inspiring women to be remembered: helen keller

February 17, 2024by cinco special guest

born in tuscumbia, alabama in 1880, helen adams keller lost her voice and her sight at the age of 19 months. to communicate with others, she created her own version of sign language. at the age of 7, her mother sent her to the perkins school for the blind. there she met a former student, anne sullivan, who became her teacher and lifelong companion.
anne believed that she could teach helen the connection between objects and words. at first, keller was very frustrated because he couldn't understand that every object has a word that identifies it. one day, anne took keller to a water pump, and as the water fell, she wrote the word "water" on his hand. that day, keller learned 30 more words using this method. since then, keller has begun to understand the alphabet, which has helped her improve her reading and writing skills.

in 1893, keller attended the william wade house and finishing school with sullivan and later attended radcliffe college at harvard university, where she became the first deaf-blind person in the united states to earn a bachelor of arts degree.

she made her literary entrance in 1902 with the publication of her autobiography, the story of my life, and then began a career in journalism, writing articles for ladies home journal. from then on, she never stopped writing.
keller became a world-renowned speaker and author. she was an advocate for people with disabilities, among many other causes, and traveled to twenty-five different countries to give motivational speeches about the conditions of deaf people. she was also a suffragist, a pacifist, and an advocate of birth control.

she founded helen keller international with george a. kessler, and later helped found the american civil liberties union.

before her death in 1968, kelen spent her life inspiring and encouraging people to overcome their limitations, showing that people should not be defined by their disabilities.

mariana teixeira is an internship student, from a communication and multimedia design degree , currently in CINCO team. growing up in a small town and loving books, music and art, she always dreamed of a career where she could be creative.