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About The Story Of My Life
Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree. The story of how Keller's teacher, Anne Sullivan, broke through the isolation imposed by a near complete lack of language, allowing the girl to blossom as she learned to communicate, has become widely known through the dramatic depictions of the play and film The Miracle Worker. Her birthplace in West Tuscumbia, Alabama, is now a museum[1] and sponsors an annual "Helen Keller Day". Her birthday on June 27 is commemorated as Helen Keller Day in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and was authorized at the federal level by presidential proclamation by President Jimmy Carter in 1980, the 100th anniversary of her birth. A prolific author, Keller was well-traveled and outspoken in her convictions. A member of the Socialist Party of America and the Industrial Workers of the World, she campaigned for women's suffrage, labor rights, socialism, antimilitarism, and other similar causes. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1971[2] and was one of twelve inaugural inductees to the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame on June 8, 2015.[3] Keller proved to the world that deaf people could all learn to communicate and that they could survive in the hearing world. She also taught that deaf people are capable of doing things that hearing people can do. One of the most famous deaf people in history, she is an idol to many deaf people in the world. Helen Adams Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama.[4] Her family lived on a homestead, Ivy Green,[1] that Helen's grandfather had built decades earlier.[5] She had two siblings, Mildred Campbell and Phillip Brooks Keller, and two older half-brothers from her father's prior marriage, James and William Simpson Keller.[6][7] Her father, Arthur H. Keller,[8] spent many years as an editor for the Tuscumbia North Alabamian, and had served as a captain for the Confederate Army.[4][5] Her paternal grandmother was second cousins with Robert E. Lee.[9] Her mother, Kate Adams,[10] was the daughter of Charles W. Adams, a Confederate general.[11] Though originally from Massachusetts, Charles Adams also fought for the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, earning the rank of colonel (and acting brigadier general). Her paternal lineage was traced to Casper Keller, a native of Switzerland.[9][12] One of Helen's Swiss ancestors was the first teacher for the deaf in Zurich. Keller reflected on this coincidence in her first autobiography, stating "that there is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his."[9] At 19 months old Keller contracted an unknown illness described by doctors as "an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain",[13] which might have been scarlet fever or meningitis.[4][14] The illness left her both deaf and blind. At that time, she was able to communicate somewhat with Martha Washington, the six-year-old daughter of the family cook, who understood her signs;[15]:11 by the age of seven, Keller had more than 60 home signs to communicate with her family. Even though blind and deaf, Helen Keller had passed through many obstacles and she learned to live with her disabilities. She learned how to tell which person was walking from the vibrations of their footsteps
