Keller, Helen Adams (1880-1968)

A few documents concerning the efforts of Dr Martin W Barr of the School for the Feeble Minded, Elwyn, Pennsylvania to verify reports of Helen Keller's remarkable educational progress which had been appearing in the press in 1896. These consist of letters from senior staff at the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind, Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind, and the Cambridge School for Young Ladies, along with a transcript concerning Keller's success at entrance exams for Harvard and Radcliffe colleges, and a transcript of a talk she gave to the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf (published in the New York Medical Times, September 1896).

1896

1 File

Acquisition details unknown.

Helen Keller was an American author and lecturer who lost her sight and hearing at the age of 19 months after an illness. In 1886 her family contacted the Perkins Institute regarding her education, on the advice of Alexander Graham Bell. The director of the Perkins Institute sent his former pupil Anne Sullivan to the Keller home to teach Helen. Anne Sullivan would remain Keller's companion until her death in 1936.

Two years after meeting Sullivan, Helen Keller began formal education at the Perkins Institute. Her rise through the education system was remarkably rapid, and in 1904 she became the first deafblind person to receive a Bachelor of Arts degree when she graduation from Radcliffe College.

Helen Keller lectured throughout her life, and wrote numerous books and articles. She is best remembered as an advocate for people with disabilities but she was also a radical socialist, supporting a number of political causes. She died in 1968 following a period of ill health which began when she suffered several strokes in 1961.