Alabama archivists will honor a state historical figure today.
Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia on June 27, 1880. She was a Colbert Country native for the first eight years of her life, living on the Ivy Green homestead with her family until 1888.
A childhood illness left Keller both blind and deaf when she was just 19 months old.
Alex Colvin is a public programs curator with the Alabama Department of Archives and History. She said Keller’s life is important to revisit because it is often misunderstood. Many people only know her for this early setback.
“With Helen Keller, I think an important reason to learn about her is because it’s really easy to kind of put her in a box,” she said. “Everyone knows that story of her childhood, and they think that’s all that she was. But if you take a look at her larger life, you can see her activism and the larger movements that she was involved in. It helps you look at that time in a different way and through a different lens.”
Keller began studying language under the guidance of her teacher, Anne Sullivan, at age 7. She advanced her education at Perkin’s School for the Blind in Boston and the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf in New York. And Keller became the first person with deafblindness to receive a college degree from Radcliffe College at Harvard in 1904.
While in college, Keller began writing an essay that would become her autobiography in 1903. “The Story of My Life” was known worldwide and helped her kickstart a literary career, though none of her later works achieved the same level of success.
Later in her life, Keller became a world traveler and activist. She would travel to 39 countries across the globe, advocating for the rights of people living with disabilities internationally. Keller also championed women’s suffrage, the right to birth control, labor rights and the right to unemployment benefits.
In addition, Keller co-founded Helen Keller International in 1916 and the American Civil Liberties Union in 1920. But she devoted much of her later years to raising funds for the American Foundation for the Blind, an organization that bolsters the needs of America’s blind community.
Whether she is seen as an author, an activist or a speaker, Colvin said Keller is certainly an important early inspiration for Americans living with disabilities.
“I think she’s this great example of not allowing your disability to define what you’re able to do,” she said. “She’s going out across the world. She’s traveling abroad. She’s traveling around the United States. She’s writing. She’s speaking. She never let that define her. She is also this example of not letting what seems like a limitation stop you.”
Keller died at her home in Connecticut in 1968. She was 87 years old.
Colvin said though she lived decades earlier, it is always important to honor state history.
“Today’s present is built on the past,” she said. “So, we should commemorate the past [and] look to the past because as we have come forward, that’s the building blocks for understanding the world that we’re in today.”
And Alabamians can honor Helen Keller in a few different ways.
They can visit her childhood home, Ivy Green, in Tuscumbia this week. The homestead is open every Monday through Saturday. Visitors get the chance to learn more about Keller, her family and her life through guided tours starting from 8:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m.
Ivy Green will even host its 62nd annual outdoor production of “The Miracle Worker,” which is a play based off of Keller’s autobiography. Performances are July 7th, 8th, 14th and 15th. Gates open at 7 p.m. and the play starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are available online or at the gate for $15.
The Alabama Department of Archives and History also offers several primary sources on Keller’s life and legacy. More information can be found at www.archives.alabama.gov.
