liberties Union .

When the American Federation for the Blind was established in 1921, Keller had an effective national outlet for her efforts. She became a member in 1924, and participated in many campaigns to raise awareness, money and support for the blind. She also joined other organizations dedicated to helping those less fortunate, including the Permanent Blind War Relief Fund (later called the American Braille Press).

Soon after she graduated from college, Keller became a member of the Socialist Party, most likely due in part to her friendship with John Macy. Between 1909 and 1921, she wrote several articles about socialism and supported Eugene Debs, a Socialist Party presidential candidate. Her series of essays on socialism, entitled "Out of the Dark," described her views on socialism and world affairs.

It was during this time that Keller first experienced public prejudice about her disabilities. For most of her life, the press had been overwhelmingly supportive of her, praising her courage and intelligence. But after she expressed her socialist views, some criticized her by calling attention to her disabilities. One newspaper, the Brooklyn Eagle , wrote that her "mistakes sprung out of the manifest limitations of her development."

In 1946, Keller was appointed counselor of international relations for the American Foundation of Overseas Blind. Between 1946 and 1957, she traveled to 35 countries on five continents.

In 1955, at age 75, Keller embarked on the longest and most grueling trip of her life: a 40,000-mile, five-month trek across Asia. Through her many speeches and appearances, she brought inspiration and encouragement to millions of people.

'The Miracle Worker' Movie

Keller's autobiography, The Story of My Life , was used as the basis for 1957 television drama The Miracle Worker .

In 1959, the story was developed into a Broadway play of the same title, starring Patty Duke as Keller and Anne Bancroft as Sullivan. The two actresses also performed those roles in the 1962 award-winning film version of the play.

Awards and Honors

During her lifetime, she received many honors in recognition of her accomplishments, including the Theodore Roosevelt Distinguished Service Medal in 1936, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964, and election to the Women's Hall of Fame in 1965.

Keller also received honorary doctoral degrees from Temple University and Harvard University and from the universities of Glasgow, Scotland; Berlin, Germany; Delhi, India; and Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. She was named an Honorary Fellow of the Educational Institute of Scotland.

Keller died in her sleep on June 1, 1968, just a few weeks before her 88th birthday. Keller suffered a series of strokes in 1961 and spent the remaining years of her life at her home in Connecticut.

During her remarkable life, Keller stood as a powerful example of how determination, hard work, and imagination can allow an individual to triumph over adversity. By overcoming difficult conditions with a great deal of persistence, she grew into a respected and world-renowned activist who labored for the betterment of others.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Helen Adams Keller
• Birth Year: 1880
• Birth date: June 27, 1880
• Birth State: Alabama
• Birth City: Tuscumbia
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Female
• Best Known For: American educator Helen Keller overcame the adversity of being blind and deaf to become one of the 20th century's leading humanitarians, as well as co-founder of the ACLU.
• Education and Academia
• Astrological Sign: Cancer
• Wright-Humason School for the Deaf
• Radcliffe College
• Cambridge School for Young Ladies
• Horace Mann School for the Deaf
• Death Year: 1968
• Death date: June 1, 1968
• Death State: Connecticut
• Death City: Easton
• Death Country: United States

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Helen Keller Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/activists/helen-keller
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: May 6, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014
• Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.
• One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.
• Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost. Sometime, somewhere, somehow we shall find that which we seek.
• Gradually from naming an object we advance step by step until we have traversed the vast distance between our first stammered syllable and the sweep of thought in a line of Shakespeare.
• If it is true that the violin is the most perfect of musical instruments, then Greek is the violin of human thought.
• A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships.
• The two greatest characters in the 19th century are Napoleon and Helen Keller. Napoleon tried to conquer the world by physical force and failed. Helen tried to conquer the world by power of mind — and succeeded!” (Mark Twain)
• The bulk of the world’s knowledge is an imaginary construction.
• We differ, blind and seeing, one from another, not in our senses, but in the use we make of them, in the imagination and courage with which we seek wisdom beyond the senses.
• [T]he mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free!
• It is more difficult to teach ignorance to think than to teach an intelligent blind man to see the grandeur of Niagara.
• Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

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Helen Keller

By: History.com Editors

Updated: January 18, 2019 | Original: April 14, 2010

Helen Keller was an author, lecturer, and crusader for the handicapped. Born in Tuscumbia, Alabama , She lost her sight and hearing at the age of nineteen months to an illness now believed to have been scarlet fever. Five years later, on the advice of Alexander Graham Bell , her parents applied to the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston for a teacher, and from that school hired Anne Mansfield Sullivan. Through Sullivan’s extraordinary instruction, the little girl learned to understand and communicate with the world around her. She went on to acquire an excellent education and to become an important influence on the treatment of the blind and deaf.

Keller learned from Sullivan to read and write in Braille and to use the hand signals of the deaf-mute, which she could understand only by touch. Her later efforts to learn to speak were less successful, and in her public appearances she required the assistance of an interpreter to make herself understood. Nevertheless, her impact as educator, organizer, and fund-raiser was enormous, and she was responsible for many advances in public services to the handicapped.

With Sullivan repeating the lectures into her hand, Keller studied at schools for the deaf in Boston and New York City and graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College in 1904. Her unprecedented accomplishments in overcoming her disabilities made her a celebrity at an early age; at twelve she published an autobiographical sketch in the Youth’s Companion , and during her junior year at Radcliffe, she produced her first book, The Story of My Life ,  still in print in over fifty languages. Keller published four other books of her personal experiences as well as a volume on religion, one on contemporary social problems, and a biography of Anne Sullivan. She also wrote numerous articles for national magazines on the prevention of blindness and the education and special problems of the blind.

In addition to her many appearances on the lecture circuit, Keller in 1918 made a movie in Hollywood, Deliverance , to dramatize the plight of the blind and during the next two years supported herself and Sullivan on the vaudeville stage. She also spoke and wrote in support of women’s rights and other liberal causes and in 1940 strongly backed the United States’ entry into World War II .

In 1924, Keller joined the staff of the newly formed American Foundation for the Blind as an adviser and fund-raiser. Her international reputation and warm personality enabled her to enlist the support of many wealthy people, and she secured large contributions from Henry Ford , John D. Rockefeller , and leaders of the motion picture industry. When the AFB established a branch for the overseas blind, it was named Helen Keller International. Keller and Sullivan were the subjects of a Pulitzer Prize-winning play, The Miracle Worker, by William Gibson, which opened in New York in 1959 and became a successful Hollywood film in 1962.

Widely honored throughout the world and invited to the White House by every U.S. president from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon B. Johnson , Keller altered the world’s perception of the capacities of the handicapped. More than any act in her long life, her courage, intelligence, and dedication combined to make her a symbol of the triumph of the human spirit over adversity.

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Helen Keller

Undeterred by deafness and blindness, Helen Keller rose to become a major 20 th century humanitarian, educator and writer. She advocated for the blind and for women’s suffrage and co-founded the American Civil Liberties Union.

Born on June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama, Keller was the older of two daughters of Arthur H. Keller, a farmer, newspaper editor, and Confederate Army veteran, and his second wife Katherine Adams Keller, an educated woman from Memphis. Several months before Helen’s second birthday, a serious illness—possibly meningitis or scarlet fever—left her deaf and blind. She had no formal education until age seven, and since she could not speak, she developed a system for communicating with her family by feeling their facial expressions.

Recognizing her daughter’s intelligence, Keller’s mother sought help from experts including inventor Alexander Graham Bell, who had become involved with deaf children. Ultimately, she was referred to Anne Sullivan, a graduate of the Perkins School for the Blind, who became Keller’s lifelong teacher and mentor. Although Helen initially resisted her, Sullivan persevered. She used touch to teach Keller the alphabet and to make words by spelling them with her finger on Keller’s palm. Within a few weeks, Keller caught on. A year later, Sullivan brought Keller to the Perkins School in Boston, where she learned to read Braille and write with a specially made typewriter. Newspapers chronicled her progress. At fourteen, she went to New York for two years where she improved her speaking ability, and then returned to Massachusetts to attend the Cambridge School for Young Ladies. With Sullivan’s tutoring, Keller was admitted to Radcliffe College, graduating cum laude in 1904. Sullivan went with her, helping Keller with her studies. (Impressed by Keller, Mark Twain urged his wealthy friend Henry Rogers to finance her education.)

Even before she graduated, Keller published two books, The Story of My Life (1902) and Optimism (1903), which launched her career as a writer and lecturer. She authored a dozen books and articles in major magazines, advocating for prevention of blindness in children and for other causes.  

Sullivan married Harvard instructor and social critic John Macy in 1905, and Keller lived with them. During that time, Keller’s political awareness heightened. She supported the suffrage movement, embraced socialism, advocated for the blind and became a pacifist during World War I. Keller’s life story was featured in the 1919 film, Deliverance . In 1920, she joined Jane Addams, Crystal Eastman, and other social activists in founding the American Civil Liberties Union; four years later she became affiliated with the new American Foundation for the Blind in 1924.

After Sullivan’s death in 1936, Keller continued to lecture internationally with the support of other aides, and she became one of the world’s most-admired women (though her advocacy of socialism brought her some critics domestically). During World War II, she toured military hospitals bringing comfort to soldiers.

A second film on her life won the Academy Award in 1955; The Miracle Worker —which centered on Sullivan—won the 1960 Pulitzer Prize as a play and was made into a movie two years later. Lifelong activist, Keller met several US presidents and was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. She also received honorary doctorates from Glasgow, Harvard, and Temple Universities.

• “Helen Keller.” Perkins. Accessed February 4, 2015.
• “Helen Keller.” American Foundation for the Blind. Accessed February 4, 2015.
• "Helen Adams Keller." Dictionary of American Biography . New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988. U.S. History in Context . Accessed February 4, 2015.
• "Keller, Helen." UXL Encyclopedia of U.S. History . Sonia Benson, Daniel E. Brannen, Jr., and Rebecca Valentine. Vol. 5. Detroit: UXL, 2009. 847-849. U.S. History in Context . Accessed February 4, 2015.
• Ozick, Cynthia. “What Helen Keller Saw.” The New Yorker. June 16, 2003. Accessed February 4, 2015.
• Weatherford, Doris. American Women's History: An A to Z of People, Organizations, Issues, and Events . New York: Prentice Hall, 1994.
• PHOTO: Library of Congress

MLA - Michals, Debra.  "Helen Keller."  National Women's History Museum.  National Women's History Museum, 2015.  Date accessed.

Chicago - Michals, Debra.  "Helen Keller."  National Women's History Museum.  2015.  www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/helen-keller. 

Helen Keller: Described and Captioned Educational Media

Helen Keller Biography, American Foundation for the Blind

Helen Keller, Perkins School for the Blind

Helen Keller Birthplace

Helen Keller International

 The Miracle Worker (1962). Dir. Arthur Penn. (DVD) Film.

The Miracle Worker (2000). Dir. Nadia Tass. (DVD) Film.

Keller, Helen. The World I Live In . New York: NYRB Classics, 2004.

Ford, Carin.  Helen Keller: Lighting the Way for the Blind and Deaf .  Enslow Publishers, 2001.

Herrmann, Dorothy.  Helen Keller: A Life .  Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998.

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Helen Keller Biography

• Helen Keller Early Childhood
• Meeting Anne Sullivan
• Helen Keller's First Words
• Education and Literary Career
• Political and Social Activism
• Worldwide Celebrity

Where Was Helen Keller Born?

Helen Adams Keller was born a healthy child in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on June 27, 1880. Her parents were Kate Adams Keller and Colonel Arthur Keller .

On her father's side she was descended from Colonel Alexander Spottswood, a colonial governor of Virginia, and on her mother's side, she was related to a number of prominent New England families. Helen's father, Arthur Keller, was a captain in the Confederate army. The family lost most of its wealth during the Civil War and lived modestly.

After the war, Captain Keller edited a local newspaper, the North Alabamian, and in 1885, under the Cleveland administration, he was appointed Marshal of North Alabama.

At the age of 19 months, Helen became deaf and blind as a result of an unknown illness, perhaps rubella or scarlet fever. As Helen grew from infancy into childhood, she became wild and unruly.

When Did Helen Keller Meet Anne Sullivan?

As she so often remarked as an adult, her life changed on March 3, 1887. On that day, Anne Mansfield Sullivan came to Tuscumbia to be her teacher.

She was just 14 years older than her pupil Helen, and she too suffered from serious vision problems. Anne underwent many botched operations at a young age before her sight was partially restored.

Anne's success with Helen remains an extraordinary and remarkable story and is best known to people because of the film The Miracle Worker. The film correctly depicted Helen as an unruly, spoiled—but very bright—child who tyrannized the household with her temper tantrums.

Anne believed that the key to reaching Helen was to teach her obedience and love. She saw the need to discipline, but not crush, the spirit of her young charge. As a result, within a week of her arrival, she had gained permission to remove Helen from the main house and live alone with her in the nearby cottage. They remained there for two weeks.

Anne began her task of teaching Helen by manually signing into the child's hand. Anne had brought a doll that the children at Perkins had made for her to take to Helen. By spelling "d-o-l-l" into the child's hand, she hoped to teach her to connect objects with letters.

Helen quickly learned to form the letters correctly and in the correct order, but did not know she was spelling a word, or even that words existed. In the days that followed, she learned to spell a great many more words in this uncomprehending way.

What Were Helen Keller's First Words?

On April 5, 1887, less than a month after her arrival in Tuscumbia, Anne sought to resolve the confusion her pupil was having between the nouns "mug" and "milk," which Helen confused with the verb "drink."

Anne took Helen to the water pump outside and put Helen's hand under the spout. As the cool water gushed over one hand, she spelled into the other hand the word "w-a-t-e-r" first slowly, then rapidly. Suddenly, the signals had meaning in Helen's mind. She knew that "water" meant the wonderful cool substance flowing over her hand.

Quickly, she stopped and touched the earth and demanded its letter name and by nightfall she had learned 30 words.

Helen quickly proceeded to master the alphabet, both manual and in raised print for blind readers, and gained facility in reading and writing. In Helen's handwriting, many round letters look square, but you can easily read everything.

In 1890, when she was just 10, she expressed a desire to learn to speak; Anne took Helen to see Sarah Fuller at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Boston. Fuller gave Helen 11 lessons, after which Anne taught Helen.

Throughout her life, however, Helen remained dissatisfied with her spoken voice, which was hard to understand.

Helen's extraordinary abilities and her teacher's unique skills were noticed by Alexander Graham Bell and Mark Twain, two giants of American culture. Twain declared, "The two most interesting characters of the 19th century are Napoleon and Helen Keller."

The closeness of Helen and Anne's relationship led to accusations that Helen's ideas were not her own. Famously, at the age of 11, Helen was accused of plagiarism. Both Bell and Twain, who were friends and supporters of Helen and Anne, flew to the defense of both pupil and teacher and mocked their detractors. Read a letter from Mark Twain to Helen lamenting "that 'plagiarism' farce."

Helen Keller's Education and Literary Career

From a very young age, Helen was determined to go to college. In 1898, she entered the Cambridge School for Young Ladies to prepare for Radcliffe College. She entered Radcliffe in the fall of 1900 and received a Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude in 1904, the first deafblind person to do so.

The achievement was as much Anne's as it was Helen's. Anne's eyes suffered immensely from reading everything that she then signed into her pupil's hand. Anne continued to labor by her pupil's side until her death in 1936, at which time Polly Thomson took over the task. Polly had joined Helen and Anne in 1914 as a secretary.

While still a student at Radcliffe, Helen began a writing career that was to continue throughout her life. In 1903, her autobiography, The Story of My Life , was published. This had appeared in serial form the previous year in Ladies' Home Journal magazine.

Her autobiography has been translated into 50 languages and remains in print to this day. Helen's other published works include Optimism , an essay; The World I Live In; The Song of the Stone Wall ; Out of the Dark; My Religion; Midstream—My Later Life; Peace at Eventide; Helen Keller in Scotland; Helen Keller's Journal; Let Us Have Faith; Teacher, Anne Sullivan Macy; and The Open Door . In addition, she was a frequent contributor to magazines and newspapers.

The Helen Keller Archives contain over 475 speeches and essays that she wrote on topics such as faith, blindness prevention, birth control, the rise of fascism in Europe, and atomic energy. Helen used a braille typewriter to prepare her manuscripts and then copied them on a regular typewriter.

Helen Keller's Political and Social Activism

Helen saw herself as a writer first—her passport listed her profession as "author." It was through the medium of the typewritten word that Helen communicated with Americans and ultimately with thousands across the globe.

From an early age, she championed the rights of the underdog and used her skills as a writer to speak truth to power. A pacifist, she protested U.S. involvement in World War I. A committed socialist, she took up the cause of workers' rights. She was also a tireless advocate for women's suffrage and an early member of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Helen's ideals found their purest, most lasting expression in her work for the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) . Helen joined AFB in 1924 and worked for the organization for over 40 years.

The foundation provided her with a global platform to advocate for the needs of people with vision loss and she wasted no opportunity. As a result of her travels across the United States, state commissions for the blind were created, rehabilitation centers were built, and education was made accessible to those with vision loss.

Helen's optimism and courage were keenly felt at a personal level on many occasions, but perhaps never more so than during her visits to veteran's hospitals for soldiers returning from duty during World War II.

Helen was very proud of her assistance in the formation in 1946 of a special service for deaf-blind persons. Her message of faith and strength through adversity resonated with those returning from war injured and maimed.

Helen Keller was as interested in the welfare of blind persons in other countries as she was for those in her own country; conditions in poor and war-ravaged nations were of particular concern.

Helen's ability to empathize with the individual citizen in need as well as her ability to work with world leaders to shape global policy on vision loss made her a supremely effective ambassador for disabled persons worldwide. Her active participation in this area began as early as 1915, when the Permanent Blind War Relief Fund, later called the American Braille Press, was founded. She was a member of its first board of directors.

In 1946, when the American Braille Press became the American Foundation for Overseas Blind (now Helen Keller International), Helen was appointed counselor on international relations. It was then that she began her globe-circling tours on behalf of those with vision loss.

Helen Keller's Worldwide Celebrity

During seven trips between 1946 and 1957, she visited 35 countries on five continents. She met with world leaders such as Winston Churchill, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Golda Meir.

In 1948, she was sent to Japan as America's first Goodwill Ambassador by General Douglas MacArthur. Her visit was a huge success; up to two million Japanese came out to see her and her appearance drew considerable attention to the plight of Japan's blind and disabled population.

In 1955, when she was 75 years old, she embarked on one of her longest and most grueling journeys: a 40,000-mile, five-month-long tour through Asia.

Wherever she traveled, she brought encouragement to millions of blind people, and many of the efforts to improve conditions for those with vision loss outside the United States can be traced directly to her visits.

Helen was famous from the age of 8 until her death in 1968. Her wide range of political, cultural, and intellectual interests and activities ensured that she knew people in all spheres of life.

She counted leading personalities of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries among her friends and acquaintances. These included Eleanor Roosevelt, Will Rogers, Albert Einstein, Emma Goldman, Eugene Debs, Charlie Chaplin, John F. Kennedy, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Katharine Cornell, and Jo Davidson to name but a few.

She was honored around the globe and garnered many awards. She received honorary doctoral degrees from Temple and Harvard Universities in the United States; Glasgow and Berlin Universities in Europe; Delhi University in India; and Witwatersrand University in South Africa. She also received an honorary Academy Award in 1955 as the inspiration for the documentary about her life, Helen Keller in Her Story.

Helen Keller's Later Life

Helen suffered a stroke in 1960, and from 1961 onwards, she lived quietly at Arcan Ridge, her home in Westport, Connecticut, one of the four main places she lived during her lifetime. (The others were Tuscumbia, Alabama; Wrentham, Massachusetts; and Forest Hills, New York).

She made her last major public appearance in 1961 at a Washington, D.C., Lions Clubs International Foundation meeting. At that meeting, she received the Lions Humanitarian Award for her lifetime of service to humanity and for providing the inspiration for the adoption by Lions Clubs International Foundation of their sight conservation and aid to blind programs.

During that visit to Washington, she also called on President John F. Kennedy at the White House. President Kennedy was just one in a long line of presidents Helen had met. In her lifetime, she had met all of the presidents since Grover Cleveland.

Helen Keller died on June 1, 1968, at Arcan Ridge, a few weeks short of her 88th birthday. Her ashes were placed next to her companions, Anne Sullivan Macy and Polly Thomson, in St. Joseph's Chapel of Washington Cathedral.

Senator Lister Hill of Alabama gave a eulogy during the public memorial service. He said, "She will live on, one of the few, the immortal names not born to die. Her spirit will endure as long as man can read and stories can be told of the woman who showed the world there are no boundaries to courage and faith."

The Biography of Helen Keller

Helen Adams Keller was born a healthy child on June 27, 1880, to Captain Arthur H. and Kate Adams Keller of Tuscumbia. Her father, Arthur H. Keller, was a retired Confederate Army captain and editor of the local newspaper. Her mother, Kate Keller, was an educated young woman from Memphis.

When Helen Keller was 19 months old, she was afflicted by an unknown illness, possibly scarlet fever or meningitis, which left her deaf and blind.

Helen was quite intelligent and tried to learn in her own way with taste, feel and smell. She developed a rudimentary sign language with which to communicate, but soon she realized that her family members could communicate with their mouths instead of signing. This left her isolated, unruly and prone to wild tantrums. Some members of her family considered institutionalizing her. 

Keller would later write in her autobiography, “the need of some means of communication became so urgent that these outbursts occurred daily, sometimes hourly.”

Seeking to improve her condition, in 1886 Helen and her parents traveled from their Alabama home to Baltimore, Maryland, to see an oculist who had had some success in dealing with conditions of the eye. After examining Keller, he told her parents that he could not restore her sight, but suggested that she could still be educated, referring them to Alexander Graham Bell, who despite having achieved worldwide fame with the invention of the telephone, was working with deaf children in Washington, D.C.

After the visit Bell connected the Kellers to The Perkins Institute and by March 3, 1887 Anne Sullivan came to Ivy Green to be Helen’s teacher.  The strong willed Sullivan, a recent graduate of the Perkins school, met her match in Helen. The two worked together even though Helen pinched, hit, kicked and even knocked out one of Anne’s teeth. Once she had gained Helen’s trust, the real work could begin.

Anne began teaching Helen using finger spelling into the child’s hand. Although Helen enjoyed this, she didn’t understand it truly until Sullivan was steadily pumping cool water into one of the girl’s hands while repeatedly tapping out the five letters in W-A-T-E-R. She continued finger spelling while pumping the water again and again as young Helen painstakingly struggled to break her world of silence.

Suddenly the signals crossed Helen’s consciousness with a meaning. By nightfall, Helen had learned 30 words using this process.

After Helen’s miraculous break-through at the simple well-pump, she proved so gifted that she soon learned the fingertip alphabet and shortly afterward to write. By the end of August, in six short months, she knew 625 words.

By age 10, Helen had mastered Braille as well as the manual alphabet and even learned to use the typewriter. By the time she was 16, Helen could speak well enough to go to preparatory school and to college. Sullivan interpreted lectures and class discussions to Helen. In 1904 she became the first deaf-blind person to graduate cum laude from Radcliffe College.

Helen became one of history’s most remarkable women. She dedicated her life to improving the conditions of the visually impaired and the hearing impaired around the world, lecturing in more than 25 countries. She helped to create the American Civil Liberties Union advocating for the rights of women and of those with disabilities.

During her life she performed on the Vaudeville circuit, earned an Oscar, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, traveled to 25 countries and met every President from Grover Cleveland to John F. Kennedy, 12 to be exact.

Keller stopped her public appearances in 1961 after she suffered a series of strokes. She was unable to attend the ceremony when President Lyndon B.  Johnson awarded her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Keller’s 1968 funeral was held at the National Cathedral, and more than 1,200 people were in attendance. Alabama Senator Lister Hill gave the eulogy. He said, “She will live on, one of the few, the immortal names not born to die. Her spirit will endure as long as man can read and stories can be told of the woman who showed the world there are no boundaries to courage and faith.”

Helen is interred at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. in the Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea.

A Cathedral crypt is just off that chapel. A small, bronze plaque on the wall shows this is Keller’s final resting place.  The plaque simply states: “Helen Keller and her lifelong companion Anne Sullivan Macy are interred in the columbarium behind this chapel.” Those same words are also written in Braille.

Although only Keller’s and Sullivan’s names are listed on the plaque, Polly Thomson, Keller’s companion later in life, is also interred with the other two women’s ashes.

Biography Online

Helen Keller Biography

“Once I knew the depth where no hope was, and darkness lay on the face of all things. Then love came and set my soul free. Once I knew only darkness and stillness. Now I know hope and joy.”

– Helen Keller, On Optimism (1903)

Short Biography of Helen Keller

In 1886, Helen was sent to see an eye, ear and nose specialist in Baltimore. He put them in touch with Alexander Graham Bell , who was currently investigate issues of deafness and sound (he would also develop the first telephone) Bell was moved by the experience of working with Keller, writing that:

“I feel that in this child I have seen more of the Divine than has been manifest in anyone I ever met before.”

Alexander Bell helped Keller to visit the Perkins Institute for the Blind, and this led to a long relationship with Anne Sullivan – who was a former student herself. Sullivan was visually impaired and, aged only 20, and with no prior experience, she set about teaching Helen how to communicate. The two maintained a long relationship of 49 years.

Learning to Communicate

In the beginning, Keller was frustrated by her inability to pick up the hand signals that Sullivan was giving. However, after a frustrating month, Keller picked up on Sullivan’s system of hand signals through understanding the word water. Sullivan poured water over Keller’s left hand and wrote out on her right hand the word ‘water’. This helped Helen to fully understand the system, and she was soon able to identify a variety of household objects.

“The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. I am filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrasts between the two lives which it connects. It was the third of March, 1887, three months before I was seven years old.”

– Helen Keller, The Story of My Life , 1903, Ch. 4

Keller came into contact with American author, Mark Twain . Twain admired the perseverance of Keller and helped persuade Henry Rogers, an oil businessman to fund her education. With great difficulty, Keller was able to study at Radcliffe College, where in 1904, she was able to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree. During her education, she also learned to speak and practise lip-reading. Her sense of touch became extremely subtle. She also found that deafness and blindness encouraged her to develop wisdom and understanding from beyond the senses.

“We differ, blind and seeing, one from another, not in our senses, but in the use we make of them, in the imagination and courage with which we seek wisdom beyond the senses.”

― Helen Keller , The Five-sensed World (1910)

Keller became a proficient writer and speaker. In 1903, she published an autobiography ‘ The Story of My Life ‘ It recounted her struggles to overcome her disabilities and the way it forced her to look at life from a different perspective.

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

― Helen Keller

Political Views

Keller also wrote on political issues, Keller was a staunch supporter of the American Socialist party and joined the party in 1909. She wished to see a fairer distribution of income, and an end to the inequality of Capitalist society. She said she became a more convinced socialist after the 1912 miners strike. Her book ‘ Out of the Dark ‘ (1913) includes several essays on socialism. She supported Eugene V Debs, in each of the Presidential elections he stood for. In 1912, she joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW); as well as advocating socialism, Keller was a pacifist and opposed the American involvement in World War One.

Religious Views

In religious matters, she advocated the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, a Christian theologian who advocated a particular spiritual interpretation of the Bible. She published ‘ My Religion ‘ in 1927.

Charity Work

From 1918, she devoted much of her time to raising funds and awareness for blind charities. She sought to raise money and also improve the living conditions of the blind, who at the time were often badly educated and living in asylums. Her public profile helped to de-stigmatise blindness and deafness. She was also noted for her optimism which she sought to cultivate.

“If I am happy in spite of my deprivations, if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith, so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life, — if, in short, I am an optimist, my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing.”

― Helen Keller, Optimism (1903)

Towards the end of her life, she suffered a stroke, and she died in her sleep on June 1, 1968. She was given numerous awards during her life, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964, by Lyndon B. Johnson.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “Biography of Helen Keller ”, Oxford, UK www.biographyonline.net , Published: 1st Feb. 2014. Last updated 3rd March 2017.

Hellen Keller – The Story of My Life

Hellen Keller – The Story of My Life at Amazon

The Inspiring Story of Helen Keller

Editorial feature.

By Google Arts & Culture

LIFE Photo Collection

Discover the legacy of the author, political activist and lecturer

Helen Keller (1880–1968) was an American author, political activist and lecturer. At 19 months old, Keller contracted an unknown illness described by doctors as "an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain", which is now thought to have been scarlet fever or meningitis. The illness left her both deaf and blind, completely shaping the way Keller would live her life. Living in Tuscumbia, Alabama, by the age of seven Keller had already developed more than 60 home signs (self-developed gestures created in order to communicate) that she could use with her family. She also learned how to tell which person was walking into a room from the vibrations of their footsteps. Despite being blind and deaf, her family were determined she have the same opportunities as everyone else and so in 1886, inspired by an account in Charles Dickens’ American Notes of the successful education of a deaf and blind woman, they sent Keller and her father Arthur H. Keller to find physician J. Julian Chisolm (an eye, ear, nose and throat specialist) for advice. After being told to get in touch with the Perkins Institute for the Blind, the school’s director Michael Anagnos asked 20-year-old former student Anne Sullivan, herself visually impaired, to become Keller’s instructor. It was the beginning of a 49-year-long relationship, where Sullivan grew from governess to companion.

Helen Keller with Anne Sullivan and actor Joseph Jefferson (From the collection of LIFE Photo Collection)

It was 1887 by the time Sullivan and Keller first met at the girl’s house and teaching began with showing Keller to communicate by spelling words into her hand. The first word was “doll” for the doll Sullivan had bought Keller as a present. At first it was difficult because Keller didn't realize that every object had a word uniquely identifying it. A breakthrough moment came when Keller realized the motions Sullivan made on her one palm, while cool water ran over her other palm, symbolized the idea of water. She quickly demanded to know the names of all the other familiar objects in her world. From that point on Keller flourished in her education. In 1894, Keller and Sullivan moved to New York to attend the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf, and then to Boston two years later to be taught by Sarah Fuller at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf.

Helen Adams Keller (1904) by Charles Whitman Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery

Helen Keller (From the collection of Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery)

Soon after, Keller entered the Cambridge School for Young Ladies and then in 1900 gained admittance to Radcliffe College, Harvard University. Keller’s education was paid for by Standard Oil magnate Henry Huttleston Rogers and his wife, who she was introduced to via her friend American author Mark Twain. Keller and Twain were firm friends for around 16 years and she was able to recognize Twain in a room from the smell of his cigars. Those who didn’t know Keller well viewed her as isolated, but she was very in touch with the outside world. She was able to enjoy music by feeling the vibrations of the beat and she was able to have a strong connection with animals through touch. She was delayed at picking up language, but that did not stop her from having a voice. In 1904, at the age of 24, Keller was the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree and throughout her education she had learnt to speak, leading her to give speeches and lectures on aspects of her life. Keller also learnt to “hear” other people’s speeches, by reading their lips with her hands. She also became proficient at using braille and reading sign language with her hands.

Helen Keller Documentary (1954-05-03) by Walter Sanders LIFE Photo Collection

Helen Keller (From the collection of LIFE Photo Collection)

After studying, Keller used her experiences and channelled them into becoming a speaker and author, and she became an advocate for people with disabilities. She was also politically active and considered herself a suffragette, pacifist and radical socialist, as well as a supporter of birth control. As a member of the Socialist Party, Keller actively campaigned and wrote in support of the working class from 1909 to 1921. Many of her speeches and writings were about women’s right to vote and the impacts of war. Always trying to improve, she had speech therapy in order to have her voice heard better by the public. With her radical views, the Rockefeller press refused to print her articles, but she protested until her work was finally published. Keller also sought to make even more of a difference and in 1915 age 35, she and George A Kessler founded the Helen Keller International Organization, which is devoted to research in vision, health and nutrition. Five years later, Keller went on to help found the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)—a nonprofit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States."

By Alfred Eisenstaedt LIFE Photo Collection

Helen Keller in sculptor Jo Davidson's studio studying the bust of reporter Ernie Plyle (From the collection of LIFE Photo Collection)

In the years and decades following, Keller continued to make her voice heard through various books (she published 12 in total) and the talks she held. In total she travelled to over 40 countries, mostly accompanied by her lifelong companion Sullivan, who had remained a huge part of Keller’s life up until her death in 1936, when Keller held her hand in her final moments. Keller devoted much of her later life to raising funds for the American Foundation for the Blind, but after suffering a series of strokes in 1961 had to spend her remaining years at home. In 1964, President Lyndon B Johnson awarded Keller the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the United States’ two highest civilian honors. The following year she was elected to the National Women’s Hall of Fame and the New York World’s Fair.

Helen Keller (1952-02) by Larry Burrows LIFE Photo Collection

Helen Keller at 71 (From the collection of LIFE Photo Collection)

Keller died in her sleep on June 1, 1968 at her home Arcan Ridge in Connecticut, a few weeks short of her 88th birthday. A service was held in her honor at the National Cathedral in Washington DC and after cremation her ashes were placed next to her companion Sullivan. Keller’s lasting impact can be felt in the legacy of works she published, the speeches she made and the organisations she founded. Keller was a role model and proved to the world that deaf people are able to communicate just like everyone else and showed people they are just as capable given the right tools to do so.

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Helen Keller Intl

Helen keller’s life and legacy.

Helen Keller

Helen Keller is known the world over as a symbol of courage in the face of overwhelming odds.  Yet she was so much more.  A woman of luminous intelligence, high ambition and great accomplishment, she was driven by her deep compassion for others to devote her life to helping them overcome significant obstacles to living healthy and productive lives. 

A Living Legacy

Helen Keller Intl was co-founded in 1915 by two extraordinary individuals, Helen Keller and George Kessler, to assist soldiers blinded during their service in the first World War. Since our founding, we have committed ourselves to continuing Helen’s work.

Guided by her fierce optimism, we have been working on the front lines of health for more than 100 years. We deliver life-changing health care to vulnerable families in places where the need is great, but access is limited. Our proven, science-based programs empower people to create opportunities in their own lives.

Today we prioritize the essential building blocks of good health, sound nutrition and clear vision, helping millions of people create lasting change in their own lives.

Our commitment to continuing Helen’s work is firmly rooted in her own belief:

The welfare of each is bound up in the welfare of all.”

A Brief Biographical Timeline

1880:  On June 27, Helen Keller is born in Tuscumbia, Alabama.

1882:   Following a bout of illness, Helen loses her sight and hearing.

1887:  Helen’s parents hire Anne Sullivan, a graduate of the Perkins School for the Blind, to be Helen’s tutor.  Anne begins by teaching Helen that objects have names and that she can use her fingers to spell them. Over time, Helen learns to communicate via sign language, to read and write in Braille, to touch-lip read, and to speak.

1900:  After attending schools in Boston and New York, Helen matriculates at Radcliffe College.

1903:  Helen’s first book, an autobiography called The Story of My Life , is published.

1904:  Helen graduates cum laude from Radcliffe, becoming the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.

1915:  Helen, already a vocal advocate for people with disabilities, co-founds the American Foundation for Overseas Blind to support World War I veterans blinded in combat. This organization later becomes Helen Keller Intl and expands its mission to address the causes and consequences of blindness, malnutrition and poor health.

Help sustain—and build—Helen’s legacy.  Your donation now can transform the lives of vulnerable children and adults facing vision loss, malnutrition and diseases of poverty.

1920:  Helen helps found the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

1924:  Helen joins the American Foundation for the Blind. She serves as a spokesperson and ambassador for the foundation until her death.

1946:  Helen begins touring internationally on behalf of the American Foundation for Overseas Blind (see 1915 above), expanding her advocacy for people with vision impairment.  In 11 years, she will visit 35 countries on five continents.

1956:  Helen wins an Academy Award for a documentary film about her life.

1961:  Helen suffers a stroke and retires from public life.

1964:  Helen is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon Johnson.

1968:  On June 1, Helen dies peacefully at her home in Connecticut.  Her ashes are interred at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.

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Biography of Helen Keller, Deaf and Blind Spokesperson and Activist

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Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880–June 1, 1968) was a groundbreaking exemplar and advocate for the blind and deaf communities. Blind and deaf from a nearly fatal illness at 19 months old, Helen Keller made a dramatic breakthrough at the age of 6 when she learned to communicate with the help of her teacher, Annie Sullivan. Keller went on to live an illustrious public life, inspiring people with disabilities and fundraising, giving speeches, and writing as a humanitarian activist.

Fast Facts: Helen Keller

• Known For : Blind and deaf from infancy, Helen Keller is known for her emergence from isolation, with the help of her teacher Annie Sullivan, and for a career of public service and humanitarian activism.
• Born : June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama
• Parents : Captain Arthur Keller and Kate Adams Keller
• Died : June 1, 1968 in Easton Connecticut
• Education : Home tutoring with Annie Sullivan, Perkins Institute for the Blind, Wright-Humason School for the Deaf, studies with Sarah Fuller at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf, The Cambridge School for Young Ladies, Radcliffe College of Harvard University
• Published Works : The Story of My Life, The World I Live In, Out of the Dark, My Religion, Light in My Darkness, Midstream: My Later Life
• Awards and Honors : Theodore Roosevelt Distinguished Service Medal in 1936, Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964, election to the Women's Hall of Fame in 1965, an honorary Academy Award in 1955 (as the inspiration for the documentary about her life), countless honorary degrees
• Notable Quote : "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched ... but are felt in the heart."

Early Childhood

Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama to Captain Arthur Keller and Kate Adams Keller. Captain Keller was a cotton farmer and newspaper editor and had served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War . Kate Keller, 20 years his junior, had been born in the South, but had roots in Massachusetts and was related to founding father John Adams .

Helen was a healthy child until she became seriously ill at 19 months. Stricken with an illness that her doctor called "brain fever," Helen was not expected to survive. The crisis was over after several days, to the great relief of the Kellers. However, they soon learned that Helen had not emerged from the illness unscathed. She was left blind and deaf. Historians believe that Helen had contracted either scarlet fever or meningitis.

The Wild Childhood Years

Frustrated by her inability to express herself, Helen Keller frequently threw tantrums that included breaking dishes and even slapping and biting family members. When Helen, at age 6, tipped over the cradle holding her baby sister, Helen's parents knew something had to be done. Well-meaning friends suggested that she be institutionalized, but Helen's mother resisted that notion.

Soon after the incident with the cradle, Kate Keller read a book by Charles Dickens about the education of Laura Bridgman. Laura was a deaf-blind girl who had been taught to communicate by the director of the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston. For the first time, the Kellers felt hopeful that Helen could be helped as well.

The Guidance of Alexander Graham Bell

During a visit to a Baltimore eye doctor in 1886, the Kellers received the same verdict they had heard before. Nothing could be done to restore Helen's eyesight. The doctor, however, advised the Kellers that Helen might benefit from a visit with the famous inventor Alexander Graham Bell in Washington, D.C.

Bell's mother and wife were deaf and he had devoted himself to improving life for the deaf, inventing several assistive devices for them. Bell and Helen Keller got along very well and would later develop a lifelong friendship.

Bell suggested that the Kellers write to the director of the Perkins Institute for the Blind, where Laura Bridgman, now an adult, still resided. The director wrote the Kellers back, with the name of a teacher for Helen: Annie Sullivan .

Annie Sullivan Arrives

Helen Keller's new teacher had also lived through difficult times. Annie Sullivan had lost her mother to tuberculosis when she was 8. Unable to care for his children, her father sent Annie and her younger brother Jimmie to live in the poorhouse in 1876. They shared quarters with criminals, prostitutes, and the mentally ill.

Young Jimmie died of a weak hip ailment only three months after their arrival, leaving Annie grief-stricken. Adding to her misery, Annie was gradually losing her vision to trachoma, an eye disease. Although not completely blind, Annie had very poor vision and would be plagued with eye problems for the rest of her life.

When she was 14, Annie begged visiting officials to send her to school. She was lucky, for they agreed to take her out of the poorhouse and send her to the Perkins Institute. Annie had a lot of catching up to do. She learned to read and write, then later learned braille and the manual alphabet (a system of hand signs used by the deaf).

After graduating first in her class, Annie was given the job that would determine the course of her life: teacher to Helen Keller. Without any formal training to teach a deaf-blind child, 20-year-old Annie Sullivan arrived at the Keller home on March 3, 1887. It was a day that Helen Keller later referred to as "my soul's birthday."

A Battle of Wills

Teacher and pupil were both very strong-willed and frequently clashed. One of the first of these battles revolved around Helen's behavior at the dinner table, where she roamed freely and grabbed food from the plates of others.

Dismissing the family from the room, Annie locked herself in with Helen. Hours of struggle ensued, during which Annie insisted Helen eat with a spoon and sit in her chair.

In order to distance Helen from her parents, who gave in to her every demand, Annie proposed that she and Helen move out of the house temporarily. They spent about two weeks in the "annex," a small house on the Keller property. Annie knew that if she could teach Helen self-control, Helen would be more receptive to learning.

Helen fought Annie on every front, from getting dressed and eating to going to bed at night. Eventually, Helen resigned herself to the situation, becoming calmer and more cooperative.

Now the teaching could begin. Annie constantly spelled words into Helen's hand, using the manual alphabet to name the items she handed to Helen. Helen seemed intrigued but did not yet realize that what they were doing was more than a game.

Helen Keller's Breakthrough

On the morning of April 5, 1887, Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller were outside at the water pump, filling a mug with water. Annie pumped the water over Helen's hand while repeatedly spelling “w-a-t-e-r” into her hand. Helen suddenly dropped the mug. As Annie later described it, "a new light came into her face." She understood.

All the way back to the house, Helen touched objects and Annie spelled their names into her hand. Before the day was over, Helen had learned 30 new words. It was just the beginning of a very long process, but a door had been opened for Helen.

Annie also taught her how to write and how to read braille. By the end of that summer, Helen had learned more than 600 words. 

Annie Sullivan sent regular reports on Helen Keller's progress to the director of the Perkins Institute. On a visit to the Perkins Institute in 1888, Helen met other blind children for the first time. She returned to Perkins the following year and stayed for several months of study.

High School Years

Helen Keller dreamed of attending college and was determined to get into Radcliffe , a women's university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. However, she would first need to complete high school.

Helen attended a high school for the deaf in New York City, then later transferred to a school in Cambridge. She had her tuition and living expenses paid for by wealthy benefactors.

Keeping up with school work challenged both Helen and Annie. Copies of books in braille were rarely available, requiring that Annie read the books, then spell them into Helen's hand. Helen would then type out notes using her braille typewriter. It was a grueling process.

Helen withdrew from the school after two years, completing her studies with a private tutor. She gained admission to Radcliffe in 1900, making her the first deaf-blind person to attend college.

Life as a Coed

College was somewhat disappointing for Helen Keller. She was unable to form friendships both because of her limitations and the fact that she lived off campus, which further isolated her. The rigorous routine continued, in which Annie worked at least as much as Helen. As a result, Annie suffered severe eyestrain.

Helen found the courses very difficult and struggled to keep up with her workload. Although she detested math, Helen did enjoy English classes and received praise for her writing. Before long, she would be doing plenty of writing.

Editors from Ladies' Home Journal offered Helen $3,000, an enormous sum at the time, to write a series of articles about her life.

Overwhelmed by the task of writing the articles, Helen admitted she needed help. Friends introduced her to John Macy, an editor and English teacher at Harvard . Macy quickly learned the manual alphabet and began to work with Helen on editing her work.

Certain that Helen's articles could successfully be turned into a book, Macy negotiated a deal with a publisher and "The Story of My Life" was published in 1903 when Helen was only 22 years old. Helen graduated from Radcliffe with honors in June 1904.

Annie Sullivan Marries John Macy

John Macy remained friends with Helen and Annie after the book's publication. He found himself falling in love with Annie Sullivan, although she was 11 years his senior. Annie had feelings for him as well, but wouldn't accept his proposal until he assured her that Helen would always have a place in their home. They were married in May 1905 and the trio moved into a farmhouse in Massachusetts.

The pleasant farmhouse was reminiscent of the home Helen had grown up in. Macy arranged a system of ropes out in the yard so that Helen could safely take walks by herself. Soon, Helen was at work on her second memoir, "The World I Live In," with John Macy as her editor.

By all accounts, although Helen and Macy were close in age and spent a lot of time together, they were never more than friends.

An active member of the Socialist Party, John Macy encouraged Helen to read books on socialist and communist theory. Helen joined the Socialist Party in 1909 and she also supported the women's suffrage movement .

Helen's third book, a series of essays defending her political views, did poorly. Worried about their dwindling funds, Helen and Annie decided to go on a lecture tour.

Helen and Annie Go on the Road

Helen had taken speaking lessons over the years and had made some progress, but only those closest to her could understand her speech. Annie would need to interpret Helen's speech for the audience.

Another concern was Helen's appearance. She was very attractive and always well dressed, but her eyes were obviously abnormal. Unbeknownst to the public, Helen had her eyes surgically removed and replaced by prosthetic ones prior to the start of the tour in 1913.

Prior to this, Annie made certain that the photographs were always taken of Helen's right profile because her left eye protruded and was obviously blind, whereas Helen appeared almost normal on the right side.

The tour appearances consisted of a well-scripted routine. Annie spoke about her years with Helen and then Helen spoke, only to have Annie interpret what she had said. At the end, they took questions from the audience. The tour was successful, but exhausting for Annie. After taking a break, they went back on tour two more times.

Annie's marriage suffered from the strain as well. She and John Macy separated permanently in 1914. Helen and Annie hired a new assistant, Polly Thomson, in 1915, in an effort to relieve Annie of some of her duties.

Helen Finds Love

In 1916, the women hired Peter Fagan as a secretary to accompany them on their tour while Polly was out of town. After the tour, Annie became seriously ill and was diagnosed with tuberculosis.

While Polly took Annie to a rest home in Lake Placid, plans were made for Helen to join her mother and sister Mildred in Alabama. For a brief time, Helen and Peter were alone together at the farmhouse, where Peter confessed his love for Helen and asked her to marry him.

The couple tried to keep their plans a secret, but when they traveled to Boston to obtain a marriage license, the press obtained a copy of the license and published a story about Helen's engagement.

Kate Keller was furious and brought Helen back to Alabama with her. Although Helen was 36 years old at the time, her family was very protective of her and disapproved of any romantic relationship.

Several times, Peter attempted to reunite with Helen, but her family would not let him near her. At one point, Mildred's husband threatened Peter with a gun if he did not get off his property.

Helen and Peter were never together again. Later in life, Helen described the relationship as her "little island of joy surrounded by dark waters."

The World of Showbiz

Annie recovered from her illness, which had been misdiagnosed as tuberculosis, and returned home. With their financial difficulties mounting, Helen, Annie, and Polly sold their house and moved to Forest Hills, New York in 1917.

Helen received an offer to star in a film about her life, which she readily accepted. The 1920 movie, "Deliverance," was absurdly melodramatic and did poorly at the box office.

In dire need of a steady income, Helen and Annie, now 40 and 54 respectively, next turned to vaudeville. They reprised their act from the lecture tour, but this time they did it in glitzy costumes and full stage makeup, alongside various dancers and comedians.

Helen enjoyed the theater, but Annie found it vulgar. The money, however, was very good and they stayed in vaudeville until 1924.

American Foundation for the Blind

That same year, Helen became involved with an organization that would employ her for much of the rest of her life. The newly-formed American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) sought a spokesperson and Helen seemed the perfect candidate.

Helen Keller drew crowds whenever she spoke in public and became very successful at raising money for the organization. Helen also convinced Congress to approve more funding for books printed in braille.

Taking time off from her duties at the AFB in 1927, Helen began work on another memoir, "Midstream," which she completed with the help of an editor.

Losing 'Teacher' and Polly

Annie Sullivan's health deteriorated over several years' time. She became completely blind and could no longer travel, leaving both women entirely reliant on Polly. Annie Sullivan died in October 1936 at the age of 70. Helen was devastated to have lost the woman whom she had known only as "Teacher," and who had given so much to her.

After the funeral, Helen and Polly took a trip to Scotland to visit Polly's family. Returning home to a life without Annie was difficult for Helen. Life was made easier when Helen learned that she would be taken care of financially for life by the AFB, which built a new home for her in Connecticut.

Helen continued her travels around the world through the 1940s and 1950s accompanied by Polly, but the women, now in their 70s, began to tire of travel.

In 1957, Polly suffered a severe stroke. She survived, but had brain damage and could no longer function as Helen's assistant. Two caretakers were hired to come and live with Helen and Polly. In 1960, after spending 46 years of her life with Helen, Polly Thomson died.

Later Years

Helen Keller settled into a quieter life, enjoying visits from friends and her daily martini before dinner. In 1960, she was intrigued to learn of a new play on Broadway that told the dramatic story of her early days with Annie Sullivan. "The Miracle Worker" was a smash hit and was made into an equally popular movie in 1962.

Strong and healthy all of her life, Helen became frail in her 80s. She suffered a stroke in 1961 and developed diabetes.

On June 1, 1968, Helen Keller died in her home at the age of 87 following a heart attack. Her funeral service, held at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., was attended by 1,200 mourners.

Helen Keller was a groundbreaker in her personal and public lives. Becoming a writer and lecturer with Annie while blind and deaf was an enormous accomplishment. Helen Keller was the first deaf-blind individual to earn a college degree.

She was an advocate for communities of people with disabilities in many ways, raising awareness through her lecture circuits and books and raising funds for the American Foundation for the Blind. Her political work included helping to found the American Civil Liberties Union and advocacy for increased funding for braille books and for women's suffrage.

She met with every U.S. president from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon Johnson. While she was still alive, in 1964, Helen received the highest honor awarded to a U.S. citizen, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, from President Lyndon Johnson .

Helen Keller remains a source of inspiration to all people for her enormous courage overcoming the obstacles of being both deaf and blind and for her ensuing life of humanitarian selfless service.

• Herrmann, Dorothy. Helen Keller: A Life. University of Chicago Press, 1998.
• Keller, Helen. Midstream: My Later Life . Nabu Press, 2011.
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Helen keller.

Photo by Bain News Service. From the collections of the Library of Congress.

Helen Keller was born to a prominent family in Tuscumbia, Alabama in 1880.[1] When she was nineteen months old, Keller lost her ability to see and hear. As part of their efforts to communicate with Helen, her parents Arthur and Catherine Keller turned to the Perkins School for the Blind, based in Watertown, Massachusetts. A Perkins graduate named Anne Sullivan was sent to the Keller home to train Helen in her seventh year. Sullivan famously taught Keller to read braille and in time, Keller was able to communicate through both sign language and aural speech.

Following the completion of her studies at the Cambridge School for Young Ladies, Keller enrolled at Radcliffe College. While completing her collegiate studies, Keller wrote her autobiography, The Story of My Life , first published in 1904.[2] All of her work as student and author was done in conjunction with Sullivan, who became a lifelong friend.

A self-described “militant suffragette,” Keller used the considerable notoriety she gained in her adolescence to advocate for others for the rest of her life. In 1913, Keller participated in the large parade known as the “Woman Suffrage Procession” in Washington, DC. Her interest in women’s rights was rooted in her connections to contemporary labor movements. Keller was particularly interested in working people’s issues, including industrial safety standards, which led to membership in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Keller’s radical politics also included supporting the movement to increase access to birth control for women. When a biographical film called Deliverance , which featured Keller, premiered in New York City, she joined with striking actors instead of attending. 

Keller regularly gave lectures in support of the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) to earn a living. Though she was interested in persons with disabilities, it is important to note the breadth of Keller’s interests. Later in life, Keller was particularly passionate and dedicated to global causes, including anti-imperialism. An anti-war philosopher and agitator, Keller protested World War I and later, World War II.

Over the course of her lifetime, Keller would become one of the world’s best-known people with a disability. A complex woman with a range of political affiliations, Keller is often remembered for her early triumphs. This early focus misses Keller’s evolution and the contributions she made to a variety of causes. Keller was born into affluence and comfort; she died nearly ninety years later a devoted revolutionary who had worked tirelessly to make the oppression of others better understood. Her ashes, as well of those of her companion, Anne Sullivan, are interred at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.[3]

Notes: [1] Helen Keller was born at home. The property, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is known as Ivy Green .

[2] The Story of My Life has been adapted for film and stage as The Miracle Worker .

[3] The National Cathedral was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 3, 1974. Anne Sullivan was the first woman whose remains were interred here.

Works Referenced: Helen Keller,  The Story of My Life  (New York: Double Day, Page & Co., 1904).

Helen Keller, Out of the Dark: Essays, Lectures, and Addresses on Physical and Social Vision (New York: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1920).

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Biography of Helen Keller

One of the most inspiring deaf or deafblind women is Helen Keller (1880–1968). She learned to communicate and became a noted author, lecturer, and political activist.

Early Years

Helen Keller was born June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Her birthplace is a museum today. An unidentified illness took her hearing and sight when she was only 19 months old. After losing both, her family was not able to communicate with her or teach her effectively. They viewed her behavior as wild and uncontrollable.

Anne Sullivan became Helen Keller's teacher in 1887, working in a role that today is known as an intervenor. Helen finally learned that things have names when Sullivan had the famous "water" breakthrough, fingerspelling "water" into Helen's hand while pumping water over Helen's hand for her to feel.

After that breakthrough, there was no stopping Helen Keller. She went on to attend a school for the blind and other schools. She learned how to talk and lipread with her fingers. She attended Radcliffe College with tuition paid by a benefactor, Standard Oil magnate Henry Huttleston Rogers. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1904 at the age of 24 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Personal Life

Helen Keller never lived independently (unlike today where many deafblind people live independently). She always lived with either Anne Sullivan (and for a few years, Anne Sullivan's husband as well) or Polly Thompson, who joined the household in the 1930s and stayed on after Sullivan passed away in 1936. Among the many things that Helen Keller was famous for saying was her statement that deafness was a "greater affliction" than blindness . Helen Keller passed away on June 1, 1968.

Helen Keller was a noted advocate for people with disabilities. She traveled to over 40 countries, accompanied by Annie Sullivan. She met with every U.S. president serving during her adult life and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.

Keller espoused socialist causes, joining the Industrial Workers of the World and the Socialist Party and campaigning for them. She helped found the American Civil Liberties Union.  

Autobiographies

Helen wrote movingly about her own life, in books that remain in print:

• "The Story of My Life" 1903: Keller writes of her life up to age 21. It was written while she was in college
• "The World I Live In" 1908: Keller follows up her autobiography with more details of life as a deafblind person.
• "Light in My Darkness" 1927: This is her spiritual autobiography which shows that she followed the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg.
• "Teacher: Anne Sullivan Macy"

Keller not only wrote about her own life but was a prolific writer on other topics. Many of her writings are preserved online by the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), with which she was closely affiliated.  

Children's Books About Helen Keller

Helen Keller has been the subject of many books, particularly children's books. The image of a little girl discovering language through the spelling of the word "w-a-t-e-r" into her hand is fascinating for children. These books can be inspirational for children who are deaf or blind. They also can help any child appreciate overcoming communication difficulties. Here are some of them:

• "A Girl Named Helen Keller"
• "A Picture Book of Helen Keller"
• "Helen Keller: Courage in the Dark"

Adult Books About Helen Keller

Many books for adult books have been about Helen Keller as well, some of which focus on her relationship with Anne Sullivan.

• "Helen and Teacher: The Story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy"
• "Helen Keller: A Life"

Movies About Helen Keller

Helen's story was dramatized in the play "The Miracle Worker," and transformed into both the big and small screens.

• The original 1962 movie featured Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke.
• A televised remake of "The Miracle Worker" in 1979 starred Melissa Gilbert.
• Yet another remake, in 2000, starred Hallie Kate Eisenberg. The Described and Captioned Captioned Media Program has the Disney version of "The Miracle Worker."

As part of Helen's legacy, her name has been adopted by two organizations focused on the needs of the blind and deafblind:

• Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youth and Adults
• Helen Keller International : Helen Keller helped establish this organization focusing on eye care internationally shortly after World War I. The organization's original name, The Permanent Blind Relief War Fund for Soldiers & Sailors of the Allies, was eventually changed to Helen Keller International in 1977.

American Civil Liberties Union .

American Foundation for the Blind. Helen Keller: Our Champion .

By Jamie Berke  Jamie Berke is a deafness and hard of hearing expert.

Co-Founding the ACLU, Fighting for Labor Rights and Other Helen Keller Accomplishments Students Don’t Learn in School

W hile the world marked International Day of Persons with Disabilities on Dec. 3, the history of people with disabilities is still not fully taught in schools. In the U.S., if American schoolchildren learn about any person with disabilities, they learn that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once had polio and used a wheelchair in office, and they learn about Deafblind activist Helen Keller.

Most students learn that Keller, born June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Ala., was left deaf and blind after contracting a high fever at 19 months, and that her teacher Anne Sullivan taught her braille, lip-reading, finger spelling and eventually, how to speak . Students may watch the Oscar-winning 1962 movie The Miracle Worker, which depicts these milestones as miraculous. Keller has become a worldwide symbol for children to overcome any obstacle . At the U.S. Capitol, there is even a bronze statue of 7-year-old Keller at a water pump, inspired by the movie’s depiction of a real milestone in Keller’s life in which she recognizes water coming out of the pump after Sullivan spells the word “water” into the youngster’s hand. However, there is still a great deal about her life and her accomplishments that many people don’t know.

What scholars of disability point out is that when students learn about Helen Keller, they often learn about her efforts to communicate as a child, and not about the work she did as an adult. This limited instruction has implications for how students perceive people with disabilities .

If students learn about any of Keller’s accomplishments as an adult, they learn that she became the first Deafblind graduate of Radcliffe College (now Harvard University) in 1904, and worked for American Foundation for the Blind from the mid-1920s until her death in 1968, advocating for schools for the blind and braille reading materials.

But they don’t learn that she co-founded the American Civil Liberties Union in 1920; that she was an early supporter of the NAACP, and an opponent of lynchings ; that she was an early proponent of birth control.

Sascha Cohen, who teaches American Studies at Brandeis University, and wrote the 2015 TIME article “Helen Keller’s Forgotten Radicalism” , argues that Keller’s involvement in workers’ rights can help students understand the roots of the workers’ rights and inequality issues that persist today: “The Progressive Era when she was sort of working politically in different organizations was a period of rapid industrialization and so there were these new conditions in which workers were subjected to this sort of heightened inequality and even danger and risk physically. So she pointed out that a lot of times people went blind from accidents on the shop floor. She saw this real kind of imbalance in power between the workers…and the sort of what we would call the 1% or the very few owners and managers at the top who were exploiting the workers.”

Some of the reason schools don’t teach much about Keller’s adult life is because she was involved in groups that have been perceived as too radical throughout American history. She was a member of the Socialist Party , and corresponded with Eugene Debs , the party’s most prominent member and a five-time presidential candidate . She also read Marx, and her associations with all of these far-left groups landed her on the radar of the FBI , which monitored her for ties to the Communist Party.

However, to some Black disability rights activists, like Anita Cameron, Helen Keller is not radical at all, “just another, despite disabilities, privileged white person,” and yet another example of history telling the story of privileged white Americans. Critics of Helen Keller cite her writings that reflected the popularity of now-dated eugenics theories and her friendship with one of the movement’s supporters Alexander Graham Bell . The American Foundation for the Blind archivist Helen Selsdon says Keller “moved away from that position.”

People with disabilities and activists are pushing for more education on important contributions to U.S. history by people of disabilities , such as the Capitol Crawl. On Mar. 12, 1990, Cameron and dozens of disabled people climbed up the steps of the U.S. Capitol to urge the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). It was considered a moment that raised awareness and helped get the law passed four months later, but one rarely included in public school education.

Thirty years later, one in four Americans have a disability. At least three other states have made efforts to incorporate disability history into school curricula. It’s the law in California and New Jersey to teach the contributions of people with disabilities, and Massachusetts guidelines urge state educators to do the same.

In Sep. 2018, the Texas Board of Education approved a draft of changes to state social studies standards, which included the removal of some historical figures, such as Helen Keller. Shortly after the board opened the draft for public comment, Haben Girma, a Black disability rights lawyer and the first Deafblind Harvard Law School graduate, was one of many who spoke out on the importance of teaching Helen Keller. Girma argued that if Keller’s life is not taught, students might not learn about any history-makers with disabilities. Two months later, the Texas Board of Education approved a revised draft with Keller’s name back in the standards .

Girma agrees that more should be done to teach the full life and career of Helen Keller, and encourages students to read more of her writings to learn more about who she was as an adult. Keller wrote 14 books and more than 475 speeches and essays.

“Since society only portrays Helen Keller as a little girl, a lot of people subconsciously learn to infantilize disabled adults. And I’ve been treated like a child. Many disabled adults have been treated like children,” Girma says. “That makes it difficult to get a job, to be treated with respect, to get good quality education and healthcare as an adult.”

Or just look back at what Keller herself articulated in her 1926 memoir My Key of Life about the impact of inclusive education: “The highest result of education is tolerance.”

DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller holding book. GEORGINA KLEEGE: Helen Keller’s image is on the Alabama State quarter. DESCRIPTION: Image of Alabama State quarter. GEORGINA KLEEGE: It’s an image taken from a photograph of her reading a braille book. And there’s a motto that says “spirit of courage.” In some sense, that you know you have a woman reading a book DESCRIPTION: Professor Georgina Kleege speaking. GEORGINA KLEEGE: and that’s understood to represent courage. And this is not to say that Helen Keller wasn’t a courageous person DESCRIPTION: Image of a young Helen Keller. DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller reading. GEORGINA KLEEGE: but it’s kind of a safe message. Without any sort of controversial overtones to it. DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller typing. GEORGINA KLEEGE: It’s like Helen Keller worked hard and she got educated DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller in cap and gown. GEORGINA KLEEGE: and that’s all we need to know. DESCRIPTION: Montage of images of Helen Keller throughout her life. DESCRIPTION: Montage of disability rights activists. TEXT: The History You Didn’t Learn TEXT: The Full Story of Helen Keller DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller as a child. NARRATOR: Pretty much everyone learns about Helen Keller in school. From picture books to the movie The Miracle Worker . DESCRIPTION: Scene from The Miracle Worker . NARRATOR: She’s a staple in children’s education but we only DESCRIPTION: Image of water pump. NARRATOR: learn about one aspect of a multifaceted and complicated person. DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller. HABEN GIRMA: The dominant story about Helen Keller is not by Helen Keller. DESCRIPTION: Disability Rights Lawyer Haben Girma speaking. HABEN GIRMA: It’s by sighted, hearing people putting forth Helen Keller’s story. DESCRIPTION: Footage of Haben Girma at the White House. NARRATOR: Haben Girma is a disability rights lawyer who is also Deafblind. DESCRIPTION: Image of Haben Girma and her dog. NARRATOR: For Girma, getting Helen Keller’s story right is personal. DESCRIPTION: Footage of Helen Keller as a child with her teacher. HABEN GIRMA: The story focuses on her being 6, 7 years old and things happening to her. People teaching her, people giving her water. She comes across as very passive but if you DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller. HABEN GIRMA: learn about her life from her own words, you realize she was an agent of change. TEXT: “I do not like the world as it is; so I am trying to make it a little more as I want it.” — Helen Keller, 1912 HABEN GIRMA: She advocated for women, people of color. DESCRIPTION: Montage of images of Helen Keller throughout her life. HABEN GIRMA: Disability rights mattered to her but the dominant story doesn’t focus on that. Since society only frames her as a little girl, DESCRIPTION: Film stills from The Miracle Worker . HABEN GIRMA: a lot of people subconsciously learn to infantilize disabled adults. DESCRIPTION: Haben Girma speaking. HABEN GIRMA: That makes it difficult to get a job, to be treated with respect, to get good quality education and healthcare. DESCRIPTION: Artwork of Helen Keller and teacher. HABEN GIRMA: That’s not right. DESCRIPTION: Montage of images of Helen Keller. NARRATOR: Because we are so focused on Keller as a child, we often miss out on her long life of activism. DESCRIPTION: Sascha Cohen speaking. SASCHA COHEN: One of her passions was really the rights of workers and unionists. DESCRIPTION: Footage of 20th century cities and factories. SASCHA COHEN: The progressive era when she was working politically in different organizations was a period of rapid industrialization there were these new conditions in which workers were subjected to heightened inequality and even danger and risk physically. DESCRIPTION: Newspaper reading “Accidents Cause Many Cases Of Blindness” SASCHA COHEN: She pointed out that a lot of times people went blind from accidents on the shop floor. TEXT: will have their eyes torn by flying bits of steel DESCRIPTION: Images of factory workers. SASCHA COHEN: She saw this exploitation of employees by industrialists, factory owners, corporations. And so she became involved with the IWW, DESCRIPTION: IWW advertisement. SASCHA COHEN: the Industrial Workers of the World DESCRIPTION: Image of the Industrial Workers of the World. DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller reading. SASCHA COHEN: She read Marx, she corresponded with Eugene Debs who was the major socialist at the time DESCRIPTION: Image of Eugene Debs and Ben Hanford. SASCHA COHEN: and she helped cofound the ACLU DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller typing. SASCHA COHEN: which we now sort of associate with freedom of speech. She had a spirit of wanting to help the collective good, rather than individuals on their own. DESCRIPTION: Images of Helen Keller and the American Foundation for the Blind. GEORGINA KLEEGE: She found the American Foundation for the Blind, which is an advocacy and education organization. She spent her life from 1925 onward as a spokesperson, and as a fundraiser for that cause. DESCRIPTION: Helen Selsdon speaking. HELEN SELSDON: She was an early member of the NAACP. DESCRIPTION: Footage of Helen Keller. SASCHA COHEN: She’s condemned lynching. She condemns the racism perpetrated against African Americans. Many people like to think of them as opposed to racism today, it was not so typical to be opposed to racism in 1916 if you were a privileged white woman. It just wasn’t. And she was. DESCRIPTION: Montage of images of Helen Keller. HABEN GIRMA: People would often ask her, stop talking about racism, and women’s rights. Just talk about the blind and inspire us about the blind. She found that frustrating and continued to talk anyway. DESCRIPTION: Helen Keller talking in front of large crowd. DESCRIPTION: Georgina Kleege speaking. GEORGINA KLEEGE: When we talk about oppression and prejudice, disability is always sort of off to one side. But for Helen Keller, it was all of a piece. DESCRIPTION: Montage of images of Helen Keller and confidants. HABEN GIRMA: You can’t advocate for disability rights if you’re not also advocating for racial justice and gender equality. DESCRIPTION: Helen Keller receiving a pin at a ceremony. NARRATOR: Critics of Helen Keller point to one notable exception in her advocacy for people with disabilities. DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller typing. NARRATOR: She was once a supporter of eugenics, a now-reviled school of thought that sought to improve human populations by breeding out certain traits, like for example certain disabilities. DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller typing. HELEN SELSDON: That’s absolutely true. She did write about eugenics DESCRIPTION: Helen Selsdon speaking. HELEN SELSDON: and she was concerned that children with disabilities with severe disabilities would not be able to function in society. I think it was part of that zeitgeist at the time. I think it’s very easy to take history out of context very early on she moved away from that position. DESCRIPTION: Footage of Helen Keller typing. DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller. HELEN SELSDON: And I think she would herself be heartbroken to think that she did not value every life because she absolutely did. DESCRIPTION: Helen Keller with wheelchair users. HABEN GIRMA: People need time to grow and learn. We need to forgive people when they acknowledge they’ve made mistakes. DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller looking out of the window. DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller at a radio station. NARRATOR: Still, Helen Keller’s prominence is another reminder of how our American history often focuses on the stories of wealthy white people. DESCRIPTION: Footage of Helen Keller at event. DESCRIPTION: Anita Cameron speaking. ANITA CAMERON: I don’t have a perspective on Helen Keller. She’s just another, despite disabilities, privileged white person. DESCRIPTION: Images of Anita Cameron demonstrating. ANITA CAMERON: I am a Black disabled Lesbian who happens to be poor. You know, you want to talk about intersectionalities and marginalizations. I’m looking up from the bottom DESCRIPTION: Images of Anita Cameron demonstrating. ANITA CAMERON: and I’m just out here trying to not only fight for the rights of all disabled but wanting to highlight even among disabled, there are those of us whose stories don’t get told. DESCRIPTION: Archival image of Anita Cameron demonstrating. NARRATOR: Anita Cameron herself was part of history in 1990 when she and several other activists from the disability rights group, ADAPT, crawled up the steps of the U.S. Capitol Building to demand the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. DESCRIPTION: Footage of activists crawling the steps of the U.S. Capitol chanting “Access now!” DESCRIPTION: Images of ADAPT demonstration. NARRATOR: The law that now requires public buildings to have ramps and other accessibility features. DESCRIPTION: Footage of crowd at ADAPT demonstration. ANITA CAMERON: On a sunny, hot morning, we gathered up to do our crawl. And that was the only way that we could get there and we were trying to highlight the fact that people with disabilities, we live in second-class citizenship. We kind of went in stealth. It started out as a tour, and when we got into the Rotunda, we just took it over. DESCRIPTION: Demonstrators shouting “ADA now!” inside the U.S. Capitol. DESCRIPTION: Police officers approaching demonstrators. ANITA CAMERON: When it all was said and done, 104 of us were arrested. DESCRIPTION: Newspaper article reading “Officer Arrest 104 Disabled Protestors” ANITA CAMERON: I was number 81. DESCRIPTION: Images of demonstrators being arrested. ANITA CAMERON: I was in the center of a knot of people who had chained ourselves together. DESCRIPTION: Images from ADAPT protest. ANITA CAMERON: The combination of a crawl and the takeover of the rotunda is what got the ADA passed so quickly. DESCRIPTION: Image of ADA being signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. DESCRIPTION: Image of ADAPT demonstrators. NARRATOR: The fight for disability rights is far from over, but the ADA was a milestone achievement. It completely changed the way people with disabilities lived DESCRIPTION: Newspaper reading “Disabilities Act Forces Sweeping Transit Changes” NARRATOR: and recognized people with disabilities as people with civil rights. Helen Keller is certainly not the only disability rights champion we should be learning about DESCRIPTION: Montage of images of Helen Keller and disability rights activists. NARRATOR: but learning about her work and her activism more fully is a step towards understanding the contributions so many other disabled Americans have made and continue to make to our shared history. GEORGINA KLEEGE: She was born in 1880, and she died in 1968 and it was a very long life. DESCRIPTION: Footage of Helen Keller listening to music. HELEN KELLER: That was beautiful! DESCRIPTION: Montage footage of Helen Keller. GEORGINA KLEEGE: So I think when we forget about the causes that she supported it does damage to our understanding about disability. DESCRIPTION: Montage of images of Helen Keller. HABEN GIRMA: Some people have a complicated relationship with Helen Keller, because she’s been forced on us a role model to never complain, which is not true. She complained when it was the right thing to do. DESCRIPTION: Images of disability rights activists. ‘Cause sometimes when things are wrong, you have to complain to create change. DESCRIPTION: End credits.

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Helen Keller Biography: Courage in the Dark

At the age of seven, Helen Keller was described my family members as a little monster. She threw temper tantrums, attacked people and had terrible personal habits. Yet, within a year, the deaf and blind girl had been transformed. She became teachable and that teaching untapped a level of genius – and determination – which saw her overcome her disabilities and achieve unimaginable success . In this week’s Biographics we explore how Helen Keller beat incredible odds to become an inspiration to the world.

A ‘Normal’ Beginning

Helen Keller was born on June 27th, 1880 in Tuscumbia, a small town in northern Alabama. She was a perfectly healthy baby with the ability to see and hear. Her mother Kate, just 23 years old, was a pampered Southern belle who doted on her first child. Helen’s father, Arthur, a Confederate veteran of the Civil War, was 42 when his daughter was born. Kate was his second wife and he had two grown sons from his first marriage.

The birth of Helen was a relief to Kate, who now had a child of her own to shower love and attention upon. Helen was a quick developer, speaking her first words at six months and and taking her first steps on her first birthday. However, in February, 1882, at the age of nineteen months, she became severely ill with what doctors at the time called ‘brain fever.’ Modern researchers believe she may have had Scarlet Fever or, possibly, meningitis. Whatever the cause of her illness, the local doctor was convinced that the child would not survive.

A World of Darkness and Solitude

Helen did survive – but the illness had robbed her of her hearing and her sight. Her bright, happy world was now filled with silence and darkness. As an adult, Helen recalled coming out of her illness . . .

I was too young to realize what had happened. When I awoke and found that all was dark and still, I suppose I thought it was night, and I must have wondered why day was so long coming. Gradually, however, I got used to the silence and darkness that surrounded me, and forgot that it had ever been day.

For the first few months after her illness, a terrified Helen would do no more than sit on her mother’s lap and cling to her dress as Kate tried to do her daily chores. Then she began to venture out on her own, first crawling around the room and feeling her way forward. She discovered that her hands could, in a small way, do the job of her eyes, helping her to identify objects and areas of the house.

With Kate’s patient assistance, Helen also developed a crude system of communication; a shake of the head for ‘no’, a nod for ‘yes’, a pull on her mother’s dress for ‘come’. Before long she had incorporated pantomime actions into her ‘vocabulary’ – if she wanted ice-cream she would pretend she was working the freezer while shivering. He ever-attentive mother would then rush to give her what she wanted.

Helen proved to be a very determined child. If she set her mind on a task, she would keep at it until she was successful. Her greatest desire was to improve her ability to communicate with others. Making simple signs with her hands was not enough. The inability to make people understand what she was thinking and feeling led to a level of frustration that welled deep inside her. This led to outbursts of temper, screaming fits and violent outbursts.

Helen’s temper tantrums terrorized the family. She would smash lanterns, thrust her fist in plates of food and claw and pinch whoever was close by. Relatives referred to the child as a ‘monster’ and strongly urged Kate and Arthur to put her in an institution.

In 1885, Kate had a second child, Mildred, a baby sister for Helen. With her mother’s doting attention now being shared, Helen became intensely jealous. Once she knocked over Mildred’s cot, causing the baby to fall out. A desperate Kate was at her wit’s end, unable to control or help Helen. But she was determined not to send her away.

When Helen was six, her father learned of a doctor in Baltimore, Maryland, named Julian Chisholm who had helped restore sight to blind people. The family took the trip to consult with Dr. Chisholm only to be told that there was nothing medically that could be done to fix Helen’s eyesight. But the doctor did hold out a ray of hope. He told the Kellers about a man who specialized in helping deaf children to communicate. His name was Alexander Graham Bell.

Although best remembered as the inventor of the telephone, Bell’s passion was helping the deaf. His mother and his wife were both deaf. In fact, he had met his wife, Mabel, when he had taken on the job as her private tutor, teaching her through a system of signing that he had developed. The Keller’s traveled to Washington to meet him.

Helen felt comfortable with Bell right away. At that first meeting he sat her on his knee and handed her his pocket watch. She was delighted with the vibrations she felt when the watch struck the hour. Bell suggested that the Kellers write to the Perkins Institute For The Blind in Boston, requesting a tutor for Helen. The Institute trained teachers who could go out and work with deaf and blind students. The director of the Institute looked over his list of recent graduates, settling upon his star pupil, a twenty year old who was, herself, partially blind from suffering trachoma as a child. Her name was Anne Sullivan.

Enter the Miracle Worker

Anne Sullivan arrived at the Keller house on March 3rd, 1887. Helen stood in the doorway as she approached. The child knew, from her mother’s scurried activity that morning, that something important was happening, but she didn’t know what. Years later, however, she would write . . .

The most important day I remember in all my life is the one in which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. Helen Keller

Helen could hear footsteps approaching. Assuming it was her mother, she held out her hand. Anne took the girl’s hand and pulled her in for an embrace. But when Helen realized that this was a stranger, she struggled to break free. This was the first of many temper outbursts that Anne would be confronted with. The very next day, in a fit of rage, the student knocked out one of her teacher’s front teeth.

But Helen was quickly to realize that Miss Sullivan was not about to let the petulant child get away her outrageous behavior, as had been happening up until then. When, at the breakfast table, Helen reached across to grab food from Anne’s plate, as she was accustomed to doing with her family members, Anne grabbed her hand and pushed it away. This sent Helen into a fit of rage – she flopped on the floor and exhibited a full on tantrum. Sullivan asked the other family members to leave the room and lock the door. She then proceeded to continue eating her breakfast, completely ignoring Helen’s performance. Finally, the exasperated child got off the floor and felt for Anne’s body to see what she was doing. When she discovered that Anne was calmly eating her food she again began to grab at the plate. But, each time, Anne would slap her hand away. Helen then began pinching Anne’s hand, something she was allowed to do with impunity to her family members. Again Anne slapped the hand. Finally, Helen sat back on her chair and began eating her own food.

Anne soon came to the realization that Helen’s family members had been enabling her bad behavior. She knew that to make any progress, she would have to separate the child from her parents. The Kellers agreed to let Anne and Helen live in a small cottage not far from the main house. Anne wanted Helen to think that they had traveled a long distance from the family, so the two of them set out on a carriage ride that, unknown to Helen, circled back to the cottage.

Helen wasn’t happy to be packed off with her strict new teacher. She spent the first day screaming and throwing things around the cottage. That night, Anne had to hold Helen down for hours just to keep her in bed. The child’s strength and determination were incredible. But Anne’s was just that little bit greater.

As the days and weeks passed, Anne was able to slowly bring Helen under control. The change began when Anne started spelling out words on Helen’s palm. The first word was DOLL. The finger play intrigued Helen and she proved to be an excellent mimic. Soon she was spelling out a dozen three letter words with her fingers – but she still didn’t know what they meant.

The breakthrough came on April 5th, 1887. That morning, Anne had been trying to get Helen to understand the difference between the words ‘mug’ and ‘water.’ She took her to the water pump outside the cottage and had the girl hold out a mug. Anne then worked the pump so that water filled it and began to overflow. Then she began to spell the word WATER on Helen’s free hand.

Suddenly the light went off in Helen’s mind. She later wrote . . .

That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope joy, set it free.

Now, that she had a taste of word meanings, she couldn’t get enough. She wanted Anne to spell out everything around her. She managed to add dozens of new words to her vocabulary that day.

As her understanding of the world grew, Helen’s personality began to mellow and the temper tantrums became less frequent. She came to understand that people would treat her with greater empathy if she displayed a kind, caring personality.

With the key to knowledge – understanding word meaning – now unlocked, Helen was able to learn with amazing speed. In just a few months she was reading books in Braille. Anne was no longer spelling only simple words into Helen’s palm. Now she was signing portions of Shakespeare and the Bible. By the time she was nine, Helen was ‘reading the works of such great poets as Shelley, Longfellow and Oliver Wendell-Holmes. This made her far more advanced, in a literary sense, than most other children of her age.

Anne quickly came to the realization that Helen’s ability to comprehend complex ideas was highly advanced. Writing a report to the director of the Perkins School for the Blind, she spoke of Anne’s near-genius level learning ability. But she added that that director must not show the report to anyone else. She didn’t want Anne to be turned into a prodigy. However, the director, Michael Anagnos, saw Helen’s story as an opportunity for reflected glory. He titled the 56th annual report of the Perkins School ‘Helen Keller: A Second Laura Bridgeman.’ In the report he embellished Helen’s story, making it even more irresistible to the press.

Before long newspapers all over the country were writing gushing stories about the child genius who was reading Shakespeare, despite not being able to see or hear. Helen’s story even reached across to Europe, where Queen Victoria was intrigued to hear of the brilliant little deaf and blind girl.

By age ten, Helen Keller was an internationally renowned figure. When a policeman shot her dog, Lioness, the news was picked up by the papers. People began sending her money to buy another dog. Helen was reported as saying that she didn’t need a new dog, but she would like to use the money to help a poor blind, deaf and mute boy name Tommy Stringer to attend the Perkins School for the Blind. The public responded and Tommy’s tuition fees were paid for. This inspired Helen to want to help more children so, she began writing letters to people who were willing to donate money.

Learning to Speak

By the time she was ten years of age, Helen had not spoken a clear word in her life. But then, in March 1890 she heard about a blind / deaf girl in Norway who had learned to speak with her mouth. She now became obsessed with doing the same thing. Anne Sullivan knew just who could help – Sarah Fuller, the director of the Mann School for the Deaf in Boston, Massachusetts. Fuller decided to teach Helen herself. She took hold of Helen’s hand and placed it over her mouth to allow the girl to feel the movement of her lips and tongue as she spoke. Helen then copied the motions with her own speech organs. After an hour of intense concentration and effort she was able to speak her first sentence . . .

It is too warm.

The sound of Helen’s voice, however, was raspy and almost impossible to understand. Her untrained vocal cords would need a lot of practice before she was able to make legible speech. In later years, she would train for three summers under the guidance of a famous music teacher to improve her speaking voice.

Back home in Tuscumbia, Alabama, Helen and Anne continued to work on speech development. They also developed a method of ‘hearing’ what others were saying. She would place her thumb on the throat of the speaker, her forefinger on their lips and her middle finger on their nose, allowing her to translate the vibrations into sound.

“The Frost King”

In November, 1891, 11-year old Helen sent a birthday present to Michael Anagnos, director of the Perkins Institute. It was a short story that she had written on her Braille slate called ‘The Frost King.’ Anagnos was impressed with the quality of the prose and published the story in the Perkins Alumni magazine. Helen was overjoyed to become a published author. But her joy was short-lived.

Reports reached Tuscumbia that there was a book in print called The Frost Fairies by Margaret T. Canby. The story was uncannily similar to Helen’s story, The Frost King. Accusations started to circulate that she had plagiarized the story. When this was explained to her, she was horrified. Reading Canby’s book, she realized the similarities were striking. But she was adamant that she had written her own, original story.

The reality was that Helen had become a voracious reader. She would digest one book after another, with no thought for who had written them. Ideas became jumbled in her mind and she was unable to remember if they came from herself or from what she had read. So, when she enthusiastically produced her story, she believed that the ideas were her own. However, a worker at the Perkins Institute had, indeed, read the Frost Fairies to her over a year before. The story had become lodged in her subconscious and was clearly the inspiration for The Frost King.

This incident caused deep embarrassment to Helen. She wrote in her diary . . .

It made us feel so bad that people thought we had been untrue and wicked. My heart was full of tears, for I love the beautiful truth with my whole heart and mind.

Michael Anagnos was also humiliated by the incident. He had to print a retraction to explain the mix-up. After questioning Helen, he believed that no deliberate plagiarism was involved. But then one of his teachers reported to him that Helen had ‘confessed’ the wrongdoing to her. The truth was that this manipulative teacher had twisted Helen’s words to make her sound guilty. It was enough, however, for Anagnos to turn against Helen, and his former star pupil, Anne Sullivan. He set up a formal hearing in which Helen was interrogated by an 8-member panel. It was one of the most terrifying experiences of the 11-year-old’s life. After a day of tough scrutiny, the panel was split down the middle as to whether deliberate plagiarism was involved. In the end, Anagnos split the stalemate, coming down on the side of Helen.

The Fisher King experience haunted Helen for many years to come. Whenever she wrote a sentence from then onwards, she would check it repeatedly to make sure that it was her own, original work.

The World At Large

In March, 1893, Anne and Helen attended the Presidential inauguration of Grover Cleveland. From there they went to Niagara Falls where Helen was astounded at the power of the vibrations caused by the massive pounding waters. They then went to Chicago to attend the World’s Fair. They were escorted by Alexander Graham Bell, who was featuring his telephone at the great exhibition. But the famous deaf-blind girl who had conquered her handicaps was just as much a drawcard as the renowned inventor.

The exhibition, which featured exhibits from all over the world, thrilled Helen. She was the only one of the millions of visitors who was allowed to run her hands over the exhibits. This gave her a far greater appreciation of the world round eher than anything she had read in books, wetting her appetite to learn more.

Higher Learning

At the age of 16, Helen began studying at the Cambridge School for Young Ladies, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was now in a class alongside and competing with, girls who could see and hear. Ann Sullivan attended every class alongside Helen, interpreting the lessons. She made rapid progress, completing her first year’s study with honors in German and English. In her second year, however, she struggled, especially at mathematics. The decision was made to withdraw her from the School and provide her with a private tutor. A year later she was ready to take the entrance exams for Radcliffe College, the women’s division of Harvard University. Passing with distinction, she became the first person with major disabilities to enter an institution of higher learning.

Helen found the pace at Radcliffe frenetic. Again she had Anne alongside to spell out the lessons on her fingers, but even she had difficulty keeping pace with the fast talking lecturers. Despite the harried pace, Helen did well, especially in English. During her second year her literacy teacher encouraged her to write her life story so that the world could get an insight into the struggles she had gone through.

Helen worked on the manuscript while also studying, which placed an almost intolerable strain on her. Finally, in March, 1903 The Story of My Life was published. Sales were slow at first but it has gone on to become a beloved classic and was recognized by the New York Public Library as one of the 100 most important books of the 20th Century. It was the first of 15 books that she would go on to write.

Helen graduated from Radcliffe on June 28, 1904 to become the first person with a serious disability to earn an undergraduate degree. She now found herself in demand for speaking engagements where people flocked to hear her inspirational story. In 1905, Anne Sullivan married John Macy, who had helped Helen publish her autobiography. The three of them lived under the same roof, with Macy and Helen developing a special bond.

Helen devoted the rest of her life to helping the blind. She wrote extensively on the subject and worked tirelessly for a uniform system of Braille. Along with Anne, and sometimes her mother Kate, she travelled internationally, giving lectures in sold out halls everywhere from Canada to Australia. When Anne died in 1936, former housemaid Polly Thomson became Helen’s constant companion. During World War Two, Helen was a ray of hope for the thousands of servicemen who were blinded or deafened in combat. During 1943, alone, she visited 70 army and naval hospitals up and down the United States.

In her later years, Helen Keller was widely regarded as the greatest living American woman. In 1964, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Four years later she suffered a heart attack. She died on June 1st, 1968 at her home in Westport, Connecticut. She was 87 years of age.

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Helen Keller

• Occupation: Activist
• Born: June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama
• Died: June 1, 1968 in Arcan Ridge, Easton, Connecticut
• Best known for: Accomplishing much despite being both deaf and blind.

• Annie Sullivan was often called the "Miracle Worker" for the way she was able to help Helen.
• Helen became very famous. She met with every President of the United States from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon Johnson . That's a lot of presidents!
• Helen starred in a movie about herself called Deliverance . Critics liked the movie, but not a lot of people went to see it.
• She loved dogs. They were a great source of joy to her.
• Helen became friends with famous people such as the inventor of the telephone Alexander Graham Bell and the author Mark Twain .
• She wrote a book titled Teacher about Annie Sullivan's life.
• Two films about Helen Keller won Academy Awards. One was a documentary called The Unconquered (1954) and the other was a drama called The Miracle Worker (1962) starring Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke.
• Listen to a recorded reading of this page:

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Past Factory

The Inspiring Life Of Helen Keller

Posted: April 1, 2024 | Last updated: April 2, 2024

Born in Alabama in 1880, Helen Keller faced adversity from an extremely young age after losing her sight and hearing. However, her devotion to learning, guidance from others, and commitment to activism helped her become one of the most influential individuals of the 20th century.

Her entire life is a testament to the strength of the human spirit, as she was able to accomplish much more than most people, without the use of sight and hearing. Take an in-depth look into the incredible life of Helen Keller and what she managed to achieve without the senses many of us take for granted. Keep reading to learn more.

She Wasn't Born Disabled

Born in 1880, Helen Keller wasn't born blind and deaf. However, she fell ill at just 19 months old with what the doctors called "acute congestion of the stomach and the brain." Today, she most likely would have been diagnosed with Scarlet Fever or Meningitis. While both could have been treated with modern medicine, back then, the consequences were usually severe.

After Keller's fever eventually broke, her mother began to notice that she was no longer responding to sounds. After waving a hand in front of her face, she came to the shocking realization that Keller had lost both her eyesight and hearing.

She Was Described As An Unruly Child

Considering her condition, as a young girl, Keller's behavior was often erratic and extreme. When angry, she would kick and scream in fits of rage, and if happy, would have uncontrollable laughing attacks. Many of her relatives believed that she should be placed in an institution.

As it turns out, this was due to her high intelligence paired with her inability to express herself, which became increasingly frustrating for her. She was so desperate to communicate that she had created her own form of sign language with her friend, Martha Washington. By the time she was seven, the two had invented more than 60 different signs.

She Claims Her Life Began When She Was Seven Years Old

Once Keller became involved with Anne Sullivan, her mentor, and teacher, she believed her life truly began. Anne came into Keller's life in 1887 when she was seven years old, and Anne was 21. Anne was also visually impaired and had just graduated from school. Anne then began teaching Keller how to fingerspell, so she would be able to communicate with other people.

At first, it was challenging for Keller, but things finally fell into place after Anne put Keller's hand under the water pump and spelled out "water" on her hand. Supposedly, by the end of the night, she had learned 30 different words.

Alexander Graham Bell Was A Part Of Her Life

When Keller was just six years old, her parents took her to see Julian John Chisolm, Professor of Diseases of the Eye and Ear at the University of Maryland. He recommended that they take her to see Alexander Graham Bell, a famous inventor credited with creating the first telephone.

Bell's wife was deaf and he had established several schools for the deaf as a result and taught deaf students as well. Bell suggested that her parents enroll her at the Perkins Institution for the Blind. It was there Keller first met Sullivan, and along with Bell, they remained friends until his death in 1922.

She Was Good Friends With Mark Twain

Keller met Mark Twain in 1895 as a teenager while attending Cambridge School for Young Ladies. The two met for lunch in New York with her recalling that he "treated me not as a freak, but as a handicapped woman seeking a way to circumvent extraordinary difficulties." The two bonded over similar political views and ideologies, as well as the fact that Twain had a daughter the same age as Keller.

Twain helped convince industrialist Henry Huttleston Rogers to pay for her education and was openly amazed by the work Anne Sullivan had managed to accomplish.

She Was The First Blind And Deaf Person To Graduate College

In 1900, Keller was accepted into the renown Radcliff College in Cambridge. Anne was accepted as well so she could attend her classes and help her along the way. Before entering school, she had learned to read peoples' lips using her fingers, as well as braille, typing, and finger spelling. Keller had also learned to speak although not as well as she would have liked.

By her junior year, she had written her autobiography, The Story of My Life. By 1904, not only had she written a book, but she also graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, making her the first blind and deaf student to ever attain a college degree.

She Was A Member Of the Socialist Party

Even though her father had been a captain in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, Keller's own beliefs were almost completely opposite. She became increasingly involved in politics and was a member of the Socialist Party, helping to found the American Civil Liberties Union or ACLU.

She had ultra far-left views and at one point, she was even under investigation by the FBI. Keller is known for her work regarding women's suffrage, worker's rights, and birth control. She also wrote essays about her admiration of Vladimir Lenin and his Socialistic ideals.

She Fell In Love With Her Secretary

In 1916, when Keller was 36 years old, she fell in love with Peter Fagan, a former newspaper reporter. Seven years her junior, Fagan was working as her temporary secretary during a period when Sullivan was sick. Fagan returned the feelings to Keller, and the two secretly became engaged and even took out a marriage license.

However, upon discovering their secret engagement, Keller's family forbade the marriage on account of her disabilities. Throughout her life, not marrying was one of her biggest regrets.

She Was The First Person To Bring The Akita Breed To The US

In the 1930s, Keller was touring around Japan visiting schools and making public appearances. She was a known animal lover, and a Japanese police officer gave her an Akita named Kamikaze-Go as a present. She immediately bonded with the dog, who unfortunately passed away not long before she returned to the United States.

Hearing that her dog died, the Japanese government gifted her another dog from the same litter and shipped it to the United States. This made Keller the first person to bring the dog breed into the U.S. After World War II, she returned to Japan once again to visit the disabled in military hospitals.

She Was Named The Eighth Wonder of The World

While Keller and Sullivan had become widely known to the public, they weren't making a comfortable living based on their earnings from Keller's lectures and writings. So, during the 1920s, the duo spent four years on the vaudeville circuit.

During that time, Keller would discuss her life and host Q&A sessions where audiences could ask questions and Sullivan would translate. People couldn't fathom the hardships she had managed to overcome.

She's An Oscar Winner

In 1919, Keller starred in Deliverance, a film about herself. During that time, she became friendly with many Hollywood A-listers such as Charlie Chapman and other prominent individuals in the media industry. In 1955, at the age of 75, Keller accepted an Academy Award for the documentary about her life titled Helen Keller: In Her Story.

Of course, depictions of her life didn't stop there. The William Gibson play The Miracle Worker won the Pulitzer Prize in 1960 and was turned into a film two years later. Anne Bancroft won Best Actress for her performance as Sullivan, and Patty Duke won Best Supporting Actress for playing Keller.

Her Likeness Is On A US Quarter

In 2003, as part of the 50 state quarters program, Keller's image was printed on the Alabama State quarter. On the quarter, Keller is depicted sitting in a rocking chair while reading a book in braille.

The coin was introduced in March 2003, with her name printed on the quarter in typical lettering as well as braille. Beneath the image of her is the phrase "Spirit of Courage." These coins were produced for just ten weeks and are now considered a collector's item.

Many Of Her Archives Were Destroyed

Although there is still a substantial amount of footage of Keller, as well as her works, there used to be much more. Unfortunately, much of her archival footage and other material was stored at the World Trade Center.

During the attack on September 11, almost all of it was lost in the destruction of the towers. Furthermore, the offices of Helen Keller Worldwide were located just a block away from the World Trade Centers, and they too were also destroyed in the wake of the attacks.

She Travelled Extensively

In 1946, Keller was appointed counselor of international relations for the American Foundation of Overseas Blind. In total, she went to 39 different countries throughout her life.

During her travels, she made it a point to advocate for educational policies for the disabled to the many world leaders that she encountered. She also particularly fell in love with the Middle East.

Keller And Sullivan Were Inseparable

From the time that Keller met Sullivan when she was just seven years old, the two became inseparable for the rest of their lives. Most likely, Keller would have been institutionalized without the help of Sullivan, who was there for her every step of the way. They spent their lives together from attending college, traveling the world, and leaving lasting impressions on people around the world.

When Sullivan passed away in 1936, Keller was next to her, holding her hand. Keller notes that the moment she met Sullivan was when her "soul was born." The two women are buried side-by-side at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

She Was Nominated For The Nobel Peace Prize

In 1952, Keller visited the Middle East where she met with political leaders about the rights of the blind and the disabled. In Egypt, she managed to convince the Minister of Education to establish secondary schools for the blind that would aid in them receiving college educations.

In Israel, Jerusalem's Helen Keller School was named in her honor. For her work, in 1953, Keller was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. However, the award went to George Catlett Marshall for his post-war work after World War II.

She Has An Impressive List Of Awards And Accolades

For a lifetime of hard work and activism, Keller was recognized on numerous occasions. In 1936 she received the Theodore Roosevelt Distinguished Sevice Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964, and election to the Women's Hall of Fame in 1965.

Moreover, Keller received honorary doctoral degrees from several universities both at home and abroad including Harvard University. She continued to be honored after her death in 1968, appearing on Time's 1999 list of the 100 most important figures of the 20th century, among other recognitions.

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