Helen Keller

American blind and deaf educator, author and lecturer. A brain fever illness at 19 months destroyed her sight and hearing and left her unruly and animalistic, classified as an idiot. At the age of seven, her parents hired Anne Sullivan, a teacher from Boston, who herself had been raised in an insane asylum. With the aid of her dedicated teacher, Helen Keller developed an exceptional mind and ability to express herself. During her lifetime she wrote 14 books and translating 50 books into various languages, wrote countless magazine articles, gave lectures, met presidents and traveled the globe to more than 25 countries. One of the most remarkable women of her age, she received many decorations and honors.

Helen was the eldest child of Arthur and his second wife Kate, a beauty from Memphis who was 20 years younger. With two older half-brothers, James and Simpson, she later had two younger siblings, Mildred and Phillip. Her dad considered himself a gentleman farmer and had served as a captain in the Confederate Army; at the time of her birth he ran a weekly newspaper. As an infant Helen could see and hear and was much like every other baby. She could mimic and say words when just six months old and began to walk on her first birthday. Her illness at 19 months was called by the doctor "acute congestion of the stomach and brain."

When the baby recovered, she was unable to see, hear, or speak, which she later wrote was "extremely disorienting." She referred to herself as a Phantom during this period. At six she was taken to an eye specialist in Baltimore who could do nothing for her blindness but said she could be educated. He suggested seeing Dr. Alexander Graham Bell in Washington, DC who had also worked with the deaf. She liked Bell immediately and the two maintained a lifelong friendship. Bell recognized her intelligence and advised her dad to contact the Perkins Institution for the Blind, in Boston, to arrange for a tutor.