Keller, Helen

Keller, Helen (Adams)

Helen Keller at age 66.

(credit: Courtesy of the American Foundation for the Blind)

(born June 27, 1880, Tuscumbia, Ala., U.S.—died June 1, 1968, Westport, Conn.) U.S. author and educator who was blind and deaf. Deprived by illness of sight and hearing at the age of 19 months, Keller soon became mute as well. Five years later she began to be instructed by Anne Sullivan (1866–1936), who taught her the names of objects by pressing the manual alphabet into her palm. Eventually Keller learned to read and write in Braille. She wrote several books, including The Story of My Life (1902). Her childhood was dramatized in William Gibson's play The Miracle Worker (1959; film, 1962).

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Keller, Helen (Adams) (1880–1968) author, lecturer; born in Tuscumbia, Ala. She became blind and deaf at 19 months, and in a breakthrough made famous by subsequent popular dramatizations, was taught to speak, read, and write when she was seven years old by Anne Sullivan, known as "Teacher" to Keller and "the Miracle Worker" among the general public; Sullivan remained Keller's interpreter and companion until her death in 1936. Keller received communications by lipreading, braille, and finger-spelling using a manual alphabet; she expressed herself through finger-spelling, typewriting, and speech. She achieved international celebrity as a child, graduated from Radcliffe College (1904), and as an adult lectured and published widely on both her own experiences and political, social, and educational issues; she promoted socialism and women's suffrage and raised funds for the American Foundation for the Blind. She remains a model of achievement among the severely disabled.

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Keller, Helen

(1880–1968) Achieved greatness despite blindness and deafness. [Am. Hist.: Wallechinsky, 13]

See : Blindness

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Keller, Helen

(1880–1968) overcame handicap of deafness as well as blindness. [Am. Hist.: NCE, 1462]

See : Deafness

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Keller, Helen

(1880–1968) though blind and deaf, becomes noted author and lecturer. [Am. Hist.: Hart, 439–440]

See : Determination