Helen Adams Keller was born at an estate called lvy Green in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on June 27, 1880, to captain Arthur H. Keller and Kate Adams Keller. The Keller family originates from Germany. Helen Keller was not born blind and deaf. It was not until she was nineteen months old. To this day the nature of her ailment remains a mastery the doctors of the time called it "brain fever", whilst modern day doctors think it may have been scarlet fever or meningitis. The illness did not last for a particularly long time, but it left her deaf and blind. At that time, her only communication partner was Martha Washington, the six-year-old daughter of the family cook, who was able to creates sign language with her, by the age of seven, she had over sixty home signs to communicate with her family. According to Soviet blind-deaf psychologist A. Meshcheryakov, Martha's friendship and teaching was crucial for Helen's later developments.
In 1886, Helen's mother inspired by an account in Charles Dicken's American Notes of the successful education of another deaf and blind child. She was consulted with an eye, ear, nose, and throat specialist in Baltimore who advised her to keep in touch with Alexander Graham Bell, Who was working with deaf children at the time. Bell advised to be admitted in Perkins Institute for the Blind where she met Anne Sullivan, a former student of this institute who brought a drastic change in her life. In May, 1888, Keller attended the Perkins Institute for the Blind. In 1894, Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan moved to New York to attend the Wright-Humason School for the deaf and Horace Mann School for the Deaf. In 1896, they returned to Massachusetts and Keller entered The Cambridge School for Young Ladies in 1900 to Radcliffe College. In 1904, at the age of 24, Keller graduated from Radcliffe, becoming the first deaf blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Anne Sullivan arrived at Keller's house in March 1887, and immediately began to teach Helen to communicate by spelling words into her hand, beginning with d-o-l-l for the doll that she had brought Keller as a present. Keller's big breakthrough in communication came in April the same years, when she realized that the motions her teacher was making on the palm of her hand, while running cool water over her other hand, symbolized the names of all the other familiar objects in her world. Later Keller learned Braille and used it to read not only English but also French, German, Greek, and Latin.
Keller went on to became a world-famous speaker and author. She is remembered as an advocate for people with disabilities amid numerous other causes. she was a suffragist, a pacifist, a radical socialist, and a birth control supporter. In 1915, Helen Keller and George kessler founded the Helen Keller International (HKI) organization. This organization is devoted to research in vision, health and nutrition. In 1920, she helped to found the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Keller and Sullivan traveled to over 39 countries collecting the funds for the disabled. Keller was a member of the Socialist Party and actively campaigned and wrote in support of the working classes.
Keller published so many books including her world inspiring autobiography. The Frost King (1891), The Story of My Life (1903), The World I Live In (1908), Out of the Dark (1913), Light in my Darkness (1927), etc. are some of the examples which really shook the world.
But the year 1936 became the year of great loss to Keller. she lost her light of life, feet of the world and the voice of the world Anne Sullivan. She suffered for long on her loss but remembered her traveling worldwide raising fund for the blind. She suffered a series of strokes in 1961 and spent the last years of her life at her home. Keller devoted much of her later life to raise funds for the American foundation for the Blind. She died in her sleep on June 1, 1968 at her home. Arcan Ridge, located in Easton, Connecticut. A service was held in her honor at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. and her ashes were placed there next to her constant companions, Anne Sullivan and Polly Thompson.
she was credited with great honor by the world. On September 14, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Helen Keller the Presidential Medal of freedom, one of the United states' highest two civilian honors. In 1965 she was elected to the National Women's Hall of Fame at the New York World's Fair. There made a numerous documentaries, films, stories, theatrical performances relating her biography and works. In 1999, Keller was listed in Gallup's Most Widely admired People of the 20th Century. In 2003, Alabama honored its native daughter on its state quarter. The Helen Keller Hospital in Sheffield, Alabama is dedicated to her. There is a street named after Helen Keller in Getafe, Spain.
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