Helen Keller Update

I have learned so much this week about this great woman. I would like to share with you some highlights of her life. The majority of information shared comes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Keller.

Other information is found from these websites:

Helen Keller:

http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=1

Helen Keller Autobiography:

http://www.afb.org/mylife/book.asp?ch=HK-intro

Helen Keller Kids Museum:

http://www.afb.org/braillebug/hkmuseum.asp

Helen Keller Correspondance and Writings:

http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=1&TopicID=193

Helen Keller Photographs:

http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=1&TopicID=194

Helen Keller Archives:

http://www.afb.org/ead/eadmain.asp

• Born in Tuscumbia, Alabama on June 27, 1880 on a family homestead called "Ivy Green".
• Father- Arthur H. Keller, Mother- Kate Adams.
• At the age of 19 months old that she contracted an illness described by doctors as "an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain", which might have been scarlet fever or meningitis. The illness did not last for a particularly long time, but it left her deaf and blind.
• Anne Sullivan became an instructor, governess and companion to Helen Keller. There relationship lasted 49 years.
• Schooling included: Perkins Institute for the Blind, Wright-Humason School for the Deaf, Horace Mann School for the Deaf, The Cambridge School for Young Ladies, and Radcliffe College. Helen who was 24 at the time was the first blind/deaf person to graduate with a Bachelor's of Art Degree.
• Helen became a world-famous speaker and author. She is remembered as an advocate for people with disabilities.
• Founded the Helen Keller International (HKI) organization, which is devoted to research in vision, health and nutrition.
• Helen Keller met every U.S. 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 was considered a radical.
• Helen wrote a total of 12 published books and several articles, including: The Frost King in 1891, The Story of My Life in 1903, The World I Live In in 1908, Out of the Dark, a series of essays in 1913, and My Religion and autobiography in 1927.

• Keller is credited with having introduced the Akita to the United States through the two Akita dogs given to her from the Japanese government in 1935 and 1938.

• Awards given: 1964

  Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1965 elected to the National Women's Hall of Fame.
• appeared in a silent film- Deliverance (1919), the subject of the documentaries Helen Keller in Her Story and The Story of Helen Keller. The Miracle Worker 1957 Playhouse 90 teleplay, which turned into a Broadway production in 1959 and an Oscar-winning feature film in 1962. 1984, Helen Keller's life story was made into TV movie called The Miracle Continues. Other films about Helen Keller was Black (2005), and A documentary called Shining Soul.
• Keller devoted much of her later life to raising funds for the American Foundation for the Blind.
• She died in her sleep on June 1, 1968, at her home, Arcan Ridge, Easton Connecticut.