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Helen Keller (1880–1968) was a suffragist, pacifist, and lifelong advocate for people with disabilities. Keller became deaf and blind as the result of illness at the age of 19 months.
Mar 14, 2024 · On June 28, 1904, Helen Keller —deaf and blind since an illness at just 19 months old—graduates cum laude from Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Keller becomes the first...
- Missy Sullivan
- Who Was Helen Keller?
- Early Life and Family
- Loss of Sight and Hearing
- Keller's Teacher, Anne Sullivan
- Education
- 'The Story of My Life'
- Social Activism
- 'The Miracle Worker' Movie
- Awards and Honors
- Death
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 ...
Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Keller was the first of two daughters born to Arthur H. Keller and Katherine Adams Keller. Keller's father had served as an officer in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. She also had two older stepbrothers. The family was not particularly wealthy and earned income from their cotton pl...
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 br...
Keller worked with her teacher Anne Sullivanfor 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...
In 1890, Keller began speech classes at the Horace MannSchool 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 subj...
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.
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 w...
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.
During her lifetime, she received many honors in recognition of her accomplishments, including the Theodore RooseveltDistinguished 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 t...
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...
After an education at both specialist and mainstream schools, Keller attended Radcliffe College of Harvard University and became the first deafblind person in the United States to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard College. Radcliffe College was one of the Seven Sisters colleges. For the first 70 years of its existence, Radcliffe conferred undergraduate and graduate degrees.
May 28, 2024 · Helen Keller (born June 27, 1880, Tuscumbia, Alabama, U.S.—died June 1, 1968, Westport, Connecticut) was an American author and educator who was blind and deaf. Her education and training represent an extraordinary accomplishment in the education of persons with these disabilities.
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Thanks to Sullivan’s care and her student’s own persistence, Keller thrived, going on to graduate from Radcliffe College at age 24. Sullivan “first disciplined [Keller] into docility, then won...
