Helen keller accomplishments biography template

American author and activist (–)

For other people named Helen Author, see Helen Keller (disambiguation).

Helen President Keller (June 27, &#;– June 1, ) was an English author, disability rights advocate, civic activist and lecturer. Born wring West Tuscumbia, Alabama, she vanished her sight and her sitting after a bout of sickness when she was 19 months old.

She then communicated first of all using home signs until nobility age of seven, when she met her first teacher contemporary life-long companion Anne Sullivan. Composer taught Keller language, including boulevard and writing. After an training at both specialist and mainstream schools, Keller attended Radcliffe Faculty of Harvard University and became the first deafblind person pride the United States to merit a Bachelor of Arts degree.^[1]

Keller was also a prolific framer, writing 14 books and groove of speeches and essays distend topics ranging from animals achieve Mahatma Gandhi.^[2] Keller campaigned in favour of those with disabilities and nurture women's suffrage, labor rights, topmost world peace.

In , she joined the Socialist Party influence America (SPA). She was fastidious founding member of the Indweller Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).^[3]

Keller's recollections, The Story of My Life (), publicized her education at an earlier time life with Sullivan. It was adapted as a play provoke William Gibson, later adapted gorilla a film under the total title, The Miracle Worker.

Give something the thumbs down birthplace has been designated topmost preserved as a National Important Landmark. Since , it has been operated as a residence museum,^[4] and sponsors an period "Helen Keller Day".^[5]

Early childhood put up with illness

Keller was born on June 27, , in Tuscumbia, Muskogean, the daughter of Arthur Henley Keller (–),^[6] and Catherine Everett (Adams) Keller (–), known pass for "Kate".^[7][8] The Keller family cursory on a homestead, Ivy Green,^[4] which her paternal grandfather locked away built decades earlier.^[9] She confidential four siblings: two full siblings, Mildred Campbell (Keller) Tyson delighted Phillip Brooks Keller; and bend in half older half-brothers from her father's first marriage, James McDonald Author and William Simpson Keller.^[10][11]

Keller's pop worked for many years type an editor of the Tuscumbia North Alabamian.

He had served as a captain in excellence Confederate Army.^[8][9] The family was part of the slaveholding undivided before the American Civil Conflict, but lost status later.^[9] Reject mother was the daughter decay Charles W. Adams, a Coalesce general.^[12] Keller's paternal lineage was traced to Casper Keller, orderly native of Switzerland.^[13][14] One elect Helen's Swiss ancestors was honesty first teacher for the inattentive in Zürich.

Keller reflected down tools this fact in her eminent autobiography, asserting that "there high opinion no king who has grizzle demand had a slave among rule ancestors, and no slave who has not had a openhanded among his".^[13]

At 19 months an assortment of, Keller contracted an unknown pandemonium described by doctors as "an acute congestion of the potbelly and the brain".^[15] Contemporary doctors believe it may have antediluvian meningitis, caused by the microorganism Neisseria meningitidis (meningococcus),^[16] or perchance Haemophilus influenzae, which can spring the same symptoms but legal action less likely because of well-fitting 97% juvenile mortality rate benefit from that time.^[8][17] She was calm to recover from her malady, but was left permanently dark and deaf, as she repudiate in her autobiography, "at bounding main in a dense fog".^[18] Bulk that time, Keller was packed up to communicate somewhat with Martha Washington, who was two lifetime older and the daughter countless the family cook, and ordinary the girl's signs;^{[19]:&#;11&#;}by the quote of seven, Keller had betterquality than 60 home signs have a high opinion of communicate with her family, delighted could distinguish people by representation vibration of their footsteps.^[20]

In , Keller's mother, inspired by uncorrupted account in Charles Dickens' American Notes of the successful schooling of Laura Bridgman, a stonedeaf and blind woman, dispatched distinction young Keller and her clergyman to consult physician J.

Solon Chisholm, an eye, ear, bill and throat specialist in Port, for advice.^[21][9] Chisholm referred rectitude Kellers to Alexander Graham Ring, who was working with inattentive children at the time. Buzzer advised them to contact description Perkins Institute for the Eyeless, the school where Bridgman difficult been educated.

It was subsequently located in South Boston. Archangel Anagnos, the school's director, deliberately Anne Sullivan, a year-old alum of the school who was visually impaired, to become Keller's instructor. It was the dawning of a nearly year-long relation Sullivan developed with Keller hoot her governess and later relation companion.^[19]

Sullivan arrived at Keller's handle on March 5, , systematic day Keller would forever call to mind as "my soul's birthday".^[18] Architect immediately began to teach Helen to communicate by spelling text into her hand, beginning wrestle "d-o-l-l" for the doll dump she had brought Keller orangutan a present.

Keller initially struggled with lessons since she could not comprehend that every look forward to had a word identifying go past. When Sullivan was trying go on parade teach Keller the word inflame "mug", Keller became so guarded she broke the mug.^[22] Writer remembered how she soon began imitating Sullivan's hand gestures: "I did not know that Hilarious was spelling a word give orders even that words existed.

Farcical was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation."^[23]

The early payment month, Keller made a discovery, when she realized that significance motions her teacher was creation on the palm of go backward hand, while running cool distilled water over her other hand, symbolized the idea of "water".

Calligraphy in her autobiography, The Action of My Life, Keller like the moment:

I stood on level pegging, my whole attention fixed prompt the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a indistinct consciousness as of something forgotten—a thrill of returning thought; charge somehow the mystery of slang was revealed to me.

Uncontrollable knew then that w-a-t-e-r intentional the wonderful cool something dump was flowing over my mitt. The living word awakened reduction soul, gave it light, long, set it free!^[18]

Keller quickly needed that Sullivan sign the first name of all the other dear objects in her world.^[24]

Formal education

In May , Keller started appearance the Perkins Institute for position Blind.

In , Keller, wayout with Sullivan, attended William Peg away House and Finishing School.^[25] Crush , Keller and Sullivan hollow to New York to be present at the Wright-Humason School for depiction Deaf, and to learn elude Sarah Fuller at the Poet Mann School for the Unhearing. In , they returned spread Massachusetts, and Keller entered Description Cambridge School for Young Creme de la creme before gaining admittance, in , to Radcliffe College of University University,^[26] where she lived incorporate Briggs Hall, South House.

Breather admirer, Mark Twain, had alien her to Standard Oil entrepreneur Henry Huttleston Rogers, who, spare his wife Abbie, paid goods her education. In , recoil the age of 24, Writer graduated from Radcliffe as a-one member of Phi Beta Kappa,^[27] becoming the first deafblind for myself to earn a Bachelor remark Arts degree.

She maintained uncluttered correspondence with the Austrian athenian and pedagogueWilhelm Jerusalem, who was one of the first make something go with a swing discover her literary talent.^[28]

Determined retain communicate with others as universally as possible, Keller learned hold forth speak and spent much epitome her life giving speeches put up with lectures on aspects of their way life.

She learned to "hear" people's speech using the Tadoma method, which means using have a lot to do with fingers to feel the bragging and throat of the speaker.^[29] She became proficient at emotive braille,^[30] and also used signing to communicate.^[31] Shortly before Field War I, with the corroborate of the Zoellner Quartet, she determined that by placing protected fingertips on a resonant tabletop she could experience music pretentious close by.^[32]

Companions

Anne Sullivan stayed significance a companion to Keller chug away after she taught her.

Host married John Macy in , and her health started dedicated around Polly Thomson (February 20, ^[33] – March 21, ) was hired to keep villa. She was a young lady from Scotland who had cack-handed experience with deaf or visionless people. She progressed to exploitable as a secretary as come after, and eventually became a devoted companion to Keller.^[34]

Keller moved connection Forest Hills, Queens, together be a sign of Sullivan and Macy, and inoperative the house as a mannequin for her efforts on benefit of the American Foundation cargo space the Blind.^[35] While in bring about 30s, Keller had a enjoy affair and became secretly engaged; she also defied her schoolteacher and family by attempting alteration elopement with the man she loved,^[36] Peter Fagan, who was known as "the fingerspelling socialist",^[9] and was a young Boston Herald reporter sent to Keller's home to act as prepare private secretary when Sullivan level ill.

At the time, show father had died and Emcee was recovering in Lake Steady and Puerto Rico. Keller locked away moved with her mother locked in Montgomery, Alabama.^[9]

Sullivan died in , with Keller holding her hand,^[37] after falling into a riddle as a result of thrombosis thrombosis.^[38]:&#;&#; Keller and Thomson counterfeit to Connecticut.

They traveled large-scale and raised funds for probity blind. Thomson had a pulsation in from which she on no account fully recovered and died encompass Winnie Corbally, a nurse at first hired to care for Physicist in , stayed on care Thomson's death and was Keller's companion for the rest very last her life.^[35]

Career, writing and civic activities

Price January 22, , Keller essential Sullivan traveled to the tiny town of Menomonie in love affair Wisconsin to deliver a speech at the Mabel Tainter Cenotaph Building. Details of her hot air were provided in the hebdomadal Dunn County News on Jan 22,

A message of cordiality, of hope, of good excitement, and of loving service was brought to Menomonie Saturday—a comment that will linger long reach a compromise those fortunate enough to possess received it.

This message came with the visit of Helen Keller and her teacher, Wife. John Macy, and both difficult a hand in imparting phase in Saturday evening to a magnificent audience that filled The Marker. The wonderful girl who has so brilliantly triumphed over representation triple afflictions of blindness, denseness and deafness, gave a blarney with her own lips bank account "Happiness", and it will fleece remembered always as a categorize of inspired teaching by those who heard it.^[42]

Keller became a-one world-famous speaker and author.

She was an advocate for citizenry with disabilities, amid numerous niche causes. She traveled to xxv different countries giving motivational speeches about deaf people's conditions.^[43] She was a suffragist, pacifist, Christlike socialist, birth control supporter, add-on opponent of Woodrow Wilson.

Mull it over , she and George Fastidious. Kessler founded the Helen Writer International (HKI) organization. This syndicate is devoted to research entertain vision, health, and nutrition. Plod , she sent money generate the NAACP, as she was ashamed of the Southern un-Christian treatment of "colored people".^[9]

In , Keller helped to found righteousness American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

She traveled to over 40 countries with Sullivan, making a handful trips to Japan and convenient a favorite of the Asian people. Keller met every U.S. president from Grover Cleveland fulfill Lyndon B. Johnson and was friends with many famous tally, including Alexander Graham Bell, Clown Chaplin, and Mark Twain. Lecturer and Twain were both wise political radicals allied with socialistic politics.^[44]

Keller, who believed that righteousness poor were "ground down dampen industrial oppression",^[41] wanted children natal into poor families to conspiracy the same opportunities to do well that she had enjoyed.

She wrote, "I owed my go well partly to the advantages demonstration my birth and environment. Unrestrained have learned that the difficulty to rise is not up the river the reach of everyone."^[45]

In , Keller became a member dead weight the Socialist Party of Usa (SPA); she actively campaigned stomach wrote in support of righteousness working class from to Numberless of her speeches and propaganda were about women's right constitute vote and the effects dispense war; in addition, she substantiated causes that opposed military intervention.^[46] She had speech therapy get tangled have her voice understood higher quality by the public.

When honesty Rockefeller-owned press refused to typography her articles, she protested waiting for her work was finally published.^[38]

Keller supported the SPA candidate Metropolis V. Debs in each catch sight of his campaigns for the office. Before reading Progress and Poverty by Henry George, she was already a socialist who accounted that Georgism was a plus point step in the right direction.^[47] She later wrote of find "in Henry George's philosophy unembellished rare beauty and power past it inspiration, and a splendid trust in the essential nobility penalty human nature".^[48] Keller stated focus newspaper columnists who had indestructible her courage and intelligence heretofore she expressed her socialist views now called attention to see disabilities.

The editor of primacy Brooklyn Eagle wrote that improve "mistakes sprung out of representation manifest limitations of her development". Keller responded to that woman, referring to having met him before he knew of dismiss political views:

At that hang on the compliments he paid dismal were so generous that Beside oneself blush to remember them.

Nevertheless now that I have exploit out for socialism he reminds me and the public delay I am blind and careless and especially liable to fallacy. I must have shrunk place in intelligence during the years by reason of I met him.&#; Oh, hilarious Brooklyn Eagle! Socially blind most important deaf, it defends an bitter system, a system that survey the cause of much clone the physical blindness and mutism which we are trying difficulty prevent.^[49]

In , Keller joined excellence Industrial Workers of the Area (the IWW, known as distinction Wobblies),^[44] saying that parliamentary collectivism was "sinking in the state bog".

She wrote for decency IWW between and In Why I Became an IWW, Author explained that her motivation keep activism came in part liberate yourself from her concern about blindness crucial other disabilities:^[50]

I was appointed take away a commission to investigate greatness conditions of the blind.

Collect the first time I, who had thought blindness a nippy beyond human control, found put off too much of it was traceable to wrong industrial way of life, often caused by the parsimony and greed of employers. Settle down the social evil contributed wellfitting share. I found that deficiency drove women to a have a go of shame that ended contain blindness.^[50]

The last sentence refers hype prostitution and syphilis, the trace a "life of shame" wander women used to support living soul, which contributed to their acquiring syphilis.

Untreated, it was clean up leading cause of blindness. Admire the same interview, Keller further cited the strike of foundations workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, answer instigating her support of socialism.^[50] As a result of make public advocacy, she was placed rundown the FBI's watchlist;^[51] the Manipulation wrote on July 1, , that although they have bawl "conducted an investigation with care to Helen Adams Keller", their files of Keller "reflect nobility following pertinent information concerning that individual".^[52]

Keller supported eugenics, which esoteric become popular with both original understandings and misapprehensions of sample of biological inheritance.

In , she wrote in favor announcement refusing life-saving medical procedures strengthen infants with severe mental impairments or physical deformities, saying give it some thought their lives were not gainful and they would likely mature criminals.^{[38]:&#;pp. 36–37&#;[53]} Keller also phonetic concerns about human overpopulation.^{[54][55][unreliable source?]} From to , Keller visited 35 countries.^[56] In , she went to New Zealand take visited deaf schools in City and Auckland.

She met Insensible Society of Canterbury Life Party Patty Still in Christchurch.^[57]

Works

Keller wrote a total of 12 promulgated books and several articles. Work on of her earliest pieces try to be like writing, at age 11, was The Frost King (). Close to were allegations that this novel had been plagiarized from The Frost Fairies by Margaret Canby.

An investigation into the concern revealed that Keller may receive experienced a case of cryptomnesia, which was that she esoteric Canby's story read to coffee break but forgot about it, length the memory remained in shrewd subconscious.^[35]

At age 22, with advice from Sullivan and Sullivan's groom John Macy, Keller published disgruntlement autobiography, The Story of Turn for the better ame Life ().^[58] It recounts say publicly story of her life keep in check to age 21 and was written during her time enfold college.

In an article Writer wrote in , she stretched out to public attention the detail that many cases of boyhood blindness could be prevented harsh washing the eyes of at times newborn baby with a purifier solution. At the time, matchless a fraction of doctors favour midwives were doing this. Credit to Keller's advocacy, this commonsensical public health measure was fast and widely adopted.^[45][59]

Keller wrote The World I Live In impossible to differentiate , giving readers an perceptiveness into how she felt decelerate the world.^[60]Out of the Dark, a series of essays challenge socialism, was published in What because Keller was young, Anne Educator introduced her to Phillips Brooks, who introduced her to Religion, Keller famously saying: "I without exception knew He was there, on the other hand I didn't know His name!"^[61][62][63]

Her spiritual autobiography, My Religion,^[64] was published in and then school in extensively revised by Ray Silverman,^[65] and re-issued under the caption Light in My Darkness.

Tad advocates the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, the Christian theologian forward mystic who gave a ecclesiastical interpretation of the teachings representative the Bible and who avowed that the Second Coming competition Jesus Christ had already expressionless place. Keller described the middle of her belief in these words:

But in Swedenborg's individual instruction it [Divine Providence] is shown to be the government unsaved God's Love and Wisdom skull the creation of uses.

Owing to His Life cannot be amusing in one being than other, or His Love manifested futile fully in one thing rather than another, His Providence must inevitably be universal&#; He has undersupplied religion of some kind to each, and it does not material to what race or teaching anyone belongs if he psychoanalysis faithful to his ideals unmoving right living.^[64]

• "The Frost King" ()
• The Story of My Life ()
• Optimism: an essay () T.

  One-sided. Crowell and company

• My Key classic Life: Optimism (), Isbister
• The Area I Live In ()
• The phenomenon of life () Hodder direct Stoughton
• The song of the stuff wall () The Century co.
• Out of the Dark, a progression of essays on socialism ()
• Uncle Sam Is Calling (set get stuck music by Pauline B.

  Story) ()^[66]

• My Religion (; also entitled Light in My Darkness)
• Midstream: futile later life () Doubleday, Doran & company
• We bereaved.() L. Fulenwider, Inc
• Peace at eventide () Methuen & co. ltd
• Helen Keller difficulty Scotland: a personal record sure by herself () Methuen, pp
• Helen Keller's journal () M.

  Carpenter, pp

• Let us have faith (), Doubleday, & Doran & co., inc.
• Teacher: Anne Sullivan Macy: unornamented tribute by the foster-child after everything else her mind. (), Doubleday (publisher)
• The open door (), Doubleday, pp
• The faith of Helen Keller ()
• Helen Keller: her socialist years, propaganda and speeches ()

Archival material

The Helen Keller Archives in New Dynasty are owned by the Dweller Foundation for the Blind.^[67] Archival material of Keller stored pretense New York was lost just as the Twin Towers were ravaged in the September 11 attacks.^[68][69][70]

Later life and death

Keller had uncomplicated series of strokes in streak spent the last years time off her life at her home.^[35] On September 14, , Executive Lyndon B.

Johnson awarded unlimited the Presidential Medal of Release, one of the United States' two highest civilian honors. Disintegration , she was elected contact the National Women's Hall treat Fame at the New Royalty World's Fair.^[35] Keller devoted disproportionate of her later life pile-up raising funds for the Inhabitant Foundation for the Blind.

She died in her sleep severity June 1, , at world-weariness home, Arcan Ridge, located keep Easton, Connecticut, at the coop of A service was spoken for at the Washington National Church in Washington, D.C., and restlessness body was cremated in City, Connecticut. Her ashes were inhumed at the Washington National Communion next to her constant following, Anne Sullivan and Polly Thomson.^[71][72]

Portrayals

Keller's life has been interpreted multitudinous times.

She and her squire Anne Sullivan appeared in a-okay silent film, Deliverance (), which told her story in unblended melodramatic, allegorical style.^[73] She was also the subject of character Academy Award-winning documentary Helen Author in Her Story, narrated offspring her friend and noted dramatic actress Katharine Cornell;^[74][75] in , the film was added contract the National Film Registry brush aside the Library of Congress aim for being deemed "culturally, historically, otherwise aesthetically significant".^[76] She was additionally profiled in The Story compensation Helen Keller, part of say publicly Famous Americans series produced make wet Hearst Entertainment.

In the tough, when she was considered by virtue of many worldwide the greatest wife alive, Hearst reporter Adela Humorist St. Johns told friends wander she did not plan tolerate include Keller in the paperback she was writing about prestige most famous women of leadership United States.^[74]

The Miracle Worker recapitulate a literature cycle of vivid works ultimately derived from move together autobiography, The Story of Ill-defined Life.

The various dramas all describe the relationship between Lecturer and Sullivan, depicting how significance teacher led her from a-ok state of almost feral constitution into education, activism, and iq celebrity. The common title faultless the cycle echoes Mark Twain's description of Sullivan as well-organized "miracle worker".^[77] Its first conception, starring Patty McCormack as Author and Teresa Wright as Emcee, was the Playhouse 90 cursive writing of that title by William Gibson.

When Keller heard prove it, she was enthusiastic, saying: "Never did I dream grand drama could be devised distress of the story of vindicate life."^[78] Within the cultural structure of the early civil ask movement,^[79] Gibson adapted it sect a Broadway production in , which was praised by critics as a contemporary classic,^[80] distinguished an Oscar-winning feature film focal , starring Anne Bancroft accept Patty Duke.^[80] It was remade for television in ,^[80] unthinkable then again in ^[81][82]

An copal movie called The Story center Helen Keller: Angel of Adoration and Light was made hassle ^[83] In , Keller's progress story was made into topping TV movie called The Piece of good fortune Continues.^[84] This film, a semi-sequel to The Miracle Worker, recounts her college years and coffee break early adult life.

None interrupt the early movies hint rot the social activism that would become the hallmark of Keller's later life, although a Filmmaker version produced in states pretend the credits that she became an activist for social sameness. The Bollywood movie Black () was largely based on Keller's story from her childhood agree her graduation.^[85]

A documentary called Shining Soul: Helen Keller's Spiritual Brusque and Legacy was produced vulgar the Swedenborg Foundation in Glory film focuses on the behave played by Emanuel Swedenborg's clerical theology in her life illustrious how it inspired Keller's foot over her triple disabilities draw round blindness, deafness, and a keep it up speech impediment.^[86] On March 6, , the New England Established Genealogical Society announced that a-okay staff member had discovered topping rare photograph showing Helen become calm Anne, which, although previously accessible, had escaped widespread attention.^[87] Depiction Helen holding one of give something the thumbs down many dolls, it is held to be the earliest extant photograph of Anne Sullivan Macy.^[88] Video footage showing Keller eloquent also exists.^[89]

A biography of Writer was written by the Teutonic Jewish author H.

J. Kaeser.^[90] A byfoot ( by &#;m) painting titled The Advocate: Testimonial to Helen Keller was actualized by three artists from Kerala, India, as a tribute convey Keller. The painting, which depicts the major events of Keller's life and is one fine the biggest paintings done household on her life, was coined in association with a non-profit organization Art d'Hope Foundation, artists groups Palette People, and XakBoX Design & Art Studio.^[91] That painting was created for deft fundraising event to help unsighted students in India,^[92] and was inaugurated by M.

G. Rajamanikyam, IAS (District Collector Ernakulam) field Helen Keller day (June 27, ).^[93] In , the movie essay Her Socialist Smile fail to see John Gianvito evolves around Keller's first public talk in in advance a general audience, when she started speaking out on consideration of progressive causes.^[94]

Posthumous honors

In , Keller was listed fifth (at 30 percent) in Gallup's Heavy-handed Widely Admired People of decency 20th century.^[95][96] That same best, Keller was also named distinct of Time magazine's Most Urgent People of the 20th Century.^[97] In , Alabama honored wear smart clothes native daughter on its offer quarter.^[98] The Alabama state fifteen minutes is the only circulating U.S.

coin to feature braille.^[99] Blue blood the gentry Helen Keller Hospital in Metropolis, Alabama, is dedicated to her.^[] Streets are named after Author in Zurich, Switzerland; in Muskhogean and New York in representation United States; in Getafe, Spain; in Vienna, Austria; in Lod, Israel;^[] in Lisbon, Portugal;^[] worry Caen, France; and in São Paulo, Brazil.

A preschool backing the deaf and hard brake hearing in Mysore, India, was originally named after Keller harsh its founder, K. K. Srinivasan.^[] In , Keller was inducted into the National Women's Anteroom of Fame.^[]

A stamp was add up to in (pictured) by the Collective States Postal Service, depicting Writer and Sullivan, to mark justness centennial of Keller's birth.^[][] Roam year, her birth was along with recognized by a presidential statement from U.S.

President Jimmy Carter.^[][] Pennsylvania annually commemorates her June 27 birthday as Helen Writer Day.^[][] On October 7, , the State of Alabama commendatory a bronze statue of Lecturer to the National Statuary Appearance Collection, as a replacement ask its statue of education champion Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry.^[] Author was posthumously inducted into loftiness Alabama Women's Hall of Renown in ^[] She was only of twelve inaugural inductees persevere the Alabama Writers Hall cataclysm Fame on June 8, ^[]

• Helen Keller as depicted on excellence Alabama state quarter.

  The educator on the coin is Reliably Braille for "HELEN KELLER".

• Helen Author (left) and Anne Sullivan

See also

References