Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Her father, Arthur H. Keller, was a captain in the Confederate Army, and his second wife, Kate Adams, was Helen's mother. Captain Keller took his new bride to the little white cottage next to his family's homestead, Ivy Green, to live when they first got married, and it was there that Helen was born. Contrary to what most people think, Helen was not born blind and deaf, but a typical, healthy baby girl. It was not until an illness that doctors described as "acute congestion of the stomach and brain" came upon Helen when she was only nineteen months old that robbed her of both her sight and hearing. Devastated by this tragedy, the Kellers began to plan how they would prepare their child to begin her new life of darkness.

For the next few years, the Kellers tried as best as they could to raise their baby girl up right. Unfortunately, with no way to communicate with her, Helen slowly became a spoiled, uncontrollable child, often getting into mischief, such as kicking the family servants and locking her mother in the pantry. When Helen was five years old they moved from the little cottage into the much larger house, Ivy Green, next door. It was there that Helen would grow into a remarkable woman.

On March 3, 1887, three months before Helen turned seven years old, Miss Anne Sullivan, only twenty years old, came to Ivy Green to become Helen's teacher. The Kellers had previously taken Helen to Dr. Graham Bell to see if he could do something for her, and he had recommended that they hire Miss Sullivan to teach her. Anne was skilled in Braille and signing, for she had previously been blind herself until a surgical procedure helped her to regain much of her sight back. Since there were no schools for blind or deaf children anywhere nearby, Helen's parents depended on Anne as their only hope.

Anne Sullivan knew she had a rough job ahead of her, but she jumped right in and was not going to allow Helen's then terrible behavior to continue. Helen and Anne often clashed heads. Helen locked Miss Sullivan in her bedroom and hid the key so that her father had to come get her on a ladder. Helen trashed the dining room when Anne would not let her wander around the table, but forced her to sit at her seat and fold her napkin. Anne would often slap Helen on the hand as a mode of discipline. Seeing this action extremely upset Helen's father, Sullivan insisted that she take Helen to the little cottage next door for her lessons. Eventually Helen would just come right home because it was only a few steps away. Because of this, one day the Kellers and Anne took Helen on the carriage and rode around their property for about two hours making Helen think they were going very far away. They stopped right in front of the cottage, and Helen thought she was hours from home. She did not run away anymore after that.

Anne Sullivan spent years teaching Helen. She broke into her world of darkness one day at the water pump and was able to teach her words, how to read, and how to write. Everyone who was around them could tell you how amazing it was to watch Helen make progress. She knew hundreds of words within a few months after learning her first one, and was writing in pencil shortly after that. The child that was thought to have a dismal future was proving to everyone that she was not going to accept the obstacles that were against her.

The water pump still stands today.

Here is how each of them recalled the incident:

A Letter from Anne Sullivan, Helen's Teacher

April 5, 1887

I must write you a line this morning because something very important has happened. Helen has taken the second great step in her education. She has learned that everything has a name, and that the manual alphabet is the key to everything she wants to know.

In a previous letter I think I wrote you that "mug" and "milk" had given Helen more trouble than all the rest. She confused the nouns with the verb "drink." She didn't know the word for "drink," but went through the pantomime of drinking whenever she spelled "mug" or "milk." This morning, while she was washing, she wanted to know the name for "water." When she wants to know the name of anything, she points to it and pats my hand. I spelled "w-a-t-e-r" and thought no more about it until after breakfast. Then it occurred to me that with the help of this new word I might succeed in straightening out the "mug-milk" difficulty. We went out to the pump-house, and I made Helen hold her mug under the spout while I pumped. As the cold water gushed forth, filling the mug, I spelled "w-a-t-e-r" in Helen's free hand. The word coming so close upon the sensation of cold water rushing over her hand seemed to startle her. She dropped the mug and stood as one transfixed. A new light came into her face. She spelled "water" several times. Then she dropped on the ground and asked for its name and pointed to the pump and the trellis, and suddenly turning round she asked for my name. I spelled "Teacher." Just then the nurse brought Helen's little sister into the pump-house and Helen spelled "baby" and pointed to the nurse. All the way back to the house she was highly excited, and learned the name of every object she touched, so that in a few hours she had added thirty new words to her vocabulary. Here are some of them: Door, open , shut, give, go, come, and a great many more.

P. S.--I didn't finish my letter it time to get it posted last night; so I shall add a line. Helen got up this morning like a radiant fairy. She has flitted from object to object, asking the name of everything and kissing me for very gladness. Last night when I got in bed, she stole into my arms of her own accord and kissed me for the first time, and I thought my heart would burst, so full was it of joy.

From "The Story of My Life" by Helen Keller

The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. I am filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrasts between the two lives which it connects. It was the third of March, 1887, three months before I was seven years old.

On the afternoon of that eventful day, I stood on the porch, dumb, expectant, I guessed vaguely from my mother's signs and from the hurrying to and fro in the house that something unusual was about to happen, so I went to the door and waited on the steps. The afternoon sun penetrated the mass of honeysuckle that covered the porch, and fell on my upturned face. My fingers lingered almost unconsciously on the familiar leaves and blossoms which had just come forth to greet the sweet southern spring. I did not know what the future held of marvel or surprise for me. Anger and bitterness had preyed upon me continually for weeks and a deep languor had succeeded this passionate struggle.

Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbour I was. "Light! give me light!" was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour.

I felt approaching footsteps. I stretched out my hand as I supposed to my mother. Some one took it, and I was caught up and held close in the arms of her who had come to reveal all things to me, and more than all things else, to love me.

The morning after my teacher came she led me into her room and gave me a doll. The little blind children at the Perkins Institution had sent it and Laura Bridgman had dressed it; but I did not know this until afterward. When I had played with it a little while, Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand the word "d-o-l-l." I was at once interested in this finger play and tried to imitate it. When I finally succeeded in making the letters correctly I was flushed with childish pleasure and pride. Running downstairs to my mother I held up my hand and made the letter for doll. I did not know that I was spelling a word or even that words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation. In the days that followed I learned to spell in this uncomprehending way a great many words, among them pin, hat, cup and a few verbs like sit, stand, and walk. But my teacher had been with me several weeks before I understood that everything has a name.

One day, while I was playing with my new doll, Miss Sullivan put my big rag doll into my lap also, spelled "d-o-l-l" and tried to make me understand that "d-o-l-l" applied to both. Earlier in the day we had had a tussle over the words "m-u-g" and "w-a-t-e-r." Miss Sullivan had tried to impress it upon me that "m-u-g" is mug and that "w-a-t-e-r" is water, but I persisted in confounding the two. In despair she had dropped the subject for the time, only to renew it at the first opportunity. I became impatient at her repeated attempts and, seizing the new doll, I dashed it upon the floor. I was keenly delighted when I felt the fragments of the broken doll at my feet. Neither sorrow nor regret followed my passionate outburst. I had not loved the doll. In the still, dark world in which I lived there was no strong sentiment or tenderness. I felt my teacher sweep the fragments to one side of the hearth, and I had a sense of satisfaction that the cause of my discomfort was removed. She brought me my hat, and I knew I was going out into the warm sunshine. This thought, if a wordless sensation might be called a thought, made me hop and skip with pleasure.

We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Some one was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten--a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away.

I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with sight that had come to me. On entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken. I felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces. I tried vainly to put them together. Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had done, and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow.

I learned a great many new words that day. I do not remember what they all were; but I do know that mother, father, sister, teacher were among them--words that were to make the world blossom for me, "like Aaron's rod, with flowers." It would have been difficult to find a happier child that I was as I lay in my crib at the close of the eventful day and lived over the joys it had brought me, and for the first time longed for a new day to come.

Helen Keller went on to Ratcliffe College, and by means of Sullivan spelling out lectures into her palms, she obtained a degree. During her years at school, encouraged by the Ladies' Home Journal magazine, she wrote her autobiography, entitled "The Story Of My Life", in order to answer the endless curiosity of people across the globe. She even learned to speak by pressing her fingers against Sullivan's throat and imitating the vibrations. She was the first deaf and blind person to graduate from college, and she did so Cum Laude.

Throughout her life she would meet many famous people and have many experiences. She met with every President who served in her lifetime. She even had the experience of enjoying music, thanks to the violin and talent of Jascha Heifetz, a prominent 20th century violinist. By feeling the violin's vibrations she could tell which composer's music was being played. She also danced in Martha Graham's studio by feeling the vibrations of the music.

She spent much of her life on the lecture circuit with her teacher and companion, Anne Sullivan. Sullivan briefly married, but divorced and return to work with Keller. Keller became a champion for the blind, published numerous books throughout her lifetime, and participated in speaking out against such things as child labor and capital punishment.

The Gold Medal of the National Institute of Social Sciences was conferred upon her in 1952. In 1953 she was honored at the Sorbonne in Paris, France's highest honor. In 1955 she won an Academy Award for her documentary, "Helen Keller In Her Story" and received an honorary degree from Harvard. In 1964 she was given the United States' highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Helen Keller died at the age of eighty-eight on June 1, 1968. Her legacy lives on as Foundations and Institutes are formed to continue the work of putting an end to blindness. The Helen Keller Prize is awarded to those who focus the attention of the public on the matter of vision research.

Alexander Graham did more than invent the telephone. He was also a teacher of the deaf, and it was he who sensed the innate intelligence in the young Helen, and recommended Anne Sullivan to the Kellers. They remained lifelong friends. He is pictured below in 1894 with Helen (seated) and Anne.

In the photos above, we see Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan, seated at a table playing chess. Helen Keller makes a move on the chessboard with her left hand while Anne looks on. (Circa 1899) Helen Keller seated in a chair in front of a window, while reading a braille book on her lap with her left hand. (Circa 1904) Helen Keller, seated at a desk, using a typewriter while Polly Thomson stands beside her spelling into her right hand. (Circa 1933)

This page created for Diva of the 'Net

by Peggy Swycaffer

Information and photos for this page were garnered in the main from:

http://www.educationalsynthesis.org/famamer/Keller.html
http://www2.una.edu/history/Old%20Site/lesson1.htm
http://www.afb.org/info_documents.asp?kitid=9&collectionid=1
http://id.essortment.com/helenkellerann_rsla.htm