Helen Keller

Helen Keller was known and admired throughout the world for the way she overcame her disabilities.

Although blind and deaf, she lived a full life and brought hope, courage, and help to other disabled people.

She was born on June 27, 1880, on a farm near Tuscumbia, Alabama. For the first 18 months she was a normal infant, but then an illness erased her sight and hearing, and as a result, her speech.

Her world was opened up through the patient teaching of Anne Sullivan, and she went on to graduate with honors from Radcliffe College in 1904.

She became a tireless world traveler, working on behalf of the blind, dying on June 1, 1968 in Westport, Connecticut.