Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama. When she was 19 months old, she suffered from "acute congestion," which left her deaf, blind and mute. When she was six years old, her parents asked Alexander Graham Bell for help in educating their daughter. When she was seven, the Boston Perkins Institute for the Blind sent Anne Sullivan, a 20-year-old partially blind teacher. Sullivan started to teach Keller how to read Braille and communicate with a special language using touch.

Within one month, Keller started to learn how to say the names of objects by pressing letters into the palm of someone's hand. Later, she learned to "hear" by putting her fingers on Sullivan's larynx and feeling the vibrations. Keller eventually learned how to read in Braille and learned to write using a special typewriter. In 1890, she learned to speak, though usually a translater was needed.

She went to Cambridge School for Young Ladies, where Anne Sullivan went with her to all her classes and repeated each lecture using touch. In 1900, she went to Radcliffe College where she read Braille books and had special conferences with professors. She was an excellent student and graduated in 1904 with very high honors in her class. Keller then served on the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind and began speaking all over the world, using her own life story to inspire others. After World War II, she visited wounded U.S. veterans. She met a variety of world leaders and promoted education for the deaf and the blind. Keller wrote many books and maintained a large library of books in Braille. Keller's life is the subject of a film (The Unconquered) and a Pulitzer Prize-winning play (The Miracle Worker).