Helen Keller holding hand of her teacher, Anne Sullivan Macy, circa 1909. Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 - June 1, 1968) was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was 19 months old when she contracted an illness, which might have be


Helen Keller holding hand of her teacher, Anne Sullivan Macy, circa 1909. Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 - June 1, 1968) was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was 19 months old when she contracted an illness, which might have been scarlet fever or meningitis, that left her deaf and blind. In 1887 Anne Sullivan became Keller's instructor. In 1904, at the age of 24, Keller graduated from Radcliffe, becoming the first deaf blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. A prolific author, Keller was well-traveled, and was outspoken in her anti-war convictions. A member of the Socialist Party of America and the Industrial Workers of the World, she campaigned for women's suffrage, labor rights, socialism, and other radical left causes. Keller suffered a series of strokes in 1961 and spent the last years of her life at her home. She died in her sleep in 1968 at the age of 87. Johanna "Anne" Mansfield Sullivan Macy (April 14, 1866 - October 20, 1936), best known as Anne Sullivan, was an Irish-American teacher best known as the instructor and companion of Helen Keller. In 1880, Anne, who was blind from untreated trachoma, was sent to the Perkins School for the Blind. Visually impaired and only 20 years old, she became Helen Keller's instructor. It was the beginning of a 49-year relationship, Sullivan evolving into governess and then eventual companion. In 1905 Anne Sullivan married a Harvard University instructor and literary critic, John Albert Macy, who had helped Keller with her publications. Macy moved in with Keller and Sullivan, and the three lived together. By 1914 they had separated, but never officially divorced. She never remarried. She died in 1936, at age 70 after a coma, with Keller holding her hand.


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