Brianna Estrada

Helen Keller
The name Helen Keller still, to this day, echoes amongst the Earth's crust, taping on peoples
shoulders acting as a constant reminder of hope. But, who exactly is Helen Keller? Helen Keller is a
women who had at an early age looked what life had given her in the eye 1, plowed through all the
disapproving glares, assumptions, and boundaries; leaving behind her a new taste in the air that was there
to stay. This is her story.
Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880; in the small town of Tuscubia, Alabama. Her and her family of
five at the time lived on a small homestead that her father and grandfather had built. When Keller was
around nineteen months old she contracted a horrid case of the scarlet fever, leaving her deaf and blind.
By the time she was six she had up to sixty hand and body signs that she would use with the family when
in need of something. It was also around this time that her mother, Kate Adams Keller, was inspired to
seek help for Helen. The Perkins Institute for the Blind connected them with Anne Sullivan, a former
student, who was also partially blind. Anne Sullivan was at the time 20 years old. When Sullivan first
started as Keller's governess, she used a teaching technique where she placed an item in Keller's grasp and
then would spell out the word on her hand. Keller wasn't understanding this concept and grew frustrated.
But, the breakthrough came when Sullivan ran water over Keller's hand and spelled it out. They then
progressed in this manner: using only things that Keller new well. In 1888, Keller started at the Perkins
Institute for the Blind; she graduated six years later.
But, it was what she accomplished after that is astounding. The Perkins Institute for the Blind was
considered a basic schooling course for someone with a disability. This wasn't enough for Helen. As soon
as she graduated from the PIFTB, she and Anne Sullivan moved to New York to attend a school for the
deaf. In New York she also started speech lessons with Sarah Fuller. In 1896, Keller and Sullivan moved
1 This is said as a poetic statement, not for the accuracy.

to Massachusetts where Keller entered The Cambridge School for Young Ladies. But in 1900, with the
help of Mark Twain, Keller's schooling was paid for her to attend Radcliffe College; a women's liberal
arts college. In 1904, at the age of 24, Helen Keller became the first deaf and blind person to gain a
Bachelor of Arts degree. By now Keller had learned to "hear" peoples speech with her hands, she could
read Braille, she could also "speak" American Sign Language and read the opposite side of the
conversation with her hands; but the one thing that Keller worked so very hard on mastering and
eventually did, was speech. Later, Keller appeared on state and national legislatures and international
forums, traveling around the world to lecture and to visit areas with a high rates of blindness. Helen
Keller won numerous honors, university degrees, the Lions Humanitarian Award, the Presidential Medal
of Freedom, and in 1965 was election to the Women's Hall of Fame. During the course of her lifetime she
wrote 12 books and hundreds of articles. Sadly, she died in her sleep on June 1, 1968 and she was buried
next to her lifelong companion Anne Sullivan. Yet, do not be sad, for Helen Keller accomplished almost
everything she had hoped to and so much more!
The death of Helen Keller didn't bring an end, but instead the birth of her legacy. Keller's fame
reached all around the world and to so many different groups of people. Keller wanted it to be known that
everyone has rights to basic well-being and that everyone should be treated equally and with respect. She
gave empowerment to women, she gave people with similar disabilities someone to aspire to, and hope to
all that if you keep on moving you can do anything.
Helen Keller is a name that should be taught to everyone. She was a person who had good reason
to give up and not want to try, yet she powered on! She accomplished so much in life: from befriending
ten presidents, to stroking Charles Chaplin's moustache. Her heart and voice, a voice she worked so hard
for people to hear, still remain a huge part of American history. Helen Keller was a women of tremendous
ambition, courage, and love who will never be forgotten.