Helen Keller homestead in 250 words
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Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree. The dramatic depictions of the play and film The Miracle Worker made widely known the story of how Keller's teacher, Anne Sullivan, broke through the isolation imposed by a near complete lack of language, allowing the girl to blossom as she learned to communicate. Her birthplace in West Tuscumbia, Alabama, is now a museum[1] and sponsors an annual "Helen Keller Day". Her birthday on June 27 is commemorated as Helen Keller Day in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and was authorized at the federal level by presidential proclamation by President Jimmy Carter in 1980, the 100th anniversary of her birth.
A prolific author, Keller was well-traveled and outspoken in her convictions. A member of the Socialist Party of America and the Industrial Workers of the World, she campaigned for women's suffrage, labor rights, socialism, antimilitarism, and other similar causes. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1971[2][3] and was one of twelve inaugural inductees to the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame on June 8, 2015.[4]
Contents
1 Early childhood and illness
2 Formal education
3 Example of her lectures
4 Companions
5 Political activities
6 Writings
7 Overseas visits
8 Later life
9 Portrayals
10 Posthumous honors
11 Archival material
12 See also
13 References
14 Bibliography
15 Further reading
15.1 Primary sources
15.2 Historiography
16 External links
Early childhood and illness
Helen Keller birthplace in Tuscumbia, Alabama
Keller with Anne Sullivan vacationing on Cape Cod in July 1888
Helen Adams Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama.[5] Her family lived on a homestead, Ivy Green,[1] that Helen's grandfather had built decades earlier.[6] She had two siblings, Mildred Campbell and Phillip Brooks Keller, and two older half-brothers from her father's prior marriage, James and William Simpson Keller.[7][8]
Her father, Arthur H. Keller,[9] spent many years as an editor of the Tuscumbia North Alabamian and had served as a captain in the Confederate Army.[5][6] Her paternal grandmother was second cousins with Robert E. Lee.[10] Her mother, Kate Adams,[11] was the daughter of Charles W. Adams, a Confederate general.[12] Though originally from Massachusetts, Charles Adams also fought for the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, earning the rank of colonel (and acting brigadier general). Her paternal lineage was traced to Casper Keller, a native of Switzerland.[10][13] One of Helen's Swiss ancestors was the first teacher for the deaf in Zurich. Keller reflected on this coincidence in her first autobiography, stating "that there is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his."[10]