Helen Keller Day, 27 JUNE 2023

 Helen Keller Day, 27 JUNE 2023

Helen Keller Day: Helen Keller Day is celebrated on June 27 annually. The day encourages people to believe in their own potential and strive for greatness, regardless of the obstacles they encounter. Every year June 27 is observed as Helen Keller Day. Helen Adams Keller was a deafblind American author, political activist and lecturer. The day honours and celebrate the life, struggles and achievements of the miraculous woman. 

Early Life

Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama to Arthur Henley Keller and Catherine Everett (Adams) Keller. She was diagnosed with a type of bacterial meningitis when she was 19 months old, and as a result, she was unable to see, hear, or communicate. Alexander Graham Bell, a well-known scientist and inventor who is credited with creating the first telephone, responded to the family's request for guidance and advised them to admit her to Boston's Perkins Institute for the Blind.

They followed Bell’s advice and in 1887, Keller was taught by Anne Sullivan, a young teacher who had suffered vision impairment herself. Sullivan used ‘touch teaching’ techniques and her skilled guidance calmed the seemingly uncontrollable Keller. She learned how to read and write in Braille and the hand signals of the deaf and mute. 

Writings, Books & Other Works

Keller relocated to Forest Hills, Queens, along with Sullivan and a recruited housekeeper Macy. She utilised her residence as a platform for her advocacy work on behalf of the American Foundation for the Blind. As a speaker and author, Keller rose to fame and supported people with impairments.

There are 12 books that Keller has published in all, including the following: 

The Frost King (1891)

The Story of My Life (1903)

Optimism: an essay (1903)

My Key of Life: Optimism (1904)

The World I Live In (1908)

The Miracle of Life (1909) 

The Song of the stone wall (1910) 

Out of the Dark, a series of essays on socialism (1913)

Uncle Sam Is Calling (set to music by Pauline B. Story) (1917)

My Religion (1927; also called Light in My Darkness)

Midstream: my later life (1929) 

We bereaved.(1929)

Peace at Eventide (1932) 

Helen Keller in Scotland: a personal record written by herself (1933) Methuen, 212pp

Helen Keller's Journal (1938) 

Let us have faith (1940)

Teacher: Anne Sullivan Macy: a tribute by the foster child of her mind. (1955)

The open door (1957)

The Faith of Helen Keller (1967)

Helen Keller: her socialist years, writings and speeches (1967)

Awards & Achievements

She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the two highest civilian awards bestowed by the United States, on September 14, 1964, from President Lyndon B. Johnson. At the New York World's Fair in 1965, she was chosen for induction into the National Women's Hall of Fame. In her later years, she devoted a significant portion of her time to fund-raising for the American Foundation for the Blind.