For instance, let's consider Helen Keller... Do you know anything about her? Here are some facts about her, although if you have the opportunity you should read her autobiography "The Story of my Life". Also, for a more detailed biography, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Keller
Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1,
1968) was an American author, political activist, and lecturer.
She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of
Arts degree. Helen 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. A prolific author, Keller was well-travelled 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, and other radical left causes.
Helen Adams Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Her family lived on a
homestead, Ivy Green,[4] that
Helen's grandfather had built decades earlier.[5]
Helen Keller was born with the ability to see and hear.
At 19 months old, 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 left her both deaf and blind. At that time, she was able to
communicate somewhat with Martha Washington,[11] the
six-year-old daughter of the family cook, who understood her signs; by the age
of seven, Keller had more than 60 home signs to
communicate with her family.
In 1886, Keller's mother dispatched young Helen,
accompanied by her father, to seek out an expert physician J. Julian Chisolm.
They later contacted the Perkins
Institute for the Blind where the
school's director asked former student 20-year-old Anne Sullivan, herself visually impaired, to
become Keller's instructor. It was the beginning of a 49-year-long relationship
during which Sullivan evolved from Helen’s governess to her companion.
Keller went on to become a world-famous speaker and
author. She is remembered as an advocate for people with disabilities,
amid numerous other causes. She was a suffragist,
a pacifist,
an opponent of Woodrow Wilson, a radical socialist
and a birth control supporter. In 1915 she and George
Kessler founded the Helen Keller International (HKI)
organization. This organization is devoted to research in vision, health and
nutrition. . Keller traveled to 40 some-odd countries with Sullivan, making
several trips to Japan and becoming a favorite of the Japanese
people..
Keller wrote a total of 12 published books and several
articles.
One of her earliest pieces of writing, at age 11, was The Frost
King (1891). There were allegations that this story had
been plagiarized from The
Frost Fairies by Margaret Canby. An investigation into the matter
revealed that Keller may have experienced a case of cryptomnesia,
which was that she had Canby's story read to her but forgot about it, while the
memory remained in her subconscious.
At age 22, Keller published her autobiography, The Story of My Life (1903),
with help from Sullivan and Sullivan's husband, John Macy. It recounts the
story of her life up to age 21 and was written during her time in college.
Keller suffered a series of strokes in 1961 and spent the
last years of her life at her home.
She died in her sleep on June 1, 1968, at her home in Easton, Connecticut, a few weeks short of her
eighty-eighth birthday.
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