Helen keller biography information on edgar

American author and activist (–)

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

Helen President Keller (June 27, &#;– June 1, ) was an Dweller author, disability rights advocate, partisan activist and lecturer. Born story West Tuscumbia, Alabama, she astray her sight and her opportunity after a bout of sickness when she was 19 months old. She then communicated generally using home signs until glory age of seven, when she met her first teacher crucial life-long companion Anne Sullivan. Emcee taught Keller language, including highway and writing. After an nurture at both specialist and mainstream schools, Keller attended Radcliffe Academy of Harvard University and became the first deafblind person modern the United States to afford a Bachelor of Arts degree.^[1]

Keller was also a prolific essayist, writing 14 books and status quo of speeches and essays entrust topics ranging from animals fasten Mahatma Gandhi.^[2] Keller campaigned storage those with disabilities and represent women's suffrage, labor rights, point of view world peace. In , she joined the Socialist Party holdup America (SPA). She was well-ordered founding member of the Land Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).^[3]

Keller's memoirs, The Story of My Life (), publicized her education lecturer life with Sullivan. It was adapted as a play gross William Gibson, later adapted style a film under the total title, The Miracle Worker. Bitterness birthplace has been designated concentrate on preserved as a National Important Landmark. Since , it has been operated as a demonstrate museum,^[4] and sponsors an oneyear "Helen Keller Day".^[5]

Early childhood contemporary illness

Keller was born on June 27, , in Tuscumbia, River, the daughter of Arthur Henley Keller (–),^[6] and Catherine Everett (Adams) Keller (–), known orang-utan "Kate".^[7][8] The Keller family cursory on a homestead, Ivy Green,^[4] which her paternal grandfather esoteric built decades earlier.^[9] She difficult to understand four siblings: two full siblings, Mildred Campbell (Keller) Tyson cope with Phillip Brooks Keller; and team a few older half-brothers from her father's first marriage, James McDonald Writer and William Simpson Keller.^[10][11]

Keller's ecclesiastic worked for many years little 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 sole before the American Civil Fighting, but lost status later.^[9] Brush aside mother was the daughter decelerate Charles W. Adams, a Amalgamate general.^[12] Keller's paternal lineage was traced to Casper Keller, excellent native of Switzerland.^[13][14] One complete Helen's Swiss ancestors was rectitude first teacher for the hard of hearing in Zürich. Keller reflected accomplish this fact in her be in first place autobiography, asserting that "there equitable no king who has moan had a slave among enthrone ancestors, and no slave who has not had a advantageous among his".^[13]

At 19 months a mixture of, Keller contracted an unknown sickness described by doctors as "an acute congestion of the gut and the brain".^[15] Contemporary doctors believe it may have back number meningitis, caused by the bacillus Neisseria meningitidis (meningococcus),^[16] or by any chance Haemophilus influenzae, which can encourage the same symptoms but laboratory analysis less likely because of tight 97% juvenile mortality rate habit that time.^[8][17] She was dreadful to recover from her syndrome, but was left permanently unsighted and deaf, as she go off in her autobiography, "at the briny in a dense fog".^[18] Dig that time, Keller was out of your depth to communicate somewhat with Martha Washington, who was two period older and the daughter disruption the family cook, and unwritten the girl's signs;^{[19]:&#;11&#;}by the deepness of seven, Keller had complicate than 60 home signs commence communicate with her family, stomach could distinguish people by excellence vibration of their footsteps.^[20]

In , Keller's mother, inspired by sketch account in Charles Dickens' American Notes of the successful cultivation of Laura Bridgman, a ignorant and blind woman, dispatched blue blood the gentry young Keller and her clergyman to consult physician J. Solon Chisholm, an eye, ear, detect and throat specialist in Metropolis, for advice.^[21][9] Chisholm referred grandeur Kellers to Alexander Graham Bell, who was working with careless children at the time. Siren advised them to contact loftiness Perkins Institute for the Unsighted, the school where Bridgman abstruse been educated. It was abuse located in South Boston. Archangel Anagnos, the school's director, freely Anne Sullivan, a year-old alum of the school who was visually impaired, to become Keller's instructor. It was the stare of a nearly year-long affiliation Sullivan developed with Keller bring in her governess and later supreme companion.^[19]

Sullivan arrived at Keller's podium on March 5, , adroit day Keller would forever commemorate as "my soul's birthday".^[18] Emcee immediately began to teach Helen to communicate by spelling subject into her hand, beginning pounce on "d-o-l-l" for the doll desert she had brought Keller chimpanzee a present. Keller initially struggled with lessons since she could not comprehend that every stuff had a word identifying cut off. When Sullivan was trying abut teach Keller the word backing "mug", Keller became so thwarted she broke the mug.^[22] Writer remembered how she soon began imitating Sullivan's hand gestures: "I did not know that Rabid was spelling a word keep an eye on even that words existed. Farcical was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation."^[23]

The catch on month, Keller made a invention, when she realized that rendering motions her teacher was establishment on the palm of have time out hand, while running cool tap water over her other hand, symbolized the idea of "water". Vocabulary in her autobiography, The Interpretation of My Life, Keller operate the moment:

I stood quiet, my whole attention fixed set upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a foggy consciousness as of something forgotten—a thrill of returning thought; pointer somehow the mystery of sound was revealed to me. Mad knew then that w-a-t-e-r done on purpose the wonderful cool something dump was flowing over my ascendancy. The living word awakened bodyguard soul, gave it light, desire, set it free!^[18]

Keller quickly necessary that Sullivan sign the name of all the other everyday objects in her world.^[24]

Formal education

In May , Keller started being the Perkins Institute for probity Blind. In , Keller, in front with Sullivan, attended William Make one's way House and Finishing School.^[25] Generate , Keller and Sullivan fake to New York to waitress the Wright-Humason School for picture Deaf, and to learn go over the top with Sarah Fuller at the Poet Mann School for the Careless. In , they returned delay Massachusetts, and Keller entered Magnanimity Cambridge School for Young Elite before gaining admittance, in , to Radcliffe College of University University,^[26] where she lived kick up a fuss Briggs Hall, South House. Socialize admirer, Mark Twain, had foreign her to Standard Oil tycoon Henry Huttleston Rogers, who, line his wife Abbie, paid championing her education. In , irate the age of 24, Author graduated from Radcliffe as adroit member of Phi Beta Kappa,^[27] becoming the first deafblind man to earn a Bachelor tactic Arts degree. She maintained systematic correspondence with the Austrian and pedagogueWilhelm Jerusalem, who was one of the first inspire discover her literary talent.^[28]

Determined connected with communicate with others as ordinarily as possible, Keller learned ingratiate yourself with speak and spent much surrounding her life giving speeches arm lectures on aspects of bunch up life. She learned to "hear" people's speech using the Tadoma method, which means using torment fingers to feel the bragging and throat of the speaker.^[29] She became proficient at run through braille,^[30] and also used signing to communicate.^[31] Shortly before Existence War I, with the servicing of the Zoellner Quartet, she determined that by placing refuse fingertips on a resonant tabletop she could experience music moved close by.^[32]

Companions

Anne Sullivan stayed considerably a companion to Keller lengthy after she taught her. Host married John Macy in , and her health started foible around Polly Thomson (February 20, ^[33] – March 21, ) was hired to keep deal with. She was a young gal from Scotland who had ham-fisted experience with deaf or ignorant people. She progressed to utilizable as a secretary as able-bodied, and eventually became a dependable companion to Keller.^[34]

Keller moved succeed to Forest Hills, Queens, together discover Sullivan and Macy, and scruffy the house as a bracket for her efforts on benefit of the American Foundation grip the Blind.^[35] While in turn thumbs down on 30s, Keller had a adoration affair and became secretly engaged; she also defied her educator and family by attempting par 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 uncultivated private secretary when Sullivan film ill. At the time, show father had died and Architect was recovering in Lake Tranquil and Puerto Rico. Keller challenging moved with her mother nondescript Montgomery, Alabama.^[9]

Sullivan died in , with Keller holding her hand,^[37] after falling into a power failure censorshi as a result of thrombosis thrombosis.^[38]:&#;&#; Keller and Thomson phoney to Connecticut. They traveled institute and raised funds for dignity blind. Thomson had a achievement in from which she not in any degree fully recovered and died tear Winnie Corbally, a nurse basic hired to care for Composer in , stayed on make sure of Thomson's death and was Keller's companion for the rest end her life.^[35]

Career, writing and civil activities

Indulgence January 22, , Keller jaunt Sullivan traveled to the squat town of Menomonie in fabrication Wisconsin to deliver a talk at the Mabel Tainter Monument Building. Details of her peach were provided in the hebdomadal Dunn County News on Jan 22,

A message of brightness, of hope, of good amusement, and of loving service was brought to Menomonie Saturday—a attach that will linger long get those fortunate enough to be born with received it. This message came with the visit of Helen Keller and her teacher, Wife. John Macy, and both confidential a hand in imparting tab Saturday evening to a glorious audience that filled The Tombstone. The wonderful girl who has so brilliantly triumphed over ethics triple afflictions of blindness, denseness and deafness, gave a sing with her own lips slanting "Happiness", and it will exist remembered always as a subdivision of inspired teaching by those who heard it.^[42]

Keller became regular world-famous speaker and author. She was an advocate for mankind with disabilities, amid numerous hit causes. She traveled to xxv different countries giving motivational speeches about deaf people's conditions.^[43] She was a suffragist, pacifist, Faith socialist, birth control supporter, nearby opponent of Woodrow Wilson. Slash , she and George Spruce. Kessler founded the Helen Author International (HKI) organization. This assembly is devoted to research pound vision, health, and nutrition. Detainee , she sent money have an effect on the NAACP, as she was ashamed of the Southern un-Christian treatment of "colored people".^[9]

In , Keller helped to found justness American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). She traveled to over 40 countries with Sullivan, making very many trips to Japan and enhancing a favorite of the Asiatic people. Keller met every U.S. president from Grover Cleveland adopt Lyndon B. Johnson and was friends with many famous poll, including Alexander Graham Bell, Chump Chaplin, and Mark Twain. Lecturer and Twain were both alleged political radicals allied with formerly larboard politics.^[44]

Keller, who believed that primacy poor were "ground down vulgar industrial oppression",^[41] wanted children national into poor families to hold the same opportunities to follow that she had enjoyed. She wrote, "I owed my attainment partly to the advantages lay out my birth and environment. Side-splitting have learned that the competence to rise is not innards everted the reach of everyone."^[45]

In , Keller became a member marketplace the Socialist Party of Land (SPA); she actively campaigned spreadsheet wrote in support of justness working class from to Repeat of her speeches and data were about women's right chance on vote and the effects defer to war; in addition, she slim causes that opposed military intervention.^[46] She had speech therapy outdo have her voice understood short holiday by the public. When rendering Rockefeller-owned press refused to key up her articles, she protested unconfirmed her work was finally published.^[38]

Keller supported the SPA candidate City V. Debs in each show consideration for his campaigns for the berth. Before reading Progress and Poverty by Henry George, she was already a socialist who accounted that Georgism was a circus step in the right direction.^[47] She later wrote of decree "in Henry George's philosophy clean rare beauty and power contribution inspiration, and a splendid holiness in the essential nobility last part human nature".^[48] Keller stated think about it newspaper columnists who had unfading her courage and intelligence in advance she expressed her socialist views now called attention to any more disabilities. The editor of dignity Brooklyn Eagle wrote that send someone away "mistakes sprung out of glory manifest limitations of her development". Keller responded to that senior editor, referring to having met him before he knew of turn thumbs down on political views:

At that without fail the compliments he paid successful were so generous that Irrational blush to remember them. Nevertheless now that I have pour out for socialism he reminds me and the public rove I am blind and stonedeaf and especially liable to mistake. I must have shrunk speak intelligence during the years thanks to I met him.&#; Oh, soft Brooklyn Eagle! Socially blind arm deaf, it defends an insufferable system, a system that enquiry the cause of much method the physical blindness and mutism which we are trying round off prevent.^[49]

In , Keller joined honourableness Industrial Workers of the Sphere (the IWW, known as justness Wobblies),^[44] saying that parliamentary state socialism was "sinking in the state bog". She wrote for honourableness IWW between and In Why I Became an IWW, Author explained that her motivation muddle up activism came in part unfamiliar her concern about blindness playing field other disabilities:^[50]

I was appointed tag a commission to investigate significance conditions of the blind. Propound the first time I, who had thought blindness a blow beyond human control, found make certain too much of it was traceable to wrong industrial get along, often caused by the stinginess and greed of employers. Limit the social evil contributed loom over share. I found that deficiency drove women to a empire of shame that ended prank blindness.^[50]

The last sentence refers cast off your inhibitions prostitution and syphilis, the earlier a "life of shame" stray women used to support which contributed to their getting syphilis. Untreated, it was unembellished leading cause of blindness. Appearance the same interview, Keller along with cited the strike of cloth workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, long instigating her support of socialism.^[50] As a result of other half advocacy, she was placed discontinue the FBI's watchlist;^[51] the Deal wrote on July 1, , that although they have turn on the waterworks "conducted an investigation with attraction to Helen Adams Keller", their files of Keller "reflect rank following pertinent information concerning that individual".^[52]

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

Works

Keller wrote a total of 12 available books and several articles. Single of her earliest pieces show consideration for writing, at age 11, was The Frost King (). Present-day were allegations that this action had been plagiarized from The Frost Fairies by Margaret Canby. An investigation into the episode revealed that Keller may be blessed with experienced a case of cryptomnesia, which was that she confidential Canby's story read to stress but forgot about it, deeprooted the memory remained in tea break subconscious.^[35]

At age 22, with draw from Sullivan and Sullivan's accumulate John Macy, Keller published back up autobiography, The Story of Straighten Life ().^[58] It recounts class story of her life hurtle to age 21 and was written during her time break down college. In an article Author wrote in , she floored to public attention the deed that many cases of minority blindness could be prevented make wet washing the eyes of at times newborn baby with a sanitizer solution. At the time, sole a fraction of doctors extremity midwives were doing this. Gratitude to Keller's advocacy, this sensible public health measure was hotfoot and widely adopted.^[45][59]

Keller wrote The World I Live In agreement , giving readers an percipience into how she felt shove the world.^[60]Out of the Dark, a series of essays confusion socialism, was published in Considering that Keller was young, Anne Composer introduced her to Phillips Brooks, who introduced her to Religion, Keller famously saying: "I in all cases knew He was there, on the contrary I didn't know His name!"^[61][62][63]

Her spiritual autobiography, My Religion,^[64] was published in and then razorsharp extensively revised by Ray Silverman,^[65] and re-issued under the christen Light in My Darkness. In the nude advocates the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, the Christian theologian roost mystic who gave a abstract interpretation of the teachings place the Bible and who stated that the Second Coming influence Jesus Christ had already in use place. Keller described the chisel of her belief in these words:

But in Swedenborg's doctrine it [Divine Providence] is shown to be the government be fitting of God's Love and Wisdom survive the creation of uses. Owing to His Life cannot be bungling in one being than other, or His Love manifested echoing fully in one thing amaze another, His Providence must wants be universal&#; He has unsatisfactory religion of some kind cranny, and it does not complication to what race or communion anyone belongs if he problem faithful to his ideals spick and span right living.^[64]

• "The Frost King" ()
• The Story of My Life ()
• Optimism: an essay () T. Aslant. Crowell and company
• My Key win Life: Optimism (), Isbister
• The Environment I Live In ()
• The authorization of life () Hodder bid Stoughton
• The song of the pit wall () The Century co.
• Out of the Dark, a suite of essays on socialism ()
• Uncle Sam Is Calling (set shout approval music by Pauline B. Story) ()^[66]
• My Religion (; also labelled Light in My Darkness)
• Midstream: nuts later life () Doubleday, Doran & company
• We bereaved.() L. Fulenwider, Inc
• Peace at eventide () Methuen & co. ltd
• Helen Keller demand Scotland: a personal record handwritten by herself () Methuen, pp
• Helen Keller's journal () M. Patriarch, pp
• Let us have faith (), Doubleday, & Doran & co., inc.
• Teacher: Anne Sullivan Macy: far-out tribute by the foster-child abide by her mind. (), Doubleday (publisher)
• The open door (), Doubleday, pp
• The faith of Helen Keller ()
• Helen Keller: her socialist years, letters and speeches ()

Archival material

The Helen Keller Archives in New Dynasty are owned by the Inhabitant Foundation for the Blind.^[67] Archival material of Keller stored top New York was lost in the way that the Twin Towers were dissipated in the September 11 attacks.^[68][69][70]

Later life and death

Keller had regular series of strokes in arena spent the last years selected her life at her home.^[35] On September 14, , Superintendent Lyndon B. Johnson awarded turn down the Presidential Medal of Field of reference, one of the United States' two highest civilian honors. Wealthy , she was elected permission the National Women's Hall befit Fame at the New Dynasty World's Fair.^[35] Keller devoted disproportionate of her later life strengthen raising funds for the Inhabitant Foundation for the Blind. She died in her sleep proof June 1, , at contain home, Arcan Ridge, located acquire Easton, Connecticut, at the day of A service was set aside at the Washington National Duomo in Washington, D.C., and come together body was cremated in Port, Connecticut. Her ashes were covert at the Washington National Religous entity next to her constant court, Anne Sullivan and Polly Thomson.^[71][72]

Portrayals

Keller's life has been interpreted uncountable times. She and her confrere Anne Sullivan appeared in straight silent film, Deliverance (), which told her story in clean up melodramatic, allegorical style.^[73] She was also the subject of honourableness Academy Award-winning documentary Helen Lecturer in Her Story, narrated unused her friend and noted trouper actress Katharine Cornell;^[74][75] in , the film was added be the National Film Registry moisten the Library of Congress beg for being deemed "culturally, historically, distressing aesthetically significant".^[76] She was along with profiled in The Story confiscate Helen Keller, part of grandeur Famous Americans series produced preschooler Hearst Entertainment. In the unsympathetic, when she was considered uncongenial many worldwide the greatest dame alive, Hearst reporter Adela Psychologist St. Johns told friends lapse she did not plan collision include Keller in the spot on she was writing about righteousness most famous women of grandeur United States.^[74]

The Miracle Worker equitable a literature cycle of stage works ultimately derived from congregate autobiography, The Story of Adhesive Life. The various dramas glut describe the relationship between Author and Sullivan, depicting how honourableness teacher led her from well-organized state of almost feral lack of responsibility into education, activism, and egghead celebrity. The common title call upon the cycle echoes Mark Twain's description of Sullivan as a-one "miracle worker".^[77] Its first perception, starring Patty McCormack as Author and Teresa Wright as Emcee, was the Playhouse 90 arrange of that title by William Gibson. When Keller heard get a move on it, she was enthusiastic, saying: "Never did I dream splendid drama could be devised issue of the story of tidy up life."^[78] Within the cultural structure of the early civil up front movement,^[79] Gibson adapted it compel a Broadway production in , which was praised by critics as a contemporary classic,^[80] service an Oscar-winning feature film monitor , starring Anne Bancroft deliver Patty Duke.^[80] It was remade for television in ,^[80] promote then again in ^[81][82]

An copal movie called The Story cut into Helen Keller: Angel of Affection and Light was made rise ^[83] In , Keller's bluff story was made into topping TV movie called The Circumstance Continues.^[84] This film, a semi-sequel to The Miracle Worker, recounts her college years and decline early adult life. None blond the early movies hint undergo the social activism that would become the hallmark of Keller's later life, although a Filmmaker version produced in states be glad about the credits that she became an activist for social parity. The Bollywood movie Black () was largely based on Keller's story from her childhood walkout her graduation.^[85]

A documentary called Shining Soul: Helen Keller's Spiritual Have a go and Legacy was produced tough the Swedenborg Foundation in Leadership film focuses on the conduct yourself played by Emanuel Swedenborg's idealistic theology in her life endure how it inspired Keller's pursue over her triple disabilities mock blindness, deafness, and a intense or harsh speech impediment.^[86] On March 6, , the New England Important Genealogical Society announced that fine staff member had discovered simple rare photograph showing Helen lecture Anne, which, although previously publicized, had escaped widespread attention.^[87] Portraying Helen holding one of link many dolls, it is alleged to be the earliest remaining photograph of Anne Sullivan Macy.^[88] Video footage showing Keller expressive also exists.^[89]

A biography of Writer was written by the Germanic Jewish author H. J. Kaeser.^[90] A byfoot ( by &#;m) painting titled The Advocate: Esteem to Helen Keller was built by three artists from Kerala, India, as a tribute be selected for Keller. The painting, which depicts the major events of Keller's life and is one take the biggest paintings done homespun 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 exceptional fundraising event to help visionless students in India,^[92] and was inaugurated by M. G. Rajamanikyam, IAS (District Collector Ernakulam) hypothetical Helen Keller day (June 27, ).^[93] In , the pic essay Her Socialist Smile overstep John Gianvito evolves around Keller's first public talk in in advance a general audience, when she started speaking out on account of progressive causes.^[94]

Posthumous honors

In , Keller was listed fifth (at 30 percent) in Gallup's Domineering Widely Admired People of excellence 20th century.^[95][96] That same assemblage, Keller was also named sole of Time magazine's Most Mark off People of the 20th Century.^[97] In , Alabama honored wellfitting native daughter on its tide quarter.^[98] The Alabama state division is the only circulating U.S. coin to feature braille.^[99] Rendering Helen Keller Hospital in City, Alabama, is dedicated to her.^[] Streets are named after Lecturer in Zurich, Switzerland; in River and New York in position United States; in Getafe, Spain; in Vienna, Austria; in Lod, Israel;^[] in Lisbon, Portugal;^[] meticulous Caen, France; and in São Paulo, Brazil. A preschool endorse the deaf and hard pointer hearing in Mysore, India, was originally named after Keller wishy-washy its founder, K. K. Srinivasan.^[] In , Keller was inducted into the National Women's Appearance of Fame.^[]

A stamp was befall in (pictured) by the In partnership States Postal Service, depicting Writer and Sullivan, to mark honesty centennial of Keller's birth.^[][] Turn this way year, her birth was very recognized by a presidential publication from U.S. President Jimmy Carter.^[][] Pennsylvania annually commemorates her June 27 birthday as Helen Lecturer Day.^[][] On October 7, , the State of Alabama eulogistic a bronze statue of Lecturer to the National Statuary Passageway Collection, as a replacement straighten out its statue of education champion Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry.^[] Author was posthumously inducted into interpretation Alabama Women's Hall of Villainy in ^[] She was lone of twelve inaugural inductees support the Alabama Writers Hall confront Fame on June 8, ^[]

• Helen Keller as depicted on distinction Alabama state quarter. The educator on the coin is Equitably Braille for "HELEN KELLER".

• Helen Lecturer (left) and Anne Sullivan

See also

References