HELEN KELLER

' Helen Adams Keller ' (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was a deafblind American author, activist and lecturer.

Contents

Childhood

Education

Political activities

Introduction of the Akita dog to the US

Writings

Later life

Posthumous honors

Portrayals of Helen Keller

References

External links

IMDB

Childhood

Helen Keller was born at an estate called Ivy Green in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on June 27, 1880, to parents Captain Arthur H. Keller, a former officer of the Confederate Army, and Kate Adams Keller, a cousin of Robert E. Lee. The Keller family originates from Germany, and at least one source claims her father was of Swiss descent.^[1] She was not born blind and deaf; it was not until nineteen months of age that she came down with an illness described by doctors as "an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain," which could have possibly been scarlet fever or meningitis. The illness did not last for a particularly long time, but it left her deaf and blind. At that time her only communication partner was Martha Washington, the six-year old daughter of the family cook, who was able to create a sign language with her; by age seven, she had over 60 different signs to communicate with her family. In his doctoral dissertation, Soviet blind-deaf psychologist A. Meshcheryakov stated that Washington's friendship and teaching was crucial for Keller's later developments. ^[2]
In 1886, her mother was inspired by an account in Charles Dickens' ''American Notes'' of the successful education of another deaf blind child, Laura Bridgman, and traveled to a specialist doctor in Baltimore for advice. He put her in touch with local expert Alexander Graham Bell, who was working with deaf children at the time. Bell advised the couple to contact the Perkins Institute for the Blind, the school where Bridgman had been educated, which was then located in South Boston, Boston, Massachusetts. The school delegated teacher and former student, Anne Sullivan, herself visually impaired and then only 20 years old, to become Keller's teacher. It was the beginning of a 49-year-long relationship.

Sullivan got permission from Keller's father to isolate the girl from the rest of the family in a little house in their garden. Her first task was to instill discipline in the spoiled girl. Keller's big breakthrough in communication came one day when she realized that the motions her teacher was making on her palm, while running cool water over her palm from a pump, symbolized the idea of "water;" she then nearly exhausted Sullivan demanding the names of all the other familiar objects in her world (including her prized doll). In 1890, ten-year-old Helen Keller was introduced to the story of Ragnhild Kåta - a deaf blind Norwegian girl who had learned to speak. Ragnhild Kåta's success inspired Helen — she wanted to learn to speak as well. Sullivan taught her charge to speak using the Tadoma method (touching the lips and throat of others as they speak) combined with "fingerspelling" alphabetical characters on the palm of Keller's hand. Later, Keller would also learn to read English, French, German, Greek, and Latin in Braille.
Keller's pre-teen years were marred by allegations that her story, ''The Frost King'' (written in 1891), had been plagiarized from ''The Frost Fairies'' by Margaret Canby. An investigation into the matter revealed that she may have suffered from cryptomnesia, having once had Canby's story read to her, only to forget about it, although the memory had remained hidden in her subconscious.

Education

In 1888, Keller attended the Perkins School for the Blind. In 1894, Keller and Sullivan moved to New York City to attend the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf and Horace Mann School for the Deaf. In 1896, they returned to Massachusetts and Helen entered The Cambridge School for Young Ladies before gaining admittance, in 1900, to Radcliffe College, where Standard Oil magnate Henry Huttleton Rogers paid for her education. In 1904, at the age of 24, Keller graduated from Radcliffe ''magna cum laude'', becoming the first deaf and blind person to graduate from a college.

Political activities

Keller went on to become a world famous speaker and author. She is remembered as an advocate for people with disabilities, as well as numerous causes. She was a suffragist, a pacifist, and a birth control supporter. In 1915, she founded Helen Keller International, a non-profit organization for preventing blindness. In 1920, she helped to found the ACLU. Keller and Sullivan traveled all over the world to over 39 countries, and made several trips to Japan, becoming a favorite of the Japanese people. Keller met every US President from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon B. Johnson and was friends with many famous figures, including Alexander Graham Bell, Charlie Chaplin and Mark Twain.
Keller was a member of the Socialist Party and actively campaigned and wrote in support of the working classes from 1909 to 1921. She supported Socialist Party candidate Eugene V. Debs in each of his campaigns for the presidency.

Newspaper columnists who had praised her courage and intelligence before she expressed her socialist views now called attention to her disabilities. The editor of the ''Brooklyn Eagle'' wrote that her "mistakes sprung out of the manifest limitations of her development." Keller responded to that editor, referring to having met him before he knew of her political views:
Keller also joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1912, saying that parliamentary socialism was "sinking in the political bog." Keller wrote for the IWW between 1916 and 1918. In ([1]) ''Why I Became an IWW'', Keller wrote that her motivation for activism came in part due to her concern about blindness and other disabilities:

Introduction of the Akita dog to the US

When Keller visited Akita Prefecture in Japan in July 1937, she inquired about Hachikō, the famed Akita dog that had died in 1935. She expressed to a local that she would like to have an Akita dog. An Akita called Kamikaze-go was given to her within a month. When Kamikaze-go later died of canine distemper, his older brother, Kenzan-go, was presented to her as an official gift from the Japanese government in July 1939.
Keller is credited with having introduced the Akita to the US through Kamikaze-go and his successor, Kenzan-go. By 1938 a breed standard had been established and dog shows had been held, but such activities stopped after World War II began.
Keller wrote in the ''Akita Journal'':
(sources: [2], [3], [4])

Writings

Keller's book, ''Light in my Darkness'' was published in 1960. In the book, she advocates the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, the controversial mystic who claimed to have witnessed the Last Judgment and second coming of Jesus Christ and inspired Swedenborgianism. She also wrote an autobiography called ''The Story of My Life'', which was published in 1903. ''The Story of my Life'' was also written with help from Sullivan and her husband, John Macy. It includes letters that Keller wrote and the story of her life up to age 21. In total, she wrote 12 books and authored numerous articles.

Later life

On September 14 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Helen Keller the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the United States' highest two civilian honors.
Keller devoted much of her later life to raise funds for the American Foundation for the Blind. She died on June 1 1968, passing away 26 days before her 88th birthday, in her Easton, Connecticut home.

Posthumous honors

In December 1999, Keller was listed in Gallup's Most Widely Admired people of the 20th Century.
In 2003, the state of Alabama honored Keller — a native — on its . The 'Helen Keller Hospital' is also dedicated to her.^[3]

Portrayals of Helen Keller

A silent film, ''Deliverance'', first told Keller's story.^[4] ''The Miracle Worker'', a play about how Keller learned to communicate, was made into a movie three times. The 1962 version of the movie won Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Anne Bancroft, who played Sullivan, and Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Patty Duke, who played Keller.^[5] It also became a 1979 TV movie, this time with Patty Duke playing Anne Sullivan and Melissa Gilbert playing Helen Keller,^[6] as well as a 2000 TV movie in which Keller was portrayed by Hallie Kate Eisenberg.^[7]
In 1984, Helen Keller's life story was made into a TV movie called ''The Miracle Continues''.^[8] This semi-sequel to ''The Miracle Worker'' recounts her college years and her early adult life. None of the early movies hint at the social activism that would become the hallmark of Helen's later life, although The Walt Disney Company version produced in 2000 states in the credits that Helen became an activist for social equality.
The Hindi movie ''Black'' released in 2005 was largely based on Keller's story, from her childhood to her graduation.
A new documentary '' was produced and recently released by The Swedenborg Foundation (2005). The film focuses on the role played by Emanuel Swedenborg's spiritual theology in her life and how it inspired Keller's triumph over her triple disabilities of blindness, deafness and a severe speech impediment.
Helen Keller is portrayed in ''Animated Hero Classics'', an animated series on interactive DVD of 20 world and US heroes of history. The series is distributed by Nest Learning

References

1. American Foundation for the Blind
2.
Awakening to Life, , Alexander, Meshcheryakov, Progress Publishers Moscow, ,
3. Helen Keller Hospital website
4. Deliverance (1919)
5. The Miracle Worker (1962)
6. The Miracle Worker (1979) TV
7. The Miracle Worker (2000) TV
8. Helen Keller: The Miracle Continues (1984) (TV)

External links

★ American Foundation for the Blind's Helen Keller collection

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★ Helen Keller Kids Museum Online

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★ ''The Story of My Life'' with introduction to the text

★ Official site of Ivy Green, Helen Keller's birthplace

★ Presidential Medal of Freedom, Helen Keller

★ The Helen Keller Services for the blind

★ A likeness of Helen Keller is featured on Alabama's quarter

★ Marxists Internet Archive: Helen Keller Reference Archive.

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★ How I Became A Socialist, by Helen Keller, 1912-11-03

★ New York Times Obituary

★ Virtual Tour of Ivy Green. Helen Keller's Birthplace

★ Rethinking the Problematic Icon Contrasts the iconic image of Keller as disabled saint with her real life in social and political activism.

★ http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/2006-10-08-voa1.cfm. The Story of Helen Keller's Life translated into Voice of America's Special English

★ http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/2006-10-15-voa1.cfm. Part II

IMDB

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★ - Animated biography of Helen Keller on DVD