The Styrous® Viewfinder: Helen Keller & The Miracle Worker

June 27, 2026

Helen Keller & The Miracle Worker

Today is the birthday of Helen Adams Keller born on June 27, 1880. She was an American author, disability rights advocate, political activist and lecturer. Born in West Tuscumbia, Alabama, she lost her sight and her hearing after a bout of illness when she was 19 months old. She then communicated primarily using home signs until the age of seven, when she met her first teacher and life-long companion Anne Sullivan. Sullivan taught Keller language, including reading and writing. After an education at both specialist and mainstream schools, Keller attended Radcliffe College of Harvard University and became the first deafblind person in the United States to earn a college diploma.

At 19 months old, Keller contracted an unknown illness described by doctors as "an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain". Contemporary doctors believe it may have been meningitis, caused by the bacterium Neisseria meningitidis (meningococcus), by rubella or scarlet fever, (or by Haemophilus influenzae, which can cause the same symptoms but is less likely because of its 97% juvenile mortality rate at that time).

Keller wrote 14 books and hundreds of speeches and essays on topics ranging from animals to Mahatma Gandhi. Keller campaigned for those with disabilities and for women's suffrage, labor rights, and world peace. In 1909, she joined the Socialist Party of America (SPA). As a result of her advocacy, she was placed on the FBI watchlist; the FBI wrote on July 1, 1953, that although they have not "conducted an investigation with regard to Helen Adams Keller", their files of Keller "reflect the following pertinent information concerning this individual".

She was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). In 1915, she wrote in favor of refusing life-saving medical procedures to infants with severe mental impairments or physical deformities, saying that their lives were not worthwhile and they would likely become criminals.

Keller's autobiography, The Story of My Life (1903), publicized her education and life with Sullivan. The playwright William Gibson wrote a theatrical adaptation, The Miracle Worker, in 1959, which he adapted as a film under the same title in 1962 starring Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke.

The Miracle Worker - 1962

A commemorative stamp was issued in 1980 by the United States Postal Service, depicting Keller and Sullivan, to mark the centennial of Keller's birth

Helen Keller postage stamp - 1980

Helen Keller died in her sleep on June 1, 1968, at her home, Arcan Ridge, located in Easton, Connecticut, at the age of 87. A service was held at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., and her body was cremated in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Her ashes were buried at the Washington National Cathedral next to her constant companion, Anne Sullivan.