Term Papers on Helen Keller: An Inspiration To Many

Term Paper Title	Helen Keller: An Inspiration To Many
# of Words	2763
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	11.05

Helen Keller: An Inspiration to Many

American Women

June 17, 2004

Can you imagine a life without being able to see or hear and not knowing how to communicate with anyone around you?  That world of darkness is what Helen Keller lived in for six years.  Helen Keller has been an inspiration to people ever since she turned six.  From 1886-1960, she proved herself to be a creative and inspiring woman of America.  She was a writer and lecturer who fought for the rights of disadvantaged people all over the world.  Most importantly, she overcame her two most difficult obstacles, being blind and deaf.  Helen Keller devoted her life to improving the education and treatment of the blind, deaf, and mute and fighting for minorities as well.  Helen Keller was one of the first to educate the public and make them aware of inflicted individuals' potential.  Because of her persistence and strength, she is considered a creative and unique spirit by many people of the world, especially those who can relate to her physical impairments.

            Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama to Captain Arthur Henley Keller and Kate Adams Keller. Helen Keller was born a healthy child. When Helen was 19 months old, she became ill with what was known as acute congestion of the brain and stomach; this is what doctors called “brain fever”. She was expected to die but instead this sickness left her blind, deaf, and mute. (Bowie, 1963)  For many of her earlier years Helen lived in darkness with very few ways to communicate with others around her.   Obviously her attempts were not always successful.  When she failed to communicate she would throw fits and have outburst that would upset not only her, but her family as well.  Helen’s problem became a burden on the family and the family decided to seek advice from others on how to handle Helen. Because of these violent fits, she appeared to be a very unruly child, but underneath all of the tragedy was a future inspirational figure that would surprise the world with amazing and countless abilities.

            A large amount of Helen's accomplishments would not have been possible if it weren't for her mother and father. Helen’s mother Kate had read in the book “American Notes” by Charles Dickens about the work that had been done with another child, Laura Bridgman, which was deaf and blind as well (Bowie, 1963). The family traveled to Baltimore to see a specialist where it was confirmed that Helen would never see nor hear again. The doctor did tell the family not to give up hope on Helen. He felt that there was a way to teach Helen and he suggested to the family that they seek the help of Alexander Graham Bell who had turned his work from the telephone to helping deaf children. The family did seek his advice and Bell was so fascinated by six year old Helen that he recommended that she contact Michael Anagnos at the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston to see if he could find someone to teach Helen. Anne Sullivan, who was also a recent Perkins graduate, was suggested to be Helen's teacher by Michael Anagnos.

            Helen's greatest inspiration and life long companion, Anne Sullivan, arrived at her home in Alabama in March of 1887. Anne herself had become partially blind at the age of 5. She had been able to have surgery on her eyes while she was at the Perkins which helped her be able to read normal writing for brief periods of time. In just a couple of weeks, Helen learned that everything had a name and that she could communicate with others by using the manual alphabet.  Helen also found that she could use the manual alphabet and lip reading to prove her intelligence.  The manual alphabet is a system that contains 26 hand symbols, one for each letter of the alphabet.  It is used to finger spell words.  The first word that she taught her was “doll” and the second word she taught her was “cake”. It was still hard for Helen to fully understand what these words meant but Anne continued to work with Helen. Anne also wanted to work on Helen’s behavior...

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