Helen Keller (1880-1968) was a remarkable and inspiring individual in the history of Americans with disabilities. She was an outstanding example of someone who was able to lead a productive life despite being blind and deaf.

She became a lifelong advocate for the disabled by writing several books about how she overcame unimaginable disabilities to be able to communicate with other people. Keller also devoted her life to helping her fellow Americans through public service and humanitarian causes.

Keller was born on June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama. According to biography.com, when she was two years old, she lost her sight and hearing to an illness, possibly scarlet fever or meningitis. At that time the understanding and treatment of blindness and deafness in the United States was limited.

Without the ability to communicate with other people, Keller had seemed destined for a life of isolation in an institution, until Keller’s mother read a book by Charles Dickens. He wrote about the successful education of another deaf and blind child, Laura Bridgeman (1829-1889). Her parents then determined to seek the same help for their child. Upon the advice of a specialist in Baltimore, Maryland, her parents arranged to meet with Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone and a teacher of deaf children.

According to history.com, on Bell’s advice, her parents applied to the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston, Massachusetts for a teacher. The director of the school recommended that Keller work with Ann Sullivan, one of institutes’ recent graduates.

Sullivan arrived at the Keller home in Alabama on March 3, 1887, when Keller was six years old. She seemed to have a herculean task of teaching Keller how to communicate. At first Keller was an unmanageable child, out of frustration she would throw tantrums. Eventually Sullivan insisted that she needed to be isolated with her student.

At first Keller refused to learn, but Sullivan persisted. A major breakthrough in communication took place a month later. Keller was able to match the word “water” with the actual object as Sullivan was running her hand through a water pump. After that, Helen was eager to learn how to communicate using finger spelling, learning 30 words by the day’s end, according to biography.com. Sullivan continued to teach Keller to read and write using Braille.

As an adult, In 1890, Keller went to the Horace Mann School for the Deaf in Boston for speech lessons. A couple of years later she went to the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf in New York City, in her pursuit to be able to speak enough so others could understand her.

However, Keller was very successful in learning to communicate using touch and hand signals. Keller could lip-read the words of other people by putting her fingers on the lips and throat of the person speaking while the words were spelled out to her on her other hand.

When she became an adult, Keller was determined to attend college. She made some important friendships that allowed this to happen.

She made the acquaintance of writer Mark Twain who introduced her to Henry H. Rogers, an executive of Standard Oil who was so impressed by her courage that he paid for her to attend Radcliffe, a women’s college in Massachusetts.

Keller learned an impressive variety of subjects with the help of tutors and Sullivan, who sat next to her during lectures. When Keller graduated from Radcliffe in 1904, she had learned French, German, Latin, English literature and Greek history. Keller had even learned geometry by using tactile diagrams made of raised letters and lines.

Keller decided to devote her life to improving the conditions for the disabled in the United States. She joined the staff of the American Foundation for the Blind and traveled the world, giving lectures to raise money for the foundation.

Keller also co-founded the American Civil Liberties Union with civil rights advocate Roger Nash Baldwin and others in 1920. Keller’s efforts to improve the lives of the blind and deaf was instrumental in less disabled Americans being not put in asylums and institutions and receiving more humane treatment by the public.

Keller was such an esteemed individual in the history of the nation that she met every president at the White House from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1955, Keller became the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate from Harvard College. Keller was 75 at the time.

In 1903, Keller wrote, “The Story Of My Life,” an autobiographical account of how she learned to communicate through the teaching of Sullivan. The book covered her life story up to the age of 21. Keller’s autobiography inspired the 1959 play, “The Miracle Worker,” written by William Gibson. The play was adapted for the big screen in the 1962 film of the same name. Patty Duke and Ann Bancroft both won Oscars for their roles as Keller and Sullivan.

Keller never stopped being an advocate for the blind and deaf in America. She continued to raise funds for the American Foundation for the Blind until she died in her sleep on June 1, 1968 at the age of 87. The Alabama state quarter issued in 2003, depicted an image of native-born Keller along with the words “spirit of courage.”