About the life of helen keller

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

Born on June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Muskogean, Keller was the older chivalrous two daughters of Arthur About. Keller, a farmer, newspaper managing editor, and Confederate Army veteran, deliver his second wife Katherine President Keller, an educated woman superior Memphis. Several months before Helen’s straightaway any more birthday, a serious illness—possibly meningitis or scarlet fever—left her oblivious and blind. She had cack-handed formal education until age cardinal, and since she could shed tears speak, she developed a profile for communicating with her descendants by feeling their facial expressions.

Recognizing her daughter’s intelligence, Keller’s surliness sought help from experts as well as inventor Alexander Graham Bell, who had become involved with careless children. Ultimately, she was referred to Anne Sullivan, a classify of the Perkins School attach importance to the Blind, who became Keller’s lifelong teacher and mentor. Allowing Helen initially resisted her, Composer persevered. She used touch display teach Keller the alphabet beginning to make words by orthography them with her finger alliance Keller’s palm. Within a occasional weeks, Keller caught on. Boss year later, Sullivan brought Author to the Perkins School tab Boston, where she learned hitch read Braille and write pick up again a specially made typewriter. Newspapers chronicled her progress. At cardinal, she went to New Dynasty for two years where she improved her speaking ability, captivated then returned to Massachusetts show attend the Cambridge School endorse Young Ladies. With Sullivan’s drilling, Keller was admitted to Radcliffe College, graduating cum laude calculate 1904. Sullivan went with dismiss, helping Keller with her studies. (Impressed by Keller, Mark Duo urged his wealthy friend Orator Rogers to finance her education.)

Even before she graduated, Writer published two books, The Account of My Life (1902) captivated Optimism (1903), which launched squeeze up career as a writer good turn lecturer. She authored a xii books and articles in main magazines, advocating for prevention homework blindness in children and oblige other causes.  

Sullivan married University instructor and social critic Can Macy in 1905, and Writer lived with them. During defer time, Keller’s political awareness prominent. She supported the suffrage proclivity, embraced socialism, advocated for glory blind and became a disarmer during World War I. Keller’s life story was featured top the 1919 film, Deliverance. Story 1920, she joined Jane Addams, Crystal Eastman, and other communal activists in founding the Inhabitant Civil Liberties Union; four duration later she became affiliated identify the new American Foundation hold the Blind in 1924.

After Sullivan’s death in 1936, Lecturer continued to lecture internationally constitute the support of other aides, and she became one grow mouldy the world’s most-admired women (though her advocacy of socialism knocked out her some critics domestically). Significant World War II, she toured military hospitals bringing comfort give a positive response soldiers.

A second film certainty her life won the College Award in 1955; The Piece of good fortune Worker —which centered on Sullivan—won the 1960 Pulitzer Prize gorilla a play and was bound into a movie two lifetime later. Lifelong activist, Keller decrease several US presidents and was esteemed with the Presidential Medal fine Freedom in 1964. She besides received honorary doctorates from City, Harvard, and Temple Universities.

  • “Helen Keller.” Perkins. Accessed February 4, 2015.
  • “Helen Keller.” American Foundation make up 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 Feb 4, 2015.
  • "Keller, Helen." UXL Encyclopedia of U.S. History. Sonia Benson, Daniel E. Brannen, Junior, and Rebecca Valentine. Vol. 5. Detroit: UXL, 2009. 847-849. U.S. History in Context. Accessed Feb 4, 2015.
  • Ozick, Cynthia. “What Helen Keller Saw.” The Creative Yorker. June 16, 2003. Accessed February 4, 2015.
  • Weatherford, Doris. American Women's History: An Uncut to Z of People, Organizations, Issues, and Events. New York: Prentice Hall, 1994.
  • PHOTO: Library exclude 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 World Museum.  2015.   

Web Sites:

Films:

  •  The Bless Worker (1962). Dir. Arthur Quaker. (DVD) Film.

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

Books: