Helen Keller 50
June 1, 2018
Fifty years ago today, on June 1, 1968, American activist and author Helen Keller died at age 87 at her home in Easton, Connecticut. Keller was an outstanding example of a person who conquered physical disabilities. A serious illness, which her doctor called “acute congestion of the stomach and brain,” destroyed her sight and hearing at the age of about 15 months. Because of this, she could not speak and was entirely shut off from the world. But Keller rose above her disabilities to gain international fame and to help disabled people live fuller lives.
Helen Adams Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. For almost five years, she grew up, as she later said, “wild and unruly, giggling and chuckling to express pleasure; kicking, scratching, uttering the choked screams of the deaf-mute to indicate the opposite.” Then Helen’s father took her to inventor Alexander Graham Bell. He advised Keller to write to the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston (now Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts). Shortly before the child was 7, educator Anne Sullivan arrived from Boston to teach her. Sullivan had been nearly blind during childhood, but surgeries in 1881 and 1887 partially restored her sight. She remained with Helen Keller until her death in 1936. Then Mary Agnes “Polly” Thomson, who had been Keller’s secretary, took Sullivan’s place.
Sullivan was able to make contact with the Helen’s mind through the sense of touch. She used a manual alphabet by which she spelled out words on Helen’s hand. Gradually, the child was able to connect words with objects. Once she understood, her progress was rapid. Within three years, she knew the alphabet and could read and write in braille. Until she was 10 years old, Keller could talk only with sign language. She decided she would learn to speak and took lessons from a teacher of the deaf. By the time she was 16, she could communicate well enough to go to preparatory school and to college. She chose Radcliffe, from which she graduated in 1904 with honors. Sullivan stayed with her through these years, interpreting lectures and class discussions for her.
After college, Keller became concerned with the conditions of the blind and the deaf-blind. She became active on the staffs of the American Foundation for the Blind and of the American Foundation for Overseas Blind. She appeared before legislatures, gave lectures, and wrote many books and articles. She started the Helen Keller Endowment Fund and asked for funds from wealthy people.
Keller became especially interested in bettering conditions for the blind in developing and war-ravaged nations. An enthusiastic and untiring traveler, she lectured in their behalf in over 25 nations throughout the world. During World War II (1939-1945), Keller worked with soldiers who had been blinded in the war. Wherever she appeared, she brought new courage to blind and deaf people.
Keller received many awards of great distinction. They included the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Chevalier’s ribbon of the French Legion of Honor, the Alumni Achievement Award of Radcliffe College, and decorations from many foreign governments.