Keller, Helen, 1880-1968

Helen Adams Keller (1880-1968) devoted her life to bettering the education and treatment of the blind, the deaf, and the nonverbal, and was a pioneer in educating the public in the prevention of blindness in newborns. Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama on June 27, 1880. When Helen Keller was 19 months old she became ill with Scarlet Fever, which resulted in her becoming blind and deaf. In her autobiography The Story of My Life, a book she first wrote in 1903 at the age of 23, she described her illness: "They called it acute congestion of the stomach and the fever left me as suddenly and mysteriously as it had come. There was great rejoicing in the family that morning, but none, not even the doctor, knew that I should never see or hear again." Despite her loss of sight and hearing Keller learned to do small tasks such as folding laundry and getting things for her mother. She invented a system of signs to make her wishes known. Knowing she was different from other children, she became frustrated and often reacted uncontrollably. She later said, "Sometimes I stood between two persons who were conversing and touched their lips. I could not understand, and was vexed. I moved my lips and gesticulated frantically without result. This made me so angry at times that I kicked and screamed until I was exhausted." Keller needed specialized training but her parents were unable to provide it. As the years passed she became more difficult and less willing to obey her parents. "I was strong, active, indifferent to consequences. I knew my own mind well enough and always had my own way, even if I had to fight tooth and nail for it." When Keller was about six years old her father took her to Washington, D.C., where she was examined by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, who had developed a system of visible speech that helped the deaf to communicate. Bell urged Keller''s father to write the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston, Massachusetts, and request a teacher. Anne Sullivan became the teacher who would for many years mentor Keller and teach her to speak. Keller eloquently described her discovery of water in her autobiography. "We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Someone was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word `water'' first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten--a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew that `w-a-t-e-r'' meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away." This experience opened up a new world for Keller. Her curiosity about the world could not be satisfied, and Sullivan proved to be a patient teacher. Little by little, Keller learned to express herself through the manual alphabet; she next learned to read Braille, a system of writing for the blind that uses characters made up of raised dots. When Keller was 10 years old Sullivan heard about Ragnhild Kaata, a deaf and blind Norwegian child who had learned to speak. Sullivan then took Keller to the Horace Mann School for the Deaf, where she made remarkable progress in learning to speak English, French, and German. While attending the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf and the Cambridge School for Young Ladies, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Keller studied history, mathematics, literature, astronomy, and physics. She went on to Radcliff College, where she graduated with high honors in 1904. Keller's next battle was the public's indifference to the welfare of the disabled. She devoted the rest of her life to promoting social reforms aimed at bettering the education and treatment of the blind, the deaf, the nonverbal, and others. Keller won many awards and citations for her humanitarian work. Credited with prompting the organization of state commissions for the blind, she helped put a stop to placing deaf and blind individuals in mental asylums. As a pioneer in educating the public in the prevention of blindness of the newborn, she wrote newspaper and magazine articles about the relationship between venereal disease and blindness in newborn infants. She traveled to Europe, Asia, North and South America, and Africa lecturing about the need to improve the lives of disabled people. In 1929 Keller wrote the second volume of her autobiography, Midstream: My Later Life. Sharing Keller's achievements as one of the foremost humanitarians of the century was her companion and teacher Anne Sullivan Macy. Sullivan helped Keller throughout her school and college days, manually spelling lectures and reading assignments into Keller's palm. Later she accompanied Keller on her lecture tours, giving full support to her pupil and their joint cause of aiding the physically challenged. The partnership was ended only by Sullivan's death in 1936. Keller died over 30 years later at the age of 88. Keller's writings include: Optimism (1903), "The Song of the Stone Wall" (1910), Helen Keller's Journal (1938), Teacher (1955), and others.

From the guide to the Papers, 1900-1971, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)