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Helen Keller

New Statue of Helen Keller Unveiled at the U.S. Capitol on October 7, 2009. Read all about it!


On June 27, 2009, the world celebrated the 129th anniversary of Helen Keller's birth. Deaf and blind from infancy, Helen Keller played a leading role in most of the significant political, social, and cultural movements of the 20th century. Throughout her lifetime (1880-1968) she worked unceasingly to improve the lives of people who were blind and deaf. Helen's own approach to life can be summed up by her advice to a five-year-old blind child in 1932:

"Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the face."
  • Visit the Helen Keller Kids Museum Online, featuring photos, videos, and letters that bring Helen's remarkable story to life.

  • Explore the photos and letters from AFB's Helen Keller Archives, made accessible online.

  • Use the guide to the Helen Keller Archives to learn about the papers, photographs, artifacts, and audio-visual materials that are contained in the collection.

  • 2009 is the bicentennial of the birth of Louis Braille. On this occasion, the American Foundation for the Blind is participating in the celebration with a web area dedicated to his life and legacy: www.afb.org/LouisBraille. You can read a speech that Helen Keller gave at the Sorbonne University in Paris in June 1952 marking the 100th anniversary of his death, as well as an essay, "Braille, the Magic Wand of the Blind," that she wrote around 1924 in which she describes the braille system and how she benefited from it.

  • Learn about Anne Sullivan Macy: Miracle Worker. Helen Keller wrote "The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me." Anne's work with Helen Keller became the blueprint for education of children who were blind, deaf-blind, or visually impaired that still continues today.

  • Read Helen Keller's autobiography, The Story of My Life, written when she was just 21 years old.

  • Visit the AFB bookstore to buy a copy of To Love This Life: Quotations by Helen Keller, with a foreword by Jimmy Carter.

  • Make a donation now to help preserve Helen Keller's Archives!