Helen Keller

 NAME Helen Adams Keller. (1) , (2)

WHAT FAMOUS FOR Helen Keller was an American author, disability rights advocate, political activist, and lecturer who became deaf and blind as an infant, yet learned to read, write, and speak, and went on to become the first deafblind person in the United States to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. She spent her adult life campaigning for the blind and deaf, for women's suffrage, for workers' rights, and for world peace, becoming one of the most admired women of the twentieth century. (3)

BIRTH Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. (4)

FAMILY BACKGROUND Her father, Arthur H. Keller, was a former Confederate Army captain, a farmer, and the editor of the local newspaper, the North Alabamian. 

Her mother, Kate Adams Keller, was an educated woman from Memphis and Arthur's second wife. 

Helen was the elder of their two daughters, and she also had two older half-brothers from her father's first marriage. (4) 

CHILDHOOD At just 19 months old, Helen was struck by an illness, described by doctors at the time as "brain fever" but now thought to have probably been scarlet fever or meningitis, which left her permanently blind and deaf. Unable to see, hear, or speak intelligibly, she developed her own crude system of home signs to communicate with her family, and grew increasingly frustrated and prone to violent tantrums as she struggled to make herself understood. 

Her worried parents eventually sought help from inventor Alexander Graham Bell, who was working with deaf children, and he directed them to the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston, which sent a young teacher named Anne Sullivan to Tuscumbia in March 1887. (5) , (6)

EDUCATION Anne Sullivan, herself partially blind, arrived when Helen was seven years old and remained her teacher and lifelong companion for the next 49 years. Sullivan's breakthrough came within weeks, when she spelled the word "water" into Helen's hand while cool water ran over it at the pump, and Helen suddenly grasped that everything had a name. 

Helen went on to learn to read Braille, to write with a specially made typewriter, and to lip-read by placing her fingers on the lips and throat of a speaker while the words were simultaneously spelled into her hand; she also learned to speak, though her voice remained difficult for strangers to understand. 

She studied at the Perkins Institution, the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf in New York, and the Cambridge School for Young Ladies, before entering Radcliffe College of Harvard University in 1900, with Sullivan interpreting lectures for her by spelling them into her hand.

Keller in the Radcliffe College yearbook, 1904

In 1904 Helen graduated cum laude from Radcliffe, becoming the first deafblind person in the United States to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. (6) , (7)

CAREER RECORD 1902-1903 Helen published her first two books, The Story of My Life and Optimism, launching her career as a writer even before she finished college.

1904 She graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College and began a lifelong career as an author and public lecturer, campaigning for education and support for the blind and deaf.

1913 She began touring on the lecture circuit, often with an interpreter relaying her speech, raising money and awareness chiefly on behalf of the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB).

1920 She became a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union alongside Roger Baldwin and Jane Addams.

1924 She joined the newly formed American Foundation for the Blind as its chief fundraiser and spokeswoman, a role she held for the rest of her working life, touring the United States and eventually 35 countries.

1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.  (8)

APPEARANCE Anne Sullivan described the young Helen as "large, strong, and ruddy," with a well-formed, vigorous body, a fine head, and a large, finely shaped mouth, though one eye protruded slightly more than the other, a legacy of her childhood illness. 

As an adult, biographer Dorothy Herrmann described Keller as having "regular, almost perfect features and blue eyes that were the colour of the sky," a clear complexion, and long chestnut hair; her natural eyes were later surgically replaced with glass ones to correct the protrusion. (9) , (10)

Keller c. 1904

FASHION Keller was noted in her lecture and vaudeville years for dressing elegantly for her public appearances, often in fashionable gowns suited to the formal occasions and grand halls in which she spoke, reflecting the celebrity status she held as one of the most photographed women of her era. (9)

CHARACTER Those who knew Keller described her as remarkably determined, curious, and warm, with an unpredictable, alternately animated and still, facial expression that reflected her thoughts vividly since she could not see or mirror others' faces. 

She combined a fierce independence and stubbornness, evident from her childhood tantrums onward, with deep compassion for the suffering of others, particularly the poor and disabled, which drove her lifelong activism. (9) , (11)

SPEAKING VOICE Helen learned to produce audible speech under the tutelage of Sarah Fuller at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf in Boston, but her voice remained flat, guttural, and difficult for unfamiliar listeners to understand throughout her life, so she typically relied on an interpreter, often Anne Sullivan or later her secretary Polly Thomson, to repeat her words clearly during public lectures. (6) , (11)

SENSE OF HUMOUR Keller had a lively wit that surprised people who expected only solemnity from her; Mark Twain, one of her closest friends, refused to pity her and once quipped to a companion that "blindness is an exciting business," a remark Keller relished. She also playfully teased Twain for his pessimism, showing she was comfortable trading jokes even with a literary giant twice her age. (12)

RELATIONSHIPS Keller's closest and most enduring relationship was with her teacher, Anne Sullivan, who lived with and worked alongside her for 49 years until Sullivan's death in 1936, after which Keller's secretary Polly Thomson became her constant companion. 

Helen Keller in 1899 with lifelong companion and teacher Anne Sullivan. 

In 1916, while Sullivan was recuperating from illness, Keller fell in love with her temporary secretary, Peter Fagan, and the couple secretly obtained a marriage license in Boston, but the engagement became public in the press and Keller's mother forcibly separated them, ending the relationship; Keller later wrote about the episode as "a little island of joy surrounded by dark waters." She never married and had no children. (13) , (14)

MONEY AND FAME Keller achieved international celebrity from childhood onward, and her fame helped her raise substantial sums for disability causes; wealthy admirer Henry Huttleston Rogers, prompted by Mark Twain, funded her education, and she later established a two-million-dollar endowment fund for the American Foundation for the Blind. 

Despite mixing with millionaires, royalty, and presidents, Keller herself lived modestly and devoted much of her adult income and effort to fundraising for others rather than personal wealth. (3) (15)

FOOD AND DRINK Keller had famously simple tastes, reportedly loving hot dogs with mustard so much that her secretary Polly Thomson once banned them from the house to stop her eating little else, and she was fond of martinis in her later years, enjoying a couple of stiff drinks most evenings. 

As a child, she recalled happily helping in the kitchen, making ice cream and licking stirring spoons during holiday preparations. (16)

MUSIC AND ARTS Though she could not hear music, Keller described experiencing it through vibration, placing her hands on a piano or radio speaker to feel the rhythm and tone, and she wrote appreciatively about the sensation of "feeling" an orchestra play. 

She was also involved in the arts through cinema, starring as herself in the 1919 silent film Deliverance, a dramatized account of her life story. (6) , (11)

LITERATURE Keller was a prolific author who wrote 12 to 14 books along with hundreds of speeches and essays, on subjects ranging from her own life to animals and Mahatma Gandhi. Her best-known work, the 1903 autobiography The Story of My Life, chronicled her childhood and education with Anne Sullivan and became an international bestseller; other titles included The World I Live In (1908), Out of the Dark (1913), My Religion (1927), Midstream: My Later Life (1929), and Teacher: Anne Sullivan Macy (1955). (6) , (17)

NATURE Keller wrote often about experiencing the natural world through touch and smell, describing the textures of leaves, flowers, and running water with great sensory precision in her books, and she found particular joy in gardens and the outdoors throughout her life. Her celebrated 1908 essay collection The World I Live In devoted whole chapters to how she perceived nature without sight or hearing. (6) 

Keller holding a magnolia, c. 1920

PETS Keller was a devoted, lifelong dog lover who almost always kept a dog by her side, including a pit bull named Sir Thomas. 

During a 1937 visit to Akita Prefecture in Japan, she was so moved by the story of the loyal Akita dog Hachiko that she expressed a wish to own one, and she was given a puppy named Kamikaze-Go, becoming the first person to bring the Akita breed to the United States; when Kamikaze died of distemper months later, the Japanese government sent her his brother, Kenzan-Go, whom she nicknamed Go-Go. (18) , (19)

HOBBIES AND SPORTS Beyond her extensive travel and public speaking, Keller enjoyed activities such as horseback riding, rowing, tandem bicycling, and swimming, engaging in physical recreation with characteristic enthusiasm despite her disabilities. 

She also kept up an active correspondence and enjoyed exploring gardens by touch and smell as a favored pastime. (6)

SCIENCE AND MATHS Keller's own education involved close engagement with the mechanics of speech and hearing through her association with Alexander Graham Bell, whose scientific interest in deafness first brought him into her family's life, and she maintained a curiosity about technology and invention throughout their decades-long friendship. She did not pursue science as a profession but wrote and lectured on how technology and medicine could reduce preventable blindness. (11) , (20)

ACTIVISM At the beginning of the 20th century, blindness was not a subject that women’s magazines were especially keen to discuss. This was partly because a surprisingly large proportion of blindness cases were associated with venereal disease, which was then considered a matter best dealt with by lowering one’s voice and pretending it wasn’t happening. Into this rather awkward silence stepped Helen Keller.

After graduating from Radcliffe College in 1904, Keller became one of the most energetic advocates for people with disabilities of her age. She worked for the American Foundation for the Blind for many years, travelling throughout the United States and visiting dozens of countries abroad. She became an internationally celebrated author and speaker, which is remarkable enough when you consider that she could neither see nor hear. The rest of us can barely manage a presentation when the projector refuses to cooperate.

Keller’s interests extended far beyond blindness and deafness. She was a suffragist, pacifist, Christian socialist and supporter of birth control, and she was an outspoken critic of President Woodrow Wilson. She campaigned for better conditions for disabled people and spoke publicly about the discrimination faced by deaf people. In 1915, she and George A. Kessler founded Helen Keller International, an organisation devoted to research and programmes involving vision, health and nutrition.

She was also deeply troubled by racial injustice. In 1916, Keller donated money to the NAACP, saying she was ashamed by the un-Christian treatment of Black Americans in the American South. This was at a time when racial segregation and discrimination were not merely widespread but woven into the machinery of American life.

In 1920, Keller helped establish the American Civil Liberties Union. She continued travelling extensively with her teacher and companion Anne Sullivan, visiting more than 40 countries and making several trips to Japan, where she became particularly popular. She met every American president from Grover Cleveland through Lyndon B. Johnson and counted among her friends such figures as Alexander Graham Bell, Charlie Chaplin and Mark Twain.

Keller and Twain had more in common than a fondness for extraordinary company. Both were regarded as political radicals and sympathised with left-wing causes, which was not necessarily the safest way to endear oneself to respectable society in their day.

Keller was particularly concerned with poverty and the opportunities—or lack of them—available to poor children. She believed that poverty could crush people before they had a chance to discover what they were capable of. Keller acknowledged that her own achievements had been helped by the advantages of her birth and upbringing, and she recognised that such opportunities were not equally available to everyone.

Her point was a simple but rather inconvenient one: success is not merely a matter of determination. Sometimes people also need somebody to give them a chance. Keller had been fortunate enough to receive that chance, and she spent much of the rest of her life trying to make sure that others did too.

PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Keller became a committed follower of the Swedish theologian Emanuel Swedenborg, whose mystical Christian theology she credited with giving her spiritual comfort and meaning, and she wrote about her faith in the 1927 book My Religion. Her worldview combined this spiritual conviction with a strong belief in social and economic justice as a moral imperative. (17)

POLITICS Keller was a committed socialist and radical activist who joined the Socialist Party of America in 1909, wrote that she loved "the red flag and what it symbolizes," and argued that the industrial conditions causing poverty were also a leading cause of blindness among the poor. 

She was a suffragist, a supporter of birth control, an opponent of child labor, and a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union in 1920, and in 1916 she donated to the NAACP and had her support published in its journal, The Crisis. (20) , (21)

SCANDAL Keller's brief secret engagement to Peter Fagan in 1916 became a public sensation after newspapers reported his application for a marriage license, embarrassing her family and prompting her mother to swiftly end the relationship and issue a public denial on Keller's behalf. 

Separately, her outspoken socialism and associations with Communist-linked front organizations during the 1930s and 1940s drew unfavorable press attention and made her a subject of ongoing government scrutiny. (13) , (22)

MILITARY RECORD Keller had no military service of her own, though her father, Arthur H. Keller, served as a captain in the Confederate Army before her birth. 

During the Second World War, Keller toured military hospitals extensively to comfort soldiers who had been blinded or otherwise disabled in combat. (5) , (8)

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS Aside from the illness at 19 months that left her deaf and blind, Keller enjoyed generally robust health for most of her life, being described by Anne Sullivan as strong, vigorous, and never ill in the years following her early illness. 

Her health declined later in life, and she suffered a series of strokes beginning in 1961 that curtailed her public activities and confined her to her home for her final years. (9) , (23)

HOMES Keller was born and raised at Ivy Green, her family's estate in Tuscumbia, Alabama, before later years spent largely in Massachusetts and New York during her education.

Keller's birthplace in Tuscumbia, Alabama By Calstanhope 

 In 1936, following Anne Sullivan's death, she settled permanently in Easton, Connecticut, at a home she named Arcan Ridge, where she lived for the rest of her life. (23) 

TRAVEL As the American Foundation for the Blind's chief representative, Keller toured extensively on its behalf, ultimately traveling to around 35 to 39 countries across five continents to advocate for the blind and deaf and to raise funds. 

In 1937 she toured Japan, and in 1948 General Douglas MacArthur sent her there again as America's first postwar Goodwill Ambassador; she also represented the United States informally on other overseas missions and met numerous foreign heads of state. (3)

DEATH Helen Keller suffered a series of strokes in 1961, which ended her public career, and she spent her final years at Arcan Ridge in Easton, Connecticut. She died in her sleep on June 1, 1968, a few weeks before her eighty-eighth birthday.  (2)

APPEARANCES IN MEDIA Keller starred as herself in the 1919 silent film Deliverance, a dramatized retelling of her life. Her story was later immortalized in The Miracle Worker, first a 1957 television play, then a Pulitzer Prize-winning 1959 Broadway play, and finally a celebrated 1962 film starring Anne Bancroft as Anne Sullivan and Patty Duke as young Helen, both of whom won Academy Awards for their performances. (2) 

ACHIEVEMENTS Keller became the first deafblind person in the United States to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree, graduating cum laude from Radcliffe College in 1904. 

She co-founded the American Civil Liberties Union,

Keller introduced the Akita dog breed to the United States

In 1964 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, for her lifetime of advocacy on behalf of people with disabilities.

Her birth date, June 27, is commemorated as Helen Keller Day in Pennsylvania.

Sources: (1) Wikipedia (2) Britannica (3) Perkins School for the Blind (4) American Foundation for the Blind: Biography (5) National Women's History Museum (6) National Portrait Gallery (7) Perkins School for the Blind FAQ (8) American Foundation for the Blind: Chronology (9) UPenn Digital Library: The Story of My Life (10) Hazlitt (11) Grunge (12) SignDNA (13) American Printing House (14) American Foundation for the Blind: Chronology of Her Life (15) Britannica 100 Women (16) The Takeout (17) Encyclopedia.com (18) Akita Club of America (19) Wikipedia: Hachiko (20) Ragged Edge Magazine (21) Utne Reader (22) 24/7 Wall St. (23) The Trouble Begins at Eight (Mark Twain Project blog)