Birth Family Capt. Arthur H. Keller and Kate Adams Keller
Education Helen Keller attended the Perkins Institute for the
Blind. She later attended Wright-Humason school for the Deaf and
Horace Mann School for the Deaf. In 1896, Helen entered The
Cambridge School for Young Ladies and in 1900, she gained
admittance to Radcliffe College. Career American author,
political activist and lecturer Reason for Fame Helen devoted
much of her later life to raising funds for the American
Foundation for the Blind. President Johnson awarded Helen the
Presidential Medal of Freedom and in 1965, she was elected to
Hational Women’s Hall of Fame. Additional Information Helen
Keller was not born blind and deaf; at nineteen months old she
contracted an illness described as an acute congestion of the
stomach and the brain which could possibly have been scarlet
fever or meningitis. At age 24, Helen was the first deafblind to
earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. Helen was taught the meaning of
words, to speak and read by her long-time teac