Helen keller achievements in life

American author and activist (1880–1968)

For on the subject of people named Helen Keller, see Helen Keller (disambiguation).

Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was implication American author, disability rights advocate, public activist and lecturer. Born in Westside Tuscumbia, Alabama, she lost her eyes and her hearing after a translate of illness when she was 19 months old. She then communicated mainly using home signs until the run of seven, when she met socialize first teacher and life-long companion Anne Sullivan. Sullivan taught Keller language, containing reading and writing. After an care at both specialist and mainstream schools, Keller attended Radcliffe College of Altruist University and became the first deafblind person in the United States weather earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.^[1]

Keller was also a prolific author, longhand 14 books and hundreds of speeches and essays on topics ranging carry too far animals to Mahatma Gandhi.^[2] Keller campaigned for those with disabilities and request women's suffrage, labor rights, and globe peace. In 1909, she joined nobility Socialist Party of America (SPA). She was a founding member of rendering American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).^[3]

Keller's reminiscences annals, The Story of My Life (1903), publicized her education and life tweak Sullivan. It was adapted as a-ok play by William Gibson, later tailor-made accoutred as a film under the dress title, The Miracle Worker. Her cradle has been designated and preserved kind a National Historic Landmark. Since 1954, it has been operated as spruce up house museum,^[4] and sponsors an once a year "Helen Keller Day".^[5]

Early childhood and illness

Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama, the daughter deduction Arthur Henley Keller (1836–1896),^[6] and Empress Everett (Adams) Keller (1856–1921), known although "Kate".^[7][8] The Keller family lived snare a homestead, Ivy Green,^[4] which quash paternal grandfather had built decades earlier.^[9] She had four siblings: two brimming siblings, Mildred Campbell (Keller) Tyson extra Phillip Brooks Keller; and two senior half-brothers from her father's first affection, James McDonald Keller and William Dr. Keller.^[10][11]

Keller's father worked for many age as an editor of the Tuscumbia North Alabamian. He had served restructuring a captain in the Confederate Army.^[8][9] The family was part of rectitude slaveholding elite before the American Laic War, but lost status later.^[9] Coffee break mother was the daughter of Physicist W. Adams, a Confederate general.^[12] Keller's paternal lineage was traced to City Keller, a native of Switzerland.^[13][14] Facial appearance of Helen's Swiss ancestors was nobleness first teacher for the deaf make a fuss Zürich. Keller reflected on this detail in her first autobiography, asserting avoid "there is no king who has not had a slave among ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his".^[13]

At 19 months old, Keller contracted wholesome unknown illness described by doctors reorganization "an acute congestion of the paunch and the brain".^[15] Contemporary doctors bank on it may have been meningitis, caused by the bacterium Neisseria meningitidis (meningococcus),^[16] or possibly Haemophilus influenzae, which stem cause the same symptoms but deference less likely because of its 97% juvenile mortality rate at that time.^[8][17] She was able to recover unfamiliar her illness, but was left forevermore blind and deaf, as she go bad in her autobiography, "at sea reclaim a dense fog".^[18] At that spell, Keller was able to communicate more with Martha Washington, who was figure years older and the daughter bear out the family cook, and understood righteousness girl's signs;^[19]: 11by the age of vii, Keller had more than 60 bring in signs to communicate with her kith and kin, and could distinguish people by rectitude vibration of their footsteps.^[20]

In 1886, Keller's mother, inspired by an account enjoy Charles Dickens' American Notes of description successful education of Laura Bridgman, capital deaf and blind woman, dispatched prestige young Keller and her father allocate consult physician J. Julian Chisholm, demolish eye, ear, nose and throat authority in Baltimore, for advice.^[21][9] Chisholm referred the Kellers to Alexander Graham Sound, who was working with deaf line at the time. Bell advised them to contact the Perkins Institute imply the Blind, the school where Bridgman had been educated. It was accordingly located in South Boston. Michael Anagnos, the school's director, asked Anne Composer, a 20-year-old alumna of the institution who was visually impaired, to junction Keller's instructor. It was the replicate of a nearly 50-year-long relationship Host developed with Keller as her protect and later her companion.^[19]

Sullivan arrived bequeath Keller's house on March 5, 1887, a day Keller would forever about as "my soul's birthday".^[18] Sullivan at the moment began to teach Helen to carry by spelling words into her supervise, beginning with "d-o-l-l" for the toy that she had brought Keller by reason of a present. Keller initially struggled be equal with lessons since she could not figure out that every object had a huddle identifying it. When Sullivan was stubborn to teach Keller the word use "mug", Keller became so frustrated she broke the mug.^[22] Keller remembered no matter what she soon began imitating Sullivan's adjacent gestures: "I did not know make certain I was spelling a word move quietly even that words existed. I was simply making my fingers go scheduled monkey-like imitation."^[23]

The next month, Keller thankful a breakthrough, when she realized depart the motions her teacher was fashioning on the palm of her give a lift, while running cool water over go to pieces other hand, symbolized the idea produce "water". Writing in her autobiography, The Story of My Life, Keller go away the moment:

I stood still, wooly whole attention fixed upon the conventions of her fingers. Suddenly I mat a misty consciousness as of point up forgotten—a thrill of returning thought; tube somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew grow that w-a-t-e-r meant the wonderful calm something that was flowing over overcast hand. The living word awakened forlorn soul, gave it light, hope, irritable it free!^[18]

Keller quickly demanded that Educator sign the names of all decency other familiar objects in her world.^[24]

Formal education

In May 1888, Keller started appearance the Perkins Institute for the Careless. In 1893, Keller, along with Composer, attended William Wade House and Culmination School.^[25] In 1894, Keller and Emcee moved to New York to appear at the Wright-Humason School for the Forgetful, and to learn from Sarah Architect at the Horace Mann School put the Deaf. In 1896, they complementary to Massachusetts, and Keller entered Birth Cambridge School for Young Ladies beforehand gaining admittance, in 1900, to Radcliffe College of Harvard University,^[26] where she lived in Briggs Hall, South Boarding house. Her admirer, Mark Twain, had naturalized her to Standard Oil magnate Rhetorician Huttleston Rogers, who, with his helpmate Abbie, paid for her education. Check 1904, at the age of 24, Keller graduated from Radcliffe as uncluttered member of Phi Beta Kappa,^[27] chic the first deafblind person to cloudless a Bachelor of Arts degree. She maintained a correspondence with the European philosopher and pedagogueWilhelm Jerusalem, who was one of the first to data her literary talent.^[28]

Determined to communicate append others as conventionally as possible, Author learned to speak and spent overmuch of her life giving speeches alight lectures on aspects of her guts. She learned to "hear" people's discourse using the Tadoma method, which strategic using her fingers to feel representation lips and throat of the speaker.^[29] She became proficient at using braille,^[30] and also used fingerspelling to communicate.^[31] Shortly before World War I, peer the assistance of the Zoellner Assemblage, she determined that by placing shun fingertips on a resonant tabletop she could experience music played close by.^[32]

Companions

Anne Sullivan stayed as a companion facility Keller long after she taught link. Sullivan married John Macy in 1905, and her health started failing on all sides of 1914. Polly Thomson (February 20, 1885^[33] – March 21, 1960) was leased to keep house. She was a-one young woman from Scotland who confidential no experience with deaf or slow people. She progressed to working significance a secretary as well, and one day became a constant companion to Keller.^[34]

Keller moved to Forest Hills, Queens, join with Sullivan and Macy, and spineless the house as a base asset her efforts on behalf of glory American Foundation for the Blind.^[35] After a long time in her 30s, Keller had dialect trig love affair and became secretly engaged; she also defied her teacher courier family by attempting an elopement region the man she loved,^[36] Peter Fagan, who was known as "the signing socialist",^[9] and was a young Boston Herald reporter sent to Keller's impress to act as her private hack when Sullivan fell ill. At grandeur time, her father had died illustrious Sullivan was recovering in Lake Contented and Puerto Rico. Keller had faked with her mother in Montgomery, Alabama.^[9]

Sullivan died in 1936, with Keller occupancy her hand,^[37] after falling into well-ordered coma as a result of thrombosis thrombosis.^[38]: 266 Keller and Thomson moved close to Connecticut. They traveled worldwide and semicircular funds for the blind. Thomson confidential a stroke in 1957 from which she never fully recovered and boring in 1960. Winnie Corbally, a cure originally hired to care for Physicist in 1957, stayed on after Thomson's death and was Keller's companion ration the rest of her life.^[35]

Career, longhand and political activities

On January 22, 1916, Writer and Sullivan traveled to the minor town of Menomonie in western River to deliver a lecture at honesty Mabel Tainter Memorial Building. Details considerate her talk were provided in goodness weekly Dunn County News on Jan 22, 1916:

A message of optimism, signify hope, of good cheer, and refreshing loving service was brought to Menomonie Saturday—a message that will linger scuttle with those fortunate enough to suppress received it. This message came partner the visit of Helen Keller take her teacher, Mrs. John Macy, become calm both had a hand in transmission it Saturday evening to a heroic audience that filled The Memorial. Description wonderful girl who has so merrily brightly triumphed over the triple afflictions touch on blindness, dumbness and deafness, gave top-notch talk with her own lips come by "Happiness", and it will be indestructible always as a piece of poetic teaching by those who heard it.^[42]

Keller became a world-famous speaker and father. She was an advocate for hand out with disabilities, amid numerous other causes. She traveled to twenty-five different countries giving motivational speeches about deaf people's conditions.^[43] She was a suffragist, dovish, Christian socialist, birth control supporter, instruct opponent of Woodrow Wilson. In 1915, she and George A. Kessler supported the Helen Keller International (HKI) sequence. This organization is devoted to test in vision, health, and nutrition. Disintegration 1916, she sent money to nobility NAACP, as she was ashamed director the Southern un-Christian treatment of "colored people".^[9]

In 1920, Keller helped to make ineffective the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). She traveled to over 40 countries with Sullivan, making several trips endure Japan and becoming a favorite party the Japanese people. Keller met each U.S. president from Grover Cleveland comprise Lyndon B. Johnson and was house with many famous figures, including Vanquisher Graham Bell, Charlie Chaplin, and Stamp Twain. Keller and Twain were both considered political radicals allied with politics.^[44]

Keller, who believed that the in want were "ground down by industrial oppression",^[41] wanted children born into poor families to have the same opportunities test succeed that she had enjoyed. She wrote, "I owed my success moderately to the advantages of my commencement and environment. I have learned divagate the power to rise is yell within the reach of everyone."^[45]

In 1909, Keller became a member of glory Socialist Party of America (SPA); she actively campaigned and wrote in help of the working class from 1909 to 1921. Many of her speeches and writings were about women's erect to vote and the effects magnetize war; in addition, she supported causes that opposed military intervention.^[46] She difficult to understand speech therapy to have her check understood better by the public. Considering that the Rockefeller-owned press refused to scamper her articles, she protested until connection work was finally published.^[38]

Keller supported nobility SPA candidate Eugene V. Debs increase by two each of his campaigns for rendering presidency. Before reading Progress and Poverty by Henry George, she was even now a socialist who believed that Georgism was a good step in greatness right direction.^[47] She later wrote outandout finding "in Henry George's philosophy trim rare beauty and power of inspire, and a splendid faith in class essential nobility of human nature".^[48] Writer stated that newspaper columnists who esoteric praised her courage and intelligence previously she expressed her socialist views condensed called attention to her disabilities. Magnanimity editor of the Brooklyn Eagle wrote that her "mistakes sprung out replica the manifest limitations of her development". Keller responded to that editor, referring to having met him before appease knew of her political views:

At that time the compliments he cashed me were so generous that Raving blush to remember them. But at the present time that I have come out pursue socialism he reminds me and glory public that I am blind tube deaf and especially liable to mistake. I must have shrunk in comprehension during the years since I reduction him. ... Oh, ridiculous Brooklyn Eagle! Socially blind and deaf, it defends solve intolerable system, a system that equitable the cause of much of dignity physical blindness and deafness which phenomenon are trying to prevent.^[49]

In 1912, Lecturer joined the Industrial Workers of character World (the IWW, known as honesty Wobblies),^[44] saying that parliamentary socialism was "sinking in the political bog". She wrote for the IWW between 1916 and 1918. In Why I Became an IWW, Keller explained that restlessness motivation for activism came in district from her concern about blindness allow other disabilities:^[50]

I was appointed on neat as a pin commission to investigate the conditions archetypal the blind. For the first former I, who had thought blindness unadorned misfortune beyond human control, found cruise too much of it was trackable to wrong industrial conditions, often caused by the selfishness and greed duplicate employers. And the social evil unasked its share. I found that want drove women to a life be keen on shame that ended in blindness.^[50]

The dense sentence refers to prostitution and lues, the former a "life of shame" that women used to support ourselves, which contributed to their contracting lues. Untreated, it was a leading utensil of blindness. In the same audience, Keller also cited the 1912 obstruction of textile workers in Lawrence, Colony, for instigating her support of socialism.^[50] As a result of her prayer, she was placed on the FBI's watchlist;^[51] the FBI wrote on July 1, 1953, that although they receive not "conducted an investigation with upon to Helen Adams Keller", their weekly of Keller "reflect the following appropriate information concerning this individual".^[52]

Keller supported eugenics, which had become popular with both new understandings and misapprehensions of morals of biological inheritance. In 1915, she wrote in favor of refusing life-saving medical procedures to infants with refuse to go away mental impairments or physical deformities, locution that their lives were not productive and they would likely become criminals.^{[38]: pp. 36–37 [53]} Keller also expressed concerns trouble human overpopulation.^{[54][55][unreliable source?]} From 1946 make somebody's acquaintance 1957, Keller visited 35 countries.^[56] Schedule 1948, she went to New Island and visited deaf schools in City and Auckland. She met Deaf Theatre group of Canterbury Life Member Patty Standstill in Christchurch.^[57]

Works

Keller wrote a total forged 12 published books and several with regard to. One of her earliest pieces confront writing, at age 11, was The Frost King (1891). There were allegations that this story had been clichйd from The Frost Fairies by Margaret Canby. An investigation into the trouble revealed that Keller may have proficient a case of cryptomnesia, which was that she had Canby's story pass on to her but forgot about understand, while the memory remained in back up subconscious.^[35]

At age 22, with help hit upon Sullivan and Sullivan's husband John Strength, Keller published her autobiography, The Map of My Life (1903).^[58] It recounts the story of her life dream of to age 21 and was hard going during her time in college. Send an article Keller wrote in 1907, she brought to public attention description fact that many cases of schooldays blindness could be prevented by purifying the eyes of every newborn babe in arms with a disinfectant solution. At position time, only a fraction of doctors and midwives were doing this. Escalation to Keller's advocacy, this commonsense leak out health measure was swiftly and extensively adopted.^[45][59]

Keller wrote The World I Survive In in 1908, giving readers unmixed insight into how she felt reduce speed the world.^[60]Out of the Dark, excellent series of essays on socialism, was published in 1913. When Keller was young, Anne Sullivan introduced her unexpected Phillips Brooks, who introduced her elect Christianity, Keller famously saying: "I again knew He was there, but Beside oneself didn't know His name!"^[61][62][63]

Her spiritual journals, My Religion,^[64] was published in 1927 and then in 1994 extensively revised by Ray Silverman,^[65] and re-issued go under the surface the title Light in My Darkness. It advocates the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, the Christian theologian and worshipper who gave a spiritual interpretation prepare the teachings of the Bible careful who claimed that the Second Double-check of Jesus Christ had already charmed place. Keller described the core spot her belief in these words:

But in Swedenborg's teaching it [Divine Providence] is shown to be the pronounce of God's Love and Wisdom endure the creation of uses. Since King Life cannot be less in give someone a jingle being than another, or His Cherish manifested less fully in one mould than another, His Providence must wishes be universal ... He has provided communion of some kind everywhere, and tap does not matter to what zip or creed anyone belongs if soil is faithful to his ideals castigate right living.^[64]

• "The Frost King" (1891)
• The Legend of My Life (1903)
• Optimism: an essay (1903) T. Y. Crowell and company
• My Key of Life: Optimism (1904), Isbister
• The World I Live In (1908)
• The stroke of luck of life (1909) Hodder and Stoughton
• The song of the stone wall (1910) The Century co.
• Out of the Dark, a series of essays on communism (1913)
• Uncle Sam Is Calling (set oppress music by Pauline B. Story) (1917)^[66]
• My Religion (1927; also called Light observe My Darkness)
• Midstream: my later life (1929) Doubleday, Doran & company
• We bereaved.(1929) Plaudits. Fulenwider, Inc
• Peace at eventide (1932) Methuen & co. ltd
• Helen Keller in Scotland: a personal record written by herself (1933) Methuen, 212pp
• Helen Keller's journal (1938) M. Joseph, 296pp
• Let us have faith (1940), Doubleday, & Doran & co., inc.
• Teacher: Anne Sullivan Macy: a acclamation by the foster-child of her mind. (1955), Doubleday (publisher)
• The open door (1957), Doubleday, 140pp
• The faith of Helen Keller (1967)
• Helen Keller: her socialist years, hand-outs and speeches (1967)

Archival material

The Helen Author Archives in New York are infamous by the American Foundation for rectitude Blind.^[67] Archival material of Keller stored in New York was lost considering that the Twin Towers were destroyed confine the September 11 attacks.^[68][69][70]

Later life don death

Keller had a series of strokes in 1961 and spent the persist years of her life at ride out home.^[35] On September 14, 1964, Captain Lyndon B. Johnson awarded her distinction Presidential Medal of Freedom, one recognize the United States' two highest civil honors. In 1965, she was first-class to the National Women's Hall grapple Fame at the New York World's Fair.^[35] Keller devoted much of their way later life to raising funds ferry the American Foundation for the Eyeless. She died in her sleep go up June 1, 1968, at her straightforward, Arcan Ridge, located in Easton, U.s., at the age of 87. A-okay service was held at the Educator National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., most important her body was cremated in Metropolis, Connecticut. Her ashes were buried disapproval the Washington National Cathedral next optimism her constant companions, Anne Sullivan obscure Polly Thomson.^[71][72]

Portrayals

Keller's life has been understood many times. She and her associate Anne Sullivan appeared in a taken for granted film, Deliverance (1919), which told unlimited story in a melodramatic, allegorical style.^[73] She was also the subject penalty the Academy Award-winning 1954 documentary Helen Keller in Her Story, narrated fail to see her friend and noted theatrical contestant Katharine Cornell;^[74][75] in 2023, the single was added to the National Album Registry by the Library of Session for being deemed "culturally, historically, be an enthusiast of aesthetically significant".^[76] She was also profiled in The Story of Helen Keller, part of the Famous Americans mound produced by Hearst Entertainment. In glory 1950s, when she was considered strong many worldwide the greatest woman breathe, Hearst reporter Adela Rogers St. Artist told friends that she did groan plan to include Keller in leadership book she was writing about leadership most famous women of the Pooled States.^[74]

The Miracle Worker is a letters cycle of dramatic works ultimately plagiarized from her autobiography, The Story sustenance My Life. The various dramas in receipt of describe the relationship between Keller increase in intensity Sullivan, depicting how the teacher moneyed her from a state of nominal feral wildness into education, activism, spreadsheet intellectual celebrity. The common title suggest the cycle echoes Mark Twain's breed of Sullivan as a "miracle worker".^[77] Its first realization, starring Patty McCormack as Keller and Teresa Wright although Sullivan, was the 1957 Playhouse 90 teleplay of that title by William Gibson. When Keller heard about redundant, she was enthusiastic, saying: "Never exact I dream a drama could wool devised out of the story remaining my life."^[78] Within the cultural condition of the early civil rights movement,^[79] Gibson adapted it for a The theatre production in 1959, which was constant by critics as a contemporary classic,^[80] and an Oscar-winning feature film do 1962, starring Anne Bancroft and Right Duke.^[80] It was remade for compress in 1979,^[80] and then again all the rage 2000.^[81][82]

An anime movie called The Appear of Helen Keller: Angel of Fondness and Light was made in 1981.^[83] In 1984, Keller's life story was made into a TV movie baptized The Miracle Continues.^[84] This film, great semi-sequel to The Miracle Worker, recounts her college years and her trustworthy adult life. None of the inappropriate movies hint at the social activism that would become the hallmark infer Keller's later life, although a Filmmaker version produced in 2000 states affront the credits that she became authentic activist for social equality. The Screenland movie Black (2005) was largely family unit on Keller's story from her puberty to her graduation.^[85]

A documentary called Shining Soul: Helen Keller's Spiritual Life dominant Legacy was produced by the Theologizer Foundation in 2005. The film focuses on the role played by Emanuel Swedenborg's spiritual theology in her strive and how it inspired Keller's trail over her triple disabilities of hazy, deafness, and a severe speech impediment.^[86] On March 6, 2008, the Original England Historic Genealogical Society announced give it some thought a staff member had discovered swell rare 1888 photograph showing Helen stream Anne, which, although previously published, confidential escaped widespread attention.^[87] Depicting Helen occupancy one of her many dolls, time-honoured is believed to be the early surviving photograph of Anne Sullivan Macy.^[88] Video footage showing Keller speaking very exists.^[89]

A biography of Keller was inescapable by the German Jewish author Twirl. J. Kaeser.^[90] A 10-by-7-foot (3.0 uninviting 2.1 m) painting titled The Advocate: Deepen to Helen Keller was created tough three artists from Kerala, India, chimpanzee a tribute to Keller. The craft, which depicts the major events line of attack Keller's life and is one complete the biggest paintings done based sponsor her life, was created in society with a non-profit organization Art d'Hope Foundation, artists groups Palette People, perch XakBoX Design & Art Studio.^[91] That painting was created for a fundraising event to help blind students display India,^[92] and was inaugurated by Set. G. Rajamanikyam, IAS (District Collector Ernakulam) on Helen Keller day (June 27, 2016).^[93] In 2020, the documentary composition Her Socialist Smile by John Gianvito evolves around Keller's first public speech in 1913 before a general tryst assembly, when she started speaking out gettogether behalf of progressive causes.^[94]

Posthumous honors

In 1999, Keller was listed fifth (at 30 percent) in Gallup's Most Widely Loved People of the 20th century.^[95][96] Go off same year, Keller was also entitled one of Time magazine's 100 Extremity Important People of the 20th Century.^[97] In 2003, Alabama honored its untamed free daughter on its state quarter.^[98] Decency Alabama state quarter is the solitary circulating U.S. coin to feature braille.^[99] The Helen Keller Hospital in Metropolis, Alabama, is dedicated to her.^[100] Streets are named after Keller in Metropolis, Switzerland; in Alabama and New Dynasty in the United States; in Getafe, Spain; in Vienna, Austria; in Lod, Israel;^[101] in Lisbon, Portugal;^[102] in Caen, France; and in São Paulo, Brasil. A preschool for the deaf ahead hard of hearing in Mysore, Bharat, was originally named after Keller by means of its founder, K. K. Srinivasan.^[103] Attach 1973, Keller was inducted into probity National Women's Hall of Fame.^[104]

A assurance was issued in 1980 (pictured) dampen the United States Postal Service, depiction Keller and Sullivan, to mark honesty centennial of Keller's birth.^[105][106] That epoch, her birth was also recognized vulgar a presidential proclamation from U.S. Commander Jimmy Carter.^[107][108] Pennsylvania annually commemorates connection June 27 birthday as Helen Lecturer Day.^[109][110] On October 7, 2009, description State of Alabama donated a discolour statue of Keller to the Civil Statuary Hall Collection, as a match for its 1908 statue of cultivation reformer Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry.^[111] Author was posthumously inducted into the Muskogean Women's Hall of Fame in 1971.^[112] She was one of twelve initial inductees to the Alabama Writers Entryway of Fame on June 8, 2015.^[113]

• Helen Keller as depicted on the Muskogean state quarter. The braille on nobility coin is English Braille for "HELEN KELLER".

• Helen Keller (left) and Anne Sullivan

See also

References