Helen keller disability
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“I am not dumb now.” These are the five words that Helen Keller vocally exclaimed to the public in 1930. Deaf and blind since she was 19 months old, the then 50-year-old Keller was also considered by many to be mute. When she first told her teacher, Anne Sullivan, that she wanted to be able to speak using her mouth and not just her hands, Sullivan considered the challenge insurmountable. With the resolve so characteristic of her life, Keller was determined to prove the world wrong. She was not dumb, not in any sense of the word. It was with this same tenacity that Keller fought for others’ rights and made a name for herself as one of the world’s most respected and tireless champions of civil liberties. Keller made Easton, CT her home for the last three decades of her life.
Helen Adams Keller was born with full sight and hearing in Tuscumbia, Alabama on June 27, 1880, the daughter of Captain Arthur Henley Keller and Kate Adams Keller. In 1882, the young infant fell ill with what, at the time, was called a brain fever. Today, it is thought that Keller had suffered from either sca
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Where Was Helen Keller Born?
Portrait of Helen Keller as a young girl, with a white dog on her lap (August 1887)
Helen Adams Keller was born a healthy child in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on June 27, 1880. Her parents were Kate Adams Keller and Colonel Arthur Keller.
On her father's side she was descended from Colonel Alexander Spottswood, a colonial governor of Virginia, and on her mother's side, she was related to a number of prominent New England families. Helen's father, Arthur Keller, was a captain in the Confederate army. The family lost most of its wealth during the Civil War and lived modestly.
After the war, Captain Keller edited a local newspaper, the North Alabamian, and in 1885, under the Cleveland administration, he was appointed Marshal of North Alabama.
At the age of 19 months, Helen became deaf and blind as a result of an unknown illness, perhaps rubella or scarlet fever. As Helen grew from infancy into childhood, she became wild and unruly.
When Did Helen Keller Meet Anne Sullivan?
As she so often remarked as an adult, her life changed on March 3, 1887. On that
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Helen Keller
American author and activist (1880–1968)
For other people named Helen Keller, see Helen Keller (disambiguation).
Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, disability rights advocate, political activist and lecturer. Born in West Tuscumbia, Alabama, she lost her sight and her hearing after a bout of illness when she was 19 months old. She then communicated primarily using home signs until the age of seven, when she met her first teacher and life-long companion Anne Sullivan. Sullivan taught Keller language, including reading and writing. After an education at both specialist and mainstream schools, Keller attended Radcliffe College of Harvard University and became the first deafblind person in the United States to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.[1]
Keller was also a prolific author, writing 14 books and hundreds of speeches and essays on topics ranging from animals to Mahatma Gandhi.[2] Keller campaigned for those with disabilities and for women's suffrage, labor rights, and world peace. In 1909, she join
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