However, you might not know that she was a suffragist, learned to actually speak, was once engaged to be married, and she did a 40,mile trek across Asia at the age of Her story is as fascinating as her personal challenges. Helen Keller was born in , and until she was a happy, healthy child in Tuscumbia, Alabama. When she was 19 months-old, she developed a brain fever that took away her ability to see and hear. Prior to meeting her teacher Anne Sullivan, Helen worked to feel and smell her world.
Naturally, she became frustrated with her lack of communication, which would lead to tantrums. Not knowing rules of etiquette, Helen would eat from the plates of others and throw things to get her way. While many think Helen was not able to communicate prior to studying under Anne, Helen did use a primitive communication technique.
She used a simple sign language that consisted of 60 signs with her family members and her companion, Martha Washington, who was the child of her family's cook. In addition to her friend Martha, Helen's dog Belle , an old setter, was also a constant companion to her.
She enjoyed Belle's presence because of the dog's excitement as well as her calm nature. Helen was the first child to Arthur and Kate Keller. Her father, Arthur Keller , was not only a distant cousin to Robert E. Lee, but he served in the Confederate Army. After the war, he was an editor for the North Alabamian. Before meeting Helen's mother, he was married to Sarah E. Rosser, who had passed away. He later married Kate in A strong, loving man with an affinity for hunting and fishing, Arthur searched far and wide to help find Helen treatment during her younger years.
Both Simpson and James Keller were Arthur's children from his first marriage. 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. From a very young age, Helen was determined to go to college. She entered Radcliffe in the fall of and received a Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude in , 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 , at which time Polly Thomson took over the task.
Polly had joined Helen and Anne in as a secretary. While still a student at Radcliffe, Helen began a writing career that was to continue throughout her life. In , 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. In addition, she was a frequent contributor to magazines and newspapers. The Helen Keller Archives contain over 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 saw herself as a writer first—her passport listed her profession as "author. 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. 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 joined AFB in 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. By age 7, Keller had developed nearly 60 hand gestures to communicate with her parents and ask for things. With the help of her teacher, Anne Sullivan, Keller learned the manual alphabet and could communicate by finger spelling.
After her college education, she began working extensively in causes for the blind all over the world. She made many tours and held fund-raising benefits for the American Foundation for the Blind. During and after World War II, she was untiring in her efforts to aid blinded veterans, orphans, and refugees. 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.
Teacher Author Peace activist. Helen Keller wanted to go to college. And not just any college, Keller wanted to go to Harvard. But it was the s and Harvard didn't accept women, so Keller focused on her second choice, Radcliffe College. People said to her, "'No deaf-blind person has ever taken a college course,'…. She didn't know then that she was going blind and deaf, that she suffered from an extremely rare disease called Usher syndrome , for which there is little research and no cure.
Keller , too, was born with hearing and sight; in , at 19 months old, she was ravaged by an unknown illness that robbed her of both senses. Both women are wearing embroidered and beaded evening wear.
Helen's dress is sleeveless and appears to have a scooped neck. The light-colored dress is highly decorated to the waist and then falls in layers of organza-like fabric with a few vertical sections around the skirt that repeat the pattern of the bodice.
In the dark Alabama night, the young woman waited on the porch, holding her packed bag. Twice before, her attempts to marry her boyfriend , Peter Fagan, had been thwarted by teachers and family. This was the couple's third try. 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 , Keller was appointed counselor of international relations for the American Foundation of Overseas Blind. Between and , she traveled to 35 countries on five continents. In , at age 75, Keller embarked on the longest and most grueling trip of her life: a 40,mile, five-month trek across Asia. Through her many speeches and appearances, she brought inspiration and encouragement to millions of people. The two actresses also performed those roles in the award-winning film version of the play.
During her lifetime, she received many honors in recognition of her accomplishments, including the Theodore Roosevelt Distinguished Service Medal in , the Presidential Medal of Freedom in , and election to the Women's Hall of Fame in Keller died in her sleep on June 1, , just a few weeks before her 88th birthday. Keller suffered a series of strokes in 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. We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives.
Helen Hayes was an American actress best known for being one of two women to have received all four entertainment awards: an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony. Anne Sullivan was a teacher who taught Helen Keller, who was deaf, mute, and blind, how to communicate and read Braille. Clara Barton was an educator, nurse and founder of the American Red Cross. Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist who refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama.
Her defiance sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Mother Teresa was the founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic congregation of women dedicated to helping the poor. Considered one of the 20th Century's greatest humanitarians, she was canonized as Saint Teresa of Calcutta in 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.
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