The Story Of My Life (POCKET BOOKS)

When the Keller family welcomed their daughter Helen in their family on June 27, 1880, they had no idea how she would change their lives. At 19 months of age, Helen contracted a disease which destroyed her ability to see or hear, and slowly began to develop her own home signs in order to communicate with the people around her. Her mother was inspired by the story of another deafblind woman, Laura Bridgeman, to seek out physician J. Julian Chisolm, an eye, ear, nose, and throat specialist in Baltimore. Dr. Chisolm directed the Kellers to Alexander Graham Bell who further directed them to the Perkins Institute for the Blind. Through the institute, they came into contact with a former student, Anne Sullivan, who would change Helen's life forever. Anne began a relationship with Helen which spanned 49 years, teaching Helen to communicate with others, to read Braille. The stories of her lessons with Anne catapulted Helen to fame, and soon she joined the Perkins Institute. Helen Keller's drive to communicate with others as conventionally as possible led her to learn how to speak, and she soon spent the rest of her life giving speeches. She spent a large part of her life helping others like her, and became a strong advocate for people with disabilities, a suffragist, a pacifist, an opponent of Woodrow Wilson, a radical socialist and a birth control supporter. This book gives readers a look into the life of one of the most fascinating figures in recent history, a figurehead for hope in the face of unsurmountable odds.