Helen Keller

Lore & Background

Keller was born Helen Adams Keller on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama, the daughter of Arthur Henley Keller and Catherine Everett Keller. She had four siblings. Her father worked as an editor and served as a captain in the Confederate Army. At 19 months old, Keller contracted an unknown illness described by doctors as 'an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain'. She was left permanently blind and deaf. By age seven, she had more than 60 home signs. In 1886, her mother consulted physician J. Julian Chisholm, who referred them to Alexander Graham Bell. Bell advised contacting the Perkins Institute for the Blind, which sent Anne Sullivan to teach Keller. Sullivan arrived on March 5, 1887. Keller's breakthrough came when she realized the motions for 'water' symbolized the idea. She attended Perkins Institute, the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf, and The Cambridge School for Young Ladies before entering Radcliffe College in 1900. She graduated in 1904, becoming the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. She learned to speak using the Tadoma method and used braille and fingerspelling. Anne Sullivan married John Macy in 1905. Polly Thomson was hired as a housekeeper and later became a constant companion. Keller had a love affair and became secretly engaged to Peter Fagan. Sullivan died in 1936. Thomson died in 1960.

Reader's Guide

Keller was a prolific author, writing 14 books and hundreds of speeches and essays on topics ranging from animals to Mahatma Gandhi. She campaigned for those with disabilities and for women's suffrage, labor rights, and world peace. In 1909, she joined the Socialist Party of America. She was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union. Her autobiography, The Story of My Life (1903), publicized her education and life with Sullivan. The playwright William Gibson wrote a theatrical adaptation, The Miracle Worker, in 1959, which he adapted as a film in 1962. Her birthplace has been designated and preserved as a National Historic Landmark. Since 1954, it has been operated as a house museum and sponsors an annual 'Helen Keller Day'.

Did You Know?

• Keller was the first deafblind person in the United States to earn a college diploma.
• She learned to 'hear' speech by placing her fingers on the lips and throat of the speaker, a method called Tadoma.
• Keller had a love affair and attempted to elope with Peter Fagan, a young reporter.
• Her birthplace, Ivy Green, has been a house museum since 1954 and sponsors an annual 'Helen Keller Day'.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American writer and social activist; an illness (possibly scarlet fever or meningitis) at the age of 19 months left her deaf and blind." — Helen Keller "One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar." — Helen Keller "The bulk of the world's knowledge is an imaginary construction." — Helen Keller "The World I live in (1910) chapter 8, The Five-sensed World Quoted in: (2002) "The World I live in". Organization & Environment 15 (3): 289." — Helen Keller