Trending :top header content

Home biography Helen Keller

Helen Keller Biography

Helen Keller

Facts of Helen Keller

Date of Birth: 1880 , June-27
Date of Death: 1968 , June-1
Birth Nation: United States
Height: 5 Feet 7 Inch

Quick Timeline of Helen Keller

1880 Born in Alabama, USA.
1986 Meet Instructer Anne Sullivan
1904 Graduated from Radcliffe
1964 Honor with highest civilian honors.
1968 Died of Stroke

Detail Timeline of Helen Keller

June 27 , 1880

Born in Alabama, USA.

Helen Keller was born on 27th June 1880 in Alabama. She was born to father, Authur H. Keller and mother Kate Adams and had two siblings, Mildred Campbell and Phillip Brooks Keller. She also had two half-brothers, James and William Simpson from her father previous marriage.

1986

Meet Instructer Anne Sullivan

Anne Sullivan, who was 20 years older than Helen, was assigned to become her instructor. she taught Keller to communicate with the world around her. It turned out to be the beginning of a 49-year-long relationship.

1904

Graduated from Radcliffe

Helen's education began at home. However, despite her disability, at the age of 24, Helen Keller graduated from Radcliffe College and become the first ever blind and deaf person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. 

1964

Honor with highest civilian honors.

Helen Keller was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom which is one of the highest civilian honors of the United States. She is one of the world strongest personality who had proved anything can be possible if there is curiosity. 

June 1 , 1968

Died of Stroke

Helen Keller first suffered from strokes in the year 1961. Later, on 1st June 1968, at the age 87, the person who had inspired the world left the world and died in her sleep. She spent her last days at home. 

Content

Helen Keller suffered from an unknown illness at the age of 19 months. The doctor stated that illness as acute congestion of the stomach and the brain that result in victims becoming deft and blind.

However, despite not being able to see or hear, Helen was able to learn more than 60 home signs by the age of seven,  which helps her to communicate with her family members. Moreover, Keller also learned to know people from the vibration of their steps while walking.

When Keller was seven, her family decided to hire Annie Sullivan, a young teacher. Keller's teacher Anne played a pivotal role in her life, helping her break through the isolation imposed by the lack of sight and hearing and teaching her to communicate with the world around her. Anne Sullivan became extremely close to Keller and stayed with her long after she taught her. Sullivan married her husband John Macy in 1905. However, 10 years down the line, her health started deteriorating. 

By communicating with others, Keller learned to speak and spent much of her life giving speeches and lectures on aspects of her life. She learned to "hear" people's speech by reading their lips with her hands—her sense of touch had heightened with practice.

Keller started attending the Perkins Institute for the blind. Then, Keller moved to New York to attend the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf and to learn from Sarah Fuller at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf.

Keller entered The Cambridge School for Young Ladies before gaining admittance to Radcliffe College, Harvard University Her admirer Mark Twain had introduced her to Standard Oil magnate Henry Huttleston Rogers, who, with his wife, Abbie, paid for her education.

Keller was also a member of the Socialist Party and actively campaigned and wrote in support of the working class. Many of her speeches and writings were about women's right to vote and the impacts of war. Likewise, Helen also wrote scripts for movies, she has been credited as a writer of movies like  The Miracle Worker and Adventures from the Book of Virtues.

U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Helen Keller with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, regarded as the nation's highest civilian award, in 1964. Helen was also elected to Women's Hall of Fame at the New York World's Fair a year after that, in 1965.

After her death in the late sixties, Keller was listed in Gallup's Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century. Helen Hospital in Alabam was established and dedicated to her soon after that. Similarly, several streets have been named after her in countries like Switzerland, USA, Spain, Israel, Portugal, France, and others.   

Keller remained unmarried throughout her life, dedicated herself to the service of the poor and disabled rather than in elevating her net worth. Her life and achievement cannot be measured in matrices like salary and properties.