Helen Keller - (21) ~ by SaralynArati

SaralynArati

0

Thanks so much, NightOwl!! I couldn't resist turning this one of my heroines into a superhero, lol!

8 years ago

NightOwl

1

Soooooo AWESOME!!!!! I really love this doll so much! The whole idea and execution of it is brilliant and I love the detail you put in with the braille! ACCURACY: 10 points. INTRICACY: 10 points. DESCRIPTION: 10 points. TOTAL: 30 points. :)

8 years ago

SaralynArati

0

I chose to represent Helen Keller as a superhero because, to my mind, the real woman didn't have far to go to achieve that status. I call her alternative universe character Vibrissae, which means "whiskers", due to her extraordinary ability to sense vibrations through her hands, feet, hair, and specially modified suit. She is also telepathic as her primary mode of communication. Her weapon is not a white cane, but a steel baton like a short staff. In braille, her chest plate reads "Helen".

8 years ago

SaralynArati

0

In 1920, she helped to found the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Keller traveled to over 40 countries with Sullivan, and was friends with many famous figures, including Alexander Graham Bell, Charlie Chaplin and Mark Twain. At age 22, Keller published her autobiography, "The Story of My Life" (1903), with help from Sullivan and Sullivan's husband, John Macy. It recounts the story of her life up to age 21 and was written during her time in college. It is the basis for "The Miracle Worker".

8 years ago

SaralynArati

0

Keller is remembered as an advocate for people with disabilities, amid numerous other causes. The deaf community was widely impacted by her (against the stigma of "dumb".) She traveled to 25 different countries giving motivational speeches about deaf people conditions. She was a suffragette, a pacifist, a radical socialist, and a birth control supporter. In 1915 she and George Kessler founded the Helen Keller International (HKI) organization, devoted to research in vision, health and nutrition.

8 years ago

SaralynArati

0

Determined to communicate with others as conventionally as possible, Keller learned to speak, and spent much of her life giving speeches and lectures. She learned to "hear" people's speech by reading their lips with her hands - her sense of touch had become extremely subtle. She became proficient at using braille and she determined that by placing her fingertips on a resonant tabletop she could experience music played close by. Helen Keller went on to become a world-famous speaker and author.

8 years ago

SaralynArati

0

Starting in May 1888, Keller attended the Perkins Institute for the Blind. In 1894, Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan moved to New York to attend the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf, and to learn from Sarah Fuller at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf. In 1896, they returned to Massachusetts, and Keller entered The Cambridge School for Young Ladies. In 1904, at the age of 24, Keller graduated from Radcliffe College, becoming the first deaf blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.

8 years ago

SaralynArati

0

Anne Sullivan arrived at Keller's house in March 1887, and immediately began by spelling words into her hand, beginning with "d-o-l-l". Keller was frustrated, at first, because she did not understand that every object had a word uniquely identifying it. Keller's big breakthrough in communication came the next month, when she realized that the motions her teacher was making on her palm, while running water over her other hand, symbolized the idea, "water". Her vocabulary then exploded into life!

8 years ago

SaralynArati

0

Helen Keller was born with the ability to see and hear. At 19 months old, she contracted an illness which might have been scarlet fever or meningitis, leaving her both deaf and blind. She was able to communicate somewhat with Martha Washington, the six-year-old daughter of the family cook, who understood her signs; by the age of seven, Keller had more than 60 home signs to communicate with her family. She learned how to tell which person was walking by from the vibrations of their footsteps.

8 years ago

SaralynArati

0

A prolific author, Keller was well-traveled and outspoken in her 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, antimilitarism, and other similar causes. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1971 and was one of twelve inaugural inductees to the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame on June 8, 2015. Earlier, in 2003, Alabama honored its native daughter on its state quarter.

8 years ago