Why is helen keller important to american history

Rockefeller , and leaders of the motion picture industry. Widely honored throughout the world and invited to the White House by every U. More than any act in her long life, her courage, intelligence, and dedication combined to make her a symbol of the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Helen Taft was an American first lady and the wife of William Howard Taft, 27th president of the United States and later chief justice of the U.

Supreme Court. As a member of a successful Ohio political family, Helen or Nellie, as she was called fully What Was the Seneca Roe v. Wade was a landmark legal decision issued on January 22, , in which the U. Supreme Court struck down a Texas statute banning abortion, effectively legalizing the procedure across the United States. Mount St. Helens is a volcano located in southwestern Washington state.

For thousands of years, Mount St. Helens has The Equal Pay Act is a labor law that prohibits gender-based wage discrimination in the United States. While still a student at Radcliffe, Helen began a writing career that was to continue throughout her life. In , her autobiography, The Story of My Life , was published. This had appeared in serial form the previous year in Ladies' Home Journal magazine. Her autobiography has been translated into 50 languages and remains in print to this day.

In addition, she was a frequent contributor to magazines and newspapers. The Helen Keller Archives contain over speeches and essays that she wrote on topics such as faith, blindness prevention, birth control, the rise of fascism in Europe, and atomic energy. Helen used a braille typewriter to prepare her manuscripts and then copied them on a regular typewriter.

Helen saw herself as a writer first—her passport listed her profession as "author. From an early age, she championed the rights of the underdog and used her skills as a writer to speak truth to power. A pacifist, she protested U. A committed socialist, she took up the cause of workers' rights. She was also a tireless advocate for women's suffrage and an early member of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Helen joined AFB in and worked for the organization for over 40 years. The foundation provided her with a global platform to advocate for the needs of people with vision loss and she wasted no opportunity. As a result of her travels across the United States, state commissions for the blind were created, rehabilitation centers were built, and education was made accessible to those with vision loss. Helen's optimism and courage were keenly felt at a personal level on many occasions, but perhaps never more so than during her visits to veteran's hospitals for soldiers returning from duty during World War II.

Helen was very proud of her assistance in the formation in of a special service for deaf-blind persons. Her message of faith and strength through adversity resonated with those returning from war injured and maimed.

Helen Keller was as interested in the welfare of blind persons in other countries as she was for those in her own country; conditions in poor and war-ravaged nations were of particular concern. Helen's ability to empathize with the individual citizen in need as well as her ability to work with world leaders to shape global policy on vision loss made her a supremely effective ambassador for disabled persons worldwide. Her active participation in this area began as early as , when the Permanent Blind War Relief Fund, later called the American Braille Press, was founded.

She was a member of its first board of directors. It was then that she began her globe-circling tours on behalf of those with vision loss. During seven trips between and , she visited 35 countries on five continents. Helen Keller and Polly Thomson in Japan, Her visit was a huge success; up to two million Japanese came out to see her and her appearance drew considerable attention to the plight of Japan's blind and disabled population.

In , when she was 75 years old, she embarked on one of her longest and most grueling journeys: a 40,mile, five-month-long tour through Asia. Wherever she traveled, she brought encouragement to millions of blind people, and many of the efforts to improve conditions for those with vision loss outside the United States can be traced directly to her visits.

Helen was famous from the age of 8 until her death in Her wide range of political, cultural, and intellectual interests and activities ensured that she knew people in all spheres of life. She counted leading personalities of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries among her friends and acquaintances. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Katharine Cornell, and Jo Davidson to name but a few. This narrative is perhaps the most comprehensive study of Helen Keller's role in the development of support services specifically related to the deaf-blind, as delineated as different from the blind.

Readers will learn about Keller's challenges and choices as well as how her public image often eclipsed her personal desires to live independently. Keller's deaf-blindness and hard-earned but limited speech did not define her as a human being as she explored the world of ideas and wove those ideas into her writing, lobbying for funds for the American Federation for the Blind and working with disabled activists and supporters to bring about practical help during times of tremendous societal change.

Eliassen has an interest in local history, folklore, and design. Libraries Unlimited. Need Help? Try our Search Tips. Award Winner. Reviewed Content.