Young Helen Keller, blind, deaf, and mute since infancy, is in danger of being sent to an institution. Her inability to communicate has left her frustrated and violent. In desperation, her parents seek help from the Perkins Institute, which sends them a 'half-blind Yankee schoolgirl' named Annie Sullivan to tutor their daughter. UPDATED LINK: SUBSCRIBE TODAY!
Helen Keller is an iconic name that finds a starry place in history. There is possibly no one on this earth who has never heard of her name even for once in their life. Keller was the first deaf and blind woman who had created waves as a writer, political activist, and lecturer.
She is regarded as an extremely powerful example of dynamism and advocacy for people with disabilities. Keller is remembered for her autobiography ‘The Story of My Life’ and other brilliant essay compilations like ‘Out of the Dark’. Keller had written various books and essays on socialist and spiritual topics. Generations after generations have known Keller so well through various film, television series and documentary adaptations produced, depicting the story of her life. Keller had been the guiding light of the American Foundation for the Blind for which she had raised funds. Keller had won many posthumous honours like being named in hospitals and physically challenged foundations.
After she died she was awarded with Alabama’s The 50 State Quarters program, listed in Gallup's Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century and a bronze statue of her was added to the National Statuary Hall Collection. Keller was the first deaf and blind woman who completed her Bachelor of Arts degree. Keller’s name will remain in the memories of future generations and pages of history. Helen Keller was born as Helen Adams Keller on 27 June 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama, USA. Keller’s family lived in a land and home which was owned and built by Helen’s grandfather. Helen was born to father Arthur H. Keller who was attached as an editor for the Tuscumbia “North Alabamian” and had served as a captain for the Confederate Army and mother Kate Adams who was the daughter of Charles Adams who had fought for the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, earning the rank of brigadier-general.
Helen had not been born as a deaf and blind child but had been affected by an illness which her doctors stated as “an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain” which now is believed to have been either scarlet fever or meningitis. The illness did not remain with her for long but brought in deafness and blindness in her. As a child Helen could only communicate with Martha Washington who was Helen’s family cook’s daughter. Martha understood much of Helen’s signs. Helen used 60 of her home signs while communicating with her family. In 1886 Helen was sent by her mother while being accompanied by her father to seek the help of Dr.
Julian Chisolm, an eye, ear, nose, and throat specialist in Baltimore, for advice. This was the first time that Helen was sent for a professional learning process and her mother had taken this step after getting inspired by inspired by an account in Charles Dickens' “American Notes” of the successful education of another deaf and blind woman, Laura Bridgman.
Julian Chisolm referred Helen and her father to Alexander Graham Bell, who was then working with deaf children at the time. Bell further made Helen and her family go to Perkins Institute for the Blind where Laura Bridgman had received her formal education. Helen had found her instructor in Perkins’ former student Anne Sullivan (who was visually impaired for 20 years) who was personally referred by Michael Anaganos, Perkins’ director. From May 1888 Helen started attending Perkins Institute for the Blind. In 1894, Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan moved to New York to get special education from the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf and educate under Sarah Fuller at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf. In 1896 Keller and Sullivan moved back to Massachusetts and Helen entered The Cambridge School for Young Ladies.
In 1900 Helen was admitted to Radcliffe College, where she lived in Briggs Hall, South House. Mark Twain greatly admired Helen Keller for her efforts and helped her greatly in introducing her to Standard Oil magnate Henry Huttleston Rogers, who along with his wife funded Helen’s education. In 1904 Keller received her graduation from Radcliffe College at the age of 24.
With this Helen became the first deaf and blind person ever to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. Helen Keller was greatly interested in activism because of her extreme concern for blindness and other disabilities. She regularly wrote for IWW from 1916 to 1918. She stated in one of her writings on social activism, “I was appointed on a commission to investigate the conditions of the blind.
For the first time I, who had thought blindness a misfortune beyond human control, found that too much of it was traceable to wrong industrial conditions, often caused by the selfishness and greed of employers. And the social evil contributed its share. I found that poverty drove women to a life of shame that ended in blindness”. Helen had written 12 books which were all published besides writing various articles. One of the earliest known Helen’s written piece was when she was eleven years old The Frost King (1891). There had been growing allegations that Helen had copied the book from “The Frost Fairies” by Margaret Canby. The act of plagiarism was condemned and Helen’s work was thoroughly investigated.
It was found that Keller may have experienced cryptomnesia and had forgotten the story written by Canby read out to her but had subconsciously remembered the storyline. Keller was 22 years old when her autobiography, “The Story of My Life” was published in 1903 which received help from Sullivan and Sullivan's husband, John Macy. In 1908 Keller wrote “The World I Live In” which talked about her feelings of the world she felt living inside. In 1913 a series of essays on socialism, “Out of the Dark” was published. In 1927 Keller’s spiritual autobiography “My Religion” was published. Keller’s life and times have been made into many television series, films and documentaries.
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She herself appeared in a silent film, “Deliverance” in 1919 which told the story of her life in a melodramatic and allegorical style. “The Miracle Worker” is a cycle of dramatic works heavily derived from her autobiography, “The Story of My Life”. Each of the various dramas describe the relationship between Keller and Sullivan, depicting the teacher’s leading role in calming Keller from a state of almost feral wildness and making her take up education, activism, and intellectual celebrity. The common title of the cycle echoes Mark Twain's description of Sullivan as a 'miracle worker.' Its first realization was the 1957 “Playhouse 90” teleplay of that title by William Gibson.
Gibson adapted it for a Broadway production in 1959 and producing an Oscar-winning feature film in 1962 which starred Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke. It was remade for television in 1979 and 2000.
In 1984, Helen Keller's life story was produced into a TV movie called “The Miracle Continues”. The Hindi movie, “Black” which came out in 2005 and directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali was hugely based on Keller’s life.