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Ethics: Questions & Morality of Human Actions, 3rd Edition

Keller, Helen

by Noreen A. Grice

Identification: American social activist

Born: June 27, 1880, Tuscumbia, Alabama

Died: June 1, 1968, Westport, Connecticut

Type of Ethics: Civil rights

Significance: One of the most influential women of the twentieth century, Keller published many books and devoted her life to helping blind and deaf people

Helen Keller holding a magnolia, ca. 1920. By Los Angeles Times; restored by User:Rhododendrites.

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At the age of eighteen months, Helen Keller suffered a severe illness that left her blind and deaf. She could not communicate with other people. When Helen was eight years old, her parents hired a teacher, Anne Sullivan, from the Perkins Institution for the Blind. Sullivan taught Helen a manual alphabet and finger-spelled the names of various objects. Within two years, Helen learned to read and write in braille. At age ten, Helen learned to speak by feeling the vibrations of Sullivan’s vocal cords.

In 1890, Anne Sullivan accompanied Helen Keller to Radcliffe College. Four years later, Helen graduated cum laude and began writing essays on the rights of the disabled. She lectured worldwide and gained the support of famous people on improving the rights of people with disabilities. Her publications include The Story of My Life (1903), The World I Live In (1908), Out of the Dark (1913), Helen Keller’s Journal (1938), and Teacher: Anne Sullivan Macy (1955). Helen Keller was an activist for the rights of people with disabilities until her death in 1968.

See also: Americans with Disabilities Act; Disability rights; United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Grice, Noreen A. "Keller, Helen." Ethics: Questions & Morality of Human Actions, 3rd Edition, edited by George Lucas & John K. Roth, Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Ethics_0429.
APA 7th
Grice, N. A. (2019). Keller, Helen. In G. Lucas & J. K. Roth (Eds.), Ethics: Questions & Morality of Human Actions, 3rd Edition. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Grice, Noreen A. "Keller, Helen." Edited by George Lucas & John K. Roth. Ethics: Questions & Morality of Human Actions, 3rd Edition. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2019. Accessed October 22, 2025. online.salempress.com.