Helen Keller

Who Reached Language Through Touch · Author & Advocate · 1880–1968

Deaf and blind from infancy, she reached language, a university degree and a life of advocacy — for the blind and disabled, for workers and for women — refusing always to be an object of pity.

Who was Helen?

Helen Keller was left deaf and blind by an illness before she was two, and lived locked in silence and dark until her teacher Anne Sullivan came. At a water pump Sullivan spelled 'w-a-t-e-r' into her hand as the cool water ran over it, and the world of names broke open. Keller learned to read, write and speak, and became the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts, at Radcliffe. She wrote books, including 'The Story of My Life', and gave her life to advocacy — for the blind and disabled, for workers and women's suffrage, and as a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union. Hopeful without naivety, she insisted that people with disabilities be met as equals, not as objects of pity.

Major achievements

• Became the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree
• Wrote 'The Story of My Life' and other books
• Advocated worldwide for the blind and people with disabilities
• Helped found the American Civil Liberties Union
• Campaigned for workers' rights and women's suffrage

Life in brief

• 1880 — Born in Alabama: In Tuscumbia.
• 1882 — Loses sight and hearing: After an illness before age two.
• 1887 — Anne Sullivan arrives: The 'water' breakthrough opens language.
• 1904 — Graduates Radcliffe: The first deafblind person to earn a BA.
• 1903 — The Story of My Life: Her memoir is published.
• 1920 — Co-founds the ACLU: Joins the fight for civil liberties.
• 1968 — Dies: A world-renowned author and advocate.

Explore the life of Helen — five chapters

1. Water — Nineteen months of language, then five years of silence
2. Radcliffe — A degree spelled into her hand
3. The Part They Leave Out — Socialism, suffrage and the causes of blindness
4. Vaudeville and the Foundation — Earning a living, and forty years of campaigning
5. The Miracle Worker Problem — Being turned into a lesson

Read the five-chapter life of Helen Keller →

Where Helen appears in your course

Helen Keller has a genuine claim on 1 lesson of the Pearson Edexcel International GCSE science course built into Incandio:

• The Nervous System, and the Two Ways a Body Sends a Message — Biology: This lesson claims that a stimulus becomes information only when a receptor converts it into an impulse and a neurone carries it to the brain. Keller's life is the clearest demonstration of what that means: an illness at nineteen months destroyed the receptors of her eyes and ears, and the world reached her afterwards almost entirely through the touch and pressure receptors of her skin — including language itself, spelled into her palm. She described following music through the vibration of a floor. It is the strongest available evidence that the brain works with impulses rather than with sights and sounds, and that what matters is whether a channel exists to carry them.

Begin

• Start a conversation with Helen — a dramatised, historically grounded AI portrayal
• Read the Historical Brief
• Explore the life of Helen — five chapters
• Find your exam topics · Meet all 208 figures