Helen Keller: The Struggle For Women's Rights

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Helen Keller was an educator, journalist, activist, humanitarian, and author. She was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama in the year 1880 and died in 1968 at the age of 87. Helen Keller was not only blind but deaf as well. She went blind, deaf, and mute at eighteen months after becoming ill. At the time, doctors said that Keller contracted an illness called “brain fever.” Now specialists believe that it may have been scarlet fever or meningitis. Although Helen was diagnosed with these disabilities, she was still extremely smart. She was able to learn communication and language because of her educator Anne Sullivan. Helen Keller’s’ family were able to find Anne Sullivan through Alexander Graham Bell after seeing a specialist.

Anne Sullivan was a recent
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She spoke and wrote in support of women’s rights and other liberal causes. She strongly backed the United States’ entry into World War II in 1940 although she was an advocate for peace. Her strong belief in peace was one of the reasons why she became a huge supporter of socialist politics. She had very strong opinions on politics and social issues. She spoke out about women’s suffrage, pacifism, and birth control. Originally, the media was very nice and supportive of Helen Keller. They loved her drive, courage and intelligence, that is until she began to support the socialist party. Helen wrote several articles about socialism and supported a Socialist Party presidential candidate. This made people begin to prejudice her publically about her disabilities. Implying that her views were because of the limitations of her development. Helen Keller did not let these words to get to her but continued to speak out go with what her heart felt was …show more content…
One of her greatest contributions was being a leader in general. “In 1915, along with renowned city planner George Kessler, she co-founded Helen Keller International to combat the causes and consequences of blindness and malnutrition (Bio.com Staff, 2010).” Helen Keller founded many organizations that helped people with disabilities around the world. She also supported and held leadership positions in many other organizations. As mentioned earlier, Helen traveled the world to help develop organizations for children with disabilities. This played a vital role in the development of modern teaching methods for children with disabilities, as it helped doctors develop and enhance the Tadoma method of communication. It also helped them to discover that the blind and deaf had hope for life as well. I believe that Helen’s greatest achievement was being a symbol of someone who overcame her conditions. “Throughout the world, she became a source of hope for families in her situation and their children (Reeves, 2010).” She gave families something to believe in and look forward to. At that time, many people believed that deaf blind individuals had not chance of living; Helen Keller changed their views. Through her many speeches and appearances, she brought inspiration and encouragement to millions of

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