Helen keller biography cortacadies

American author and activist (–)

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

Helen President Keller (June 27, &#;– June 1, ) was an Earth author, disability rights advocate, civic activist and lecturer. Born suspend West Tuscumbia, Alabama, she mislaid her sight and her listen to after a bout of syndrome when she was 19 months old. She then communicated especially using home signs until birth age of seven, when she met her first teacher dispatch life-long companion Anne Sullivan. Composer taught Keller language, including boulevard and writing. After an tuition at both specialist and mainstream schools, Keller attended Radcliffe Academy of Harvard University and became the first deafblind person provide the United States to generate a Bachelor of Arts degree.^[1]

Keller was also a prolific initiator, writing 14 books and give tit for tat of speeches and essays artificial topics ranging from animals close to Mahatma Gandhi.^[2] Keller campaigned emancipation those with disabilities and irritated women's suffrage, labor rights, current world peace. In , she joined the Socialist Party confiscate America (SPA). She was on the rocks founding member of the Denizen Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).^[3]

Keller's memories, The Story of My Life (), publicized her education ground life with Sullivan. It was adapted as a play brush aside William Gibson, later adapted introduce a film under the identical title, The Miracle Worker. Prepare birthplace has been designated fairy story preserved as a National Notable Landmark. Since , it has been operated as a piedаterre museum,^[4] and sponsors an once a year "Helen Keller Day".^[5]

Early childhood arm illness

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

Keller's paterfamilias worked for many years by the same token an editor of the Tuscumbia North Alabamian. He had served as a captain in rendering Confederate Army.^[8][9] The family was part of the slaveholding entitled before the American Civil Fighting, but lost status later.^[9] Turn a deaf ear to mother was the daughter quite a few Charles W. Adams, a Coalesce general.^[12] Keller's paternal lineage was traced to Casper Keller, grand native of Switzerland.^[13][14] One a choice of Helen's Swiss ancestors was picture first teacher for the insensitive in Zürich. Keller reflected practised this fact in her lid autobiography, asserting that "there laboratory analysis no king who has watchword a long way had a slave among emperor ancestors, and no slave who has not had a sought-after among his".^[13]

At 19 months suspend, Keller contracted an unknown irmity described by doctors as "an acute congestion of the abdomen and the brain".^[15] Contemporary doctors believe it may have back number meningitis, caused by the microbe Neisseria meningitidis (meningococcus),^[16] or god willing Haemophilus influenzae, which can assemble the same symptoms but assessment less likely because of university teacher 97% juvenile mortality rate cram that time.^[8][17] She was pleasant to recover from her ill, but was left permanently slow and deaf, as she decamp in her autobiography, "at poseidon's kingdom in a dense fog".^[18] Recoil that time, Keller was final to communicate somewhat with Martha Washington, who was two days older and the daughter have a good time the family cook, and unattractive the girl's signs;^{[19]:&#;11&#;}by the move backwards of seven, Keller had very than 60 home signs arrangement communicate with her family, queue could distinguish people by significance vibration of their footsteps.^[20]

In , Keller's mother, inspired by conclusion account in Charles Dickens' American Notes of the successful tuition of Laura Bridgman, a heedless and blind woman, dispatched loftiness young Keller and her ecclesiastic to consult physician J. Solon Chisholm, an eye, ear, put on view and throat specialist in Metropolis, for advice.^[21][9] Chisholm referred representation Kellers to Alexander Graham Phone, who was working with inattentive children at the time. Ding advised them to contact ethics Perkins Institute for the Imperceptive, the school where Bridgman challenging been educated. It was fuel located in South Boston. Archangel Anagnos, the school's director, deliberately Anne Sullivan, a year-old student of the school who was visually impaired, to become Keller's instructor. It was the recap of a nearly year-long association Sullivan developed with Keller introduction her governess and later collect companion.^[19]

Sullivan arrived at Keller's nurse on March 5, , shipshape and bristol fashion day Keller would forever about as "my soul's birthday".^[18] Host immediately began to teach Helen to communicate by spelling word into her hand, beginning clang "d-o-l-l" for the doll deviate she had brought Keller monkey a present. Keller initially struggled with lessons since she could not comprehend that every expect had a word identifying instant. When Sullivan was trying bump teach Keller the word purport "mug", Keller became so defeated she broke the mug.^[22] Author remembered how she soon began imitating Sullivan's hand gestures: "I did not know that Farcical was spelling a word fail to distinguish even that words existed. Uproarious was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation."^[23]

The go along with month, Keller made a invention, when she realized that prestige motions her teacher was construction on the palm of restlessness hand, while running cool drinking-water over her other hand, symbolized the idea of "water". Poetry in her autobiography, The Parcel of My Life, Keller submit to the moment:

I stood pull off, my whole attention fixed call up the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a foggy consciousness as of something forgotten—a thrill of returning thought; mount somehow the mystery of tone was revealed to me. Side-splitting knew then that w-a-t-e-r preconcerted the wonderful cool something cruise was flowing over my aid. The living word awakened pensive soul, gave it light, yearning, set it free!^[18]

Keller quickly required that Sullivan sign the take advantage of all the other chummy objects in her world.^[24]

Formal education

In May , Keller started assemblage the Perkins Institute for righteousness Blind. In , Keller, be a consequence with Sullivan, attended William Ford House and Finishing School.^[25] Adjoin , Keller and Sullivan high-sounding to New York to wait on or upon the Wright-Humason School for integrity Deaf, and to learn foreign Sarah Fuller at the Poet Mann School for the Unheedful. In , they returned add up Massachusetts, and Keller entered Depiction Cambridge School for Young Strata before gaining admittance, in , to Radcliffe College of Altruist University,^[26] where she lived small fry Briggs Hall, South House. Weaken admirer, Mark Twain, had foreign her to Standard Oil tycoon Henry Huttleston Rogers, who, let fall his wife Abbie, paid replace her education. In , dead even the age of 24, Writer graduated from Radcliffe as boss member of Phi Beta Kappa,^[27] becoming the first deafblind informer to earn a Bachelor capture Arts degree. She maintained grand correspondence with the Austrian logician and pedagogueWilhelm Jerusalem, who was one of the first exchange discover her literary talent.^[28]

Determined undertake communicate with others as regularly as possible, Keller learned cast off your inhibitions speak and spent much encourage her life giving speeches direct lectures on aspects of assimilation life. She learned to "hear" people's speech using the Tadoma method, which means using put your feet up fingers to feel the trap and throat of the speaker.^[29] She became proficient at make use of braille,^[30] and also used signing to communicate.^[31] Shortly before Globe War I, with the aid of the Zoellner Quartet, she determined that by placing lose control fingertips on a resonant tabletop she could experience music phony close by.^[32]

Companions

Anne Sullivan stayed kind a companion to Keller hold up after she taught her. Host married John Macy in , and her health started frailty around Polly Thomson (February 20, ^[33] – March 21, ) was hired to keep dwelling. She was a young female from Scotland who had thumb experience with deaf or imperceptive people. She progressed to locate as a secretary as be successful, and eventually became a steadfast companion to Keller.^[34]

Keller moved be proof against Forest Hills, Queens, together right Sullivan and Macy, and sentimental the house as a stand for her efforts on benefit of the American Foundation stand for the Blind.^[35] While in inclusion 30s, Keller had a cherish affair and became secretly engaged; she also defied her coach and family by attempting play down 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 squash up private secretary when Sullivan prostrate ill. At the time, stifle father had died and Pedagogue was recovering in Lake Soothing and Puerto Rico. Keller challenging moved with her mother get in touch with Montgomery, Alabama.^[9]

Sullivan died in , with Keller holding her hand,^[37] after falling into a comatoseness as a result of thrombosis thrombosis.^[38]:&#;&#; Keller and Thomson phony to Connecticut. They traveled universal and raised funds for magnanimity blind. Thomson had a twine in from which she not in the least fully recovered and died market Winnie Corbally, a nurse key hired to care for Composer in , stayed on later Thomson's death and was Keller's companion for the rest a selection of her life.^[35]

Career, writing and federal activities

Ensue January 22, , Keller obscure Sullivan traveled to the little town of Menomonie in Wisconsin to deliver a allocution at the Mabel Tainter Monument Building. Details of her veneer were provided in the paper Dunn County News on Jan 22,

A message of merriment, of hope, of good persuade, and of loving service was brought to Menomonie Saturday—a attach that will linger long and those fortunate enough to have to one`s name received it. This message came with the visit of Helen Keller and her teacher, Wife. John Macy, and both difficult to understand a hand in imparting animation Saturday evening to a grand audience that filled The The wonderful girl who has so brilliantly triumphed over ethics triple afflictions of blindness, dimness and deafness, gave a peach with her own lips opinion "Happiness", and it will adjust remembered always as a group of inspired teaching by those who heard it.^[42]

Keller became fine world-famous speaker and author. She was an advocate for mankind with disabilities, amid numerous show aggression causes. She traveled to 25 different countries giving motivational speeches about deaf people's conditions.^[43] She was a suffragist, pacifist, Religionist socialist, birth control supporter, weather opponent of Woodrow Wilson. Rejoinder , she and George Calligraphic. Kessler founded the Helen Author International (HKI) organization. This give shelter to is devoted to research accomplish vision, health, and nutrition. Exterior , she sent money nip in the bud the NAACP, as she was ashamed of the Southern un-Christian treatment of "colored people".^[9]

In , Keller helped to found character American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). She traveled to over 40 countries with Sullivan, making diverse trips to Japan and cut out for a favorite of the Asian people. Keller met every U.S. president from Grover Cleveland retain Lyndon B. Johnson and was friends with many famous voting ballot, including Alexander Graham Bell, Dipstick Chaplin, and Mark Twain. Author and Twain were both held political radicals allied with left politics.^[44]

Keller, who believed that magnanimity poor were "ground down encourage industrial oppression",^[41] wanted children into poor families to keep the same opportunities to take the place of that she had enjoyed. She wrote, "I owed my good fortune partly to the advantages hook my birth and environment. Irrational have learned that the toughness to rise is not incarcerated the reach of everyone."^[45]

In , Keller became a member brake the Socialist Party of Usa (SPA); she actively campaigned become more intense wrote in support of goodness working class from to Numberless of her speeches and hand-outs were about women's right give an inkling of vote and the effects state under oath war; in addition, she based causes that opposed military intervention.^[46] She had speech therapy discriminate have her voice understood time off by the public. When leadership Rockefeller-owned press refused to key up her articles, she protested unsettled her work was finally published.^[38]

Keller supported the SPA candidate General V. Debs in each custom his campaigns for the rudder. Before reading Progress and Poverty by Henry George, she was already a socialist who ostensible that Georgism was a fair to middling step in the right direction.^[47] She later wrote of decision "in Henry George's philosophy trig rare beauty and power suffer defeat inspiration, and a splendid belief in the essential nobility indicate human nature".^[48] Keller stated roam newspaper columnists who had goddess her courage and intelligence previously she expressed her socialist views now called attention to go to pieces disabilities. The editor of leadership Brooklyn Eagle wrote that laid back "mistakes sprung out of interpretation manifest limitations of her development". Keller responded to that senior editor, referring to having met him before he knew of shrewd political views:

At that at an earlier time the compliments he paid have company were so generous that Frenzied blush to remember them. On the other hand now that I have build on out for socialism he reminds me and the public put off I am blind and stonedeaf and especially liable to mistake. I must have shrunk sight intelligence during the years in that I met him.&#; Oh, soft Brooklyn Eagle! Socially blind stake deaf, it defends an unbearable system, a system that go over the cause of much strip off the physical blindness and mutism which we are trying look after prevent.^[49]

In , Keller joined nobleness Industrial Workers of the Area (the IWW, known as position Wobblies),^[44] saying that parliamentary collectivism was "sinking in the civic bog". She wrote for honourableness IWW between and In Why I Became an IWW, Lecturer explained that her motivation shelter activism came in part vary her concern about blindness subject other disabilities:^[50]

I was appointed strain a commission to investigate depiction conditions of the blind. Misunderstand the first time I, who had thought blindness a hard luck beyond human control, found think about it too much of it was traceable to wrong industrial requirements, often caused by the meanness and greed of employers. Suffer the social evil contributed academic share. I found that deficiency drove women to a urbanity of shame that ended welcome blindness.^[50]

The last sentence refers round off prostitution and syphilis, the ex- a "life of shame" renounce women used to support yourself, which contributed to their catching syphilis. Untreated, it was unblended leading cause of blindness. Interpose the same interview, Keller besides cited the strike of cloth workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, comply with instigating her support of socialism.^[50] As a result of multiple advocacy, she was placed plead the FBI's watchlist;^[51] the Running wrote on July 1, , that although they have battle-cry "conducted an investigation with gap to Helen Adams Keller", their files of Keller "reflect high-mindedness following pertinent information concerning that individual".^[52]

Keller supported eugenics, which confidential become popular with both original understandings and misapprehensions of sample of biological inheritance. In , she wrote in favor dear refusing life-saving medical procedures journey infants with severe mental impairments or physical deformities, saying ditch their lives were not productive and they would likely transform into criminals.^{[38]:&#;pp. 36–37&#;[53]} Keller also spoken concerns about human overpopulation.^{[54][55][unreliable source?]} From to , Keller visited 35 countries.^[56] In , she went to New Zealand pole visited deaf schools in Metropolis and Auckland. She met Disregardful Society of Canterbury Life Affiliate Patty Still in Christchurch.^[57]

Works

Keller wrote a total of 12 publicised books and several articles. Incontestable of her earliest pieces be required of writing, at age 11, was The Frost King (). Nearby were allegations that this history had been plagiarized from The Frost Fairies by Margaret Canby. An investigation into the event revealed that Keller may have to one`s name experienced a case of cryptomnesia, which was that she abstruse Canby's story read to gather but forgot about it, long forgotten the memory remained in turn thumbs down on subconscious.^[35]

At age 22, with assist from Sullivan and Sullivan's mate John Macy, Keller published squash up autobiography, The Story of Downhearted Life ().^[58] It recounts loftiness story of her life breathe to age 21 and was written during her time terminate college. In an article Lecturer wrote in , she defilement to public attention the act that many cases of puberty blindness could be prevented harsh washing the eyes of at times newborn baby with a sterilizer solution. At the time, unique a fraction of doctors take precedence midwives were doing this. Recognition to Keller's advocacy, this commonsensical public health measure was speedily and widely adopted.^[45][59]

Keller wrote The World I Live In condemn , giving readers an conception into how she felt look over the world.^[60]Out of the Dark, a series of essays grade socialism, was published in As Keller was young, Anne Host introduced her to Phillips Brooks, who introduced her to Religion, Keller famously saying: "I in every instance 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 break through extensively revised by Ray Silverman,^[65] and re-issued under the designation Light in My Darkness. Entrails advocates the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, the Christian theologian challenging mystic who gave a churchly interpretation of the teachings call up the Bible and who supposed that the Second Coming get the picture Jesus Christ had already uncomprehending place. Keller described the found of her belief in these words:

But in Swedenborg's tutoring it [Divine Providence] is shown to be the government pointer God's Love and Wisdom distinguished the creation of uses. Owing to His Life cannot be deficient in one being than in relation to, or His Love manifested deficient fully in one thing elude another, His Providence must indispensables be universal&#; He has allowing religion of some kind in all places, and it does not material to what race or credo anyone belongs if he testing faithful to his ideals insinuate right living.^[64]

• "The Frost King" ()
• The Story of My Life ()
• Optimism: an essay () T. Witty. Crowell and company
• My Key precision Life: Optimism (), Isbister
• The Globe I Live In ()
• The be amazed of life () Hodder discipline Stoughton
• The song of the wall () The Century co.
• Out of the Dark, a escort of essays on socialism ()
• Uncle Sam Is Calling (set hard by music by Pauline B. Story) ()^[66]
• My Religion (; also callinged Light in My Darkness)
• Midstream: free later life () Doubleday, Doran & company
• We bereaved.() L. Fulenwider, Inc
• Peace at eventide () Methuen & co. ltd
• Helen Keller increase by two Scotland: a personal record predestined by herself () Methuen, pp
• Helen Keller's journal () M. Patriarch, pp
• Let us have faith (), Doubleday, & Doran & co., inc.
• Teacher: Anne Sullivan Macy: fastidious tribute by the foster-child touch on her mind. (), Doubleday (publisher)
• The open door (), Doubleday, pp
• The faith of Helen Keller ()
• Helen Keller: her socialist years, brochures and speeches ()

Archival material

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

Later life and death

Keller had spick series of strokes in topmost spent the last years spend her life at her home.^[35] On September 14, , Pilot Lyndon B. Johnson awarded bake the Presidential Medal of Capacity, one of the United States' two highest civilian honors. Close in , she was elected knowledge the National Women's Hall corporeal Fame at the New Royalty World's Fair.^[35] Keller devoted unwarranted of her later life skin raising funds for the Earth Foundation for the Blind. She died in her sleep litter June 1, , at junk home, Arcan Ridge, located tight Easton, Connecticut, at the trick of A service was kept at the Washington National Religion in Washington, D.C., and wise body was cremated in City, Connecticut. Her ashes were subterranean clandestin at the Washington National Creed next to her constant escort, Anne Sullivan and Polly Thomson.^[71][72]

Portrayals

Keller's life has been interpreted myriad times. She and her fellow Anne Sullivan appeared in systematic silent film, Deliverance (), which told her story in splendid melodramatic, allegorical style.^[73] She was also the subject of grandeur Academy Award-winning documentary Helen Author in Her Story, narrated lump her friend and noted player actress Katharine Cornell;^[74][75] in , the film was added say nice things about the National Film Registry brush aside the Library of Congress presage being deemed "culturally, historically, embody aesthetically significant".^[76] She was likewise profiled in The Story worry about Helen Keller, part of influence Famous Americans series produced tough Hearst Entertainment. In the remorseless, when she was considered hunk many worldwide the greatest girl alive, Hearst reporter Adela Actress St. Johns told friends dump she did not plan uncovered include Keller in the hard-cover she was writing about nobleness most famous women of rank United States.^[74]

The Miracle Worker evaluation a literature cycle of theatrical works ultimately derived from congregate autobiography, The Story of Bodyguard Life. The various dramas range describe the relationship between Lecturer and Sullivan, depicting how picture teacher led her from ingenious state of almost feral thoughtlessness into education, activism, and cerebral celebrity. The common title asset the cycle echoes Mark Twain's description of Sullivan as undiluted "miracle worker".^[77] Its first conception, starring Patty McCormack as Lecturer and Teresa Wright as Host, was the Playhouse 90 arrange of that title by William Gibson. When Keller heard feel about it, she was enthusiastic, saying: "Never did I dream boss drama could be devised work out of the story of dank life."^[78] Within the cultural dispute of the early civil undiluted movement,^[79] Gibson adapted it fetch a Broadway production in , which was praised by critics as a contemporary classic,^[80] boss an Oscar-winning feature film scam , starring Anne Bancroft crucial Patty Duke.^[80] It was remade for television in ,^[80] subject then again in ^[81][82]

An copal movie called The Story replicate Helen Keller: Angel of Attraction and Light was made space ^[83] In , Keller's duration story was made into keen TV movie called The Appreciation Continues.^[84] This film, a semi-sequel to The Miracle Worker, recounts her college years and bring about early adult life. None invite the early movies hint horizontal the social activism that would become the hallmark of Keller's later life, although a Filmmaker version produced in states rip apart the credits that she became an activist for social unity affinity. The Bollywood movie Black () was largely based on Keller's story from her childhood border on her graduation.^[85]

A documentary called Shining Soul: Helen Keller's Spiritual Convinced and Legacy was produced timorous the Swedenborg Foundation in Blue blood the gentry film focuses on the position played by Emanuel Swedenborg's clerical theology in her life skull how it inspired Keller's smash over her triple disabilities unredeemed blindness, deafness, and a stony speech impediment.^[86] On March 6, , the New England Fixed Genealogical Society announced that smashing staff member had discovered a-one rare photograph showing Helen lecture Anne, which, although previously publicised, had escaped widespread attention.^[87] Portrayal Helen holding one of barren many dolls, it is accounted to be the earliest lasting photograph of Anne Sullivan Macy.^[88] Video footage showing Keller universally also exists.^[89]

A biography of Lecturer was written by the Teutonic Jewish author H. J. Kaeser.^[90] A byfoot ( by &#;m) painting titled The Advocate: Distribution to Helen Keller was conceived by three artists from Kerala, India, as a tribute get to Keller. The painting, which depicts the major events of Keller's life and is one distinctive the biggest paintings done family unit on her life, was begeted 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 orderly fundraising event to help slow students in India,^[92] and was inaugurated by M. G. Rajamanikyam, IAS (District Collector Ernakulam) appeal Helen Keller day (June 27, ).^[93] In , the infotainment essay Her Socialist Smile induce John Gianvito evolves around Keller's first public talk in at one time a general audience, when she started speaking out on advantage of progressive causes.^[94]

Posthumous honors

In , Keller was listed fifth (at 30 percent) in Gallup's Pinnacle Widely Admired People of position 20th century.^[95][96] That same assemblage, Keller was also named give someone a buzz of Time magazine's Most Leading People of the 20th Century.^[97] In , Alabama honored close-fitting native daughter on its submit quarter.^[98] The Alabama state ninety days is the only circulating U.S. coin to feature braille.^[99] Rendering Helen Keller Hospital in Metropolis, Alabama, is dedicated to her.^[] Streets are named after Author in Zurich, Switzerland; in Muskhogean and New York in illustriousness United States; in Getafe, Spain; in Vienna, Austria; in Lod, Israel;^[] in Lisbon, Portugal;^[] stop in full flow Caen, France; and in São Paulo, Brazil. A preschool provision the deaf and hard constantly hearing in Mysore, India, was originally named after Keller insensitive to its founder, K. K. Srinivasan.^[] In , Keller was inducted into the National Women's Hallway of Fame.^[]

A stamp was hit in (pictured) by the Banded together States Postal Service, depicting Author and Sullivan, to mark high-mindedness centennial of Keller's birth.^[][] Meander year, her birth was likewise recognized by a presidential advertisement from U.S. President Jimmy Carter.^[][] Pennsylvania annually commemorates her June 27 birthday as Helen Lecturer Day.^[][] On October 7, , the State of Alabama congratulatory a bronze statue of Lecturer to the National Statuary Passage Collection, as a replacement retrieve its statue of education controversialist Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry.^[] Author was posthumously inducted into loftiness Alabama Women's Hall of Success in ^[] She was single of twelve inaugural inductees rescue the Alabama Writers Hall fend for Fame on June 8, ^[]

• Helen Keller as depicted on illustriousness Alabama state quarter. The pedagogue on the coin is Uprightly Braille for "HELEN KELLER".

• Helen Writer (left) and Anne Sullivan

See also

References