Helen Keller Research Paper

Helen Keller became blind, deaf, and mute when she was only 19 months old. Until she was 7 years of age, she was very unruly and did not know how to express herself to others. Then, Anne Sullivan became her teacher. Sullivan taught her how to properly communicate along with manners. Helen Keller has overcome many obstacles throughout her childhood and adult life, and she should be remembered for all that she accomplished and believed in. Helen Keller overcame a lot as a child. She was born on June 27, 1880. She had started speaking when she was 6 months old and she was walking by the time she was 1 year old. In 1882, when she was 19 months old, she got a ‘brain fever’ and it caused her to lose both her sight and hearing (biography.com). Growing

In 1896, she attended the Cambridge School for Young Ladies. After that, she became friends with Mark Twain, who agreed to pay for her to attend Radcliffe College. From here, she received a Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude, and was the first blind-deaf person to get it. By her college years, Helen had mastered several forms of communication, touch-lip reading, Braille, speech, typing, and finger spelling. While at Radcliffe, she started writing an autobiography, The Story of My Life, and it was published in 1903. She has written hundreds of other essays, articles, and speeches on various topics. She used her writing to reach out to people all around the globe to raise awareness for disability rights. She was very outspoken on many political and social topics. The authors of the article, Helen Keller Biography, from afb.org said, “Her wide range of political, cultural, and intellectual interests and activities ensured that she knew people in all spheres of life.” This helped her empathize with people everywhere. She was an advocate for women’s suffrage and was an early member of the American Civil Liberties Union. She was a pacifist and protested the U.S. involvement in WWI. She was also a socialist and invested in the cause of worker’s rights. In 1946, Helen was appointed as the counselor of international affairs to the American Foundation for Overseas Blinds. This

She had worked to greatly improve the life of the blind/deaf. She traveled all around the globe to raise awareness for the disabled and help people everywhere. The author of Helen Keller Biography, on afb.org said, “Helen's ability to empathize with the individual citizen in need as well as her ability to work with world leaders to shape global policy on vision loss made her a supremely effective ambassador for disabled persons worldwide.” She had a lot of empathy and did everything she could to help others. “Wherever she traveled, she brought encouragement to millions of blind people, and many of the efforts to improve conditions for those with vision loss outside the United States can be traced directly to her visits.” (afb.org) Helen has won multiple awards and recognition for all the work she has done for others. In 1936 she won the Theodore Roosevelt Distinguished Service Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. She was elected into the Women’s Hall of Fame in 1965. In 1955, she won an honorary Academy Award for being an inspiration to the documentary about her life. Helen has also received numerous honorary doctoral degrees from universities all around the globe. All that Helen has accomplished as an adult is usually left out and a lot of people are not aware of what she has done. This all is because of her political views (isreview.org). Her childhood is often taught in schools but everything after is ignored.