Born a healthy child in the late 1800s, as a toddler Helen Keller was struck by an illness that left her both deaf, blind and unable to speak. Advocated for by her mother, Keller struggled greatly with communication and was delayed in her education.
But through the support of her teacher, Annie Sullivan, and with many accommodations, Keller was able to speak, complete a college education and even emerge as an author of dozens of books. She eventually became an advocate for education for those with disabilities, as well as for women’s suffrage and many other social causes.
Helen Keller Day is here to honor not only the woman who overcame so much, but to celebrate all of those people who make it their life’s work to help and support the blind and deaf.
How to Celebrate Helen Keller Day
Show some appreciation in honor of Helen Keller Day, participating with some of these ideas to get started:
Learn More About Helen Keller
Get more connected with this strong woman who overcame the odds by reading and learning more about her life. Perhaps start by reading one of autobiography, The Story of My Life, which was published in 1903. Or, for those who are more interested in watching films, consider a couple of different versions of The Miracle Worker (1962 and 2000), which feature the story of Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller.
Attend the Helen Keller Day Fashion Show
This fund-raising event is named after Helen Keller and has been a popular go-to for many decades. The Luncheon and Fashion Show takes place in various locations in the eastern United States, organized by Friends of the Blind and benefitting a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the blind.
Helen Keller Day Timeline
Helen Keller’s Birth and Early Childhood
Helen Adams Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama, and later became the most internationally recognized deaf-blind advocate in history.
Illness Leads to Deaf-Blindness
At 19 months old in February 1882, Keller contracted a severe febrile illness, described by doctors as “brain fever,” that left her both deaf and blind.
Laura Bridgman Shows Deaf-Blind Children Can Learn
At Perkins School for the Blind, Laura Bridgman, who is deafblind, was successfully taught language decades before Keller, providing an early model for educating deafblind students.
Anne Sullivan Begins Teaching Helen Keller
After Alexander Graham Bell referred the Keller family to Perkins School for the Blind, recent graduate Anne Sullivan was sent to Alabama and began teaching Helen in March 1887.
The “Water” Breakthrough in Language
At a water pump, Sullivan spells “w-a-t-e-r” into Helen’s hand as water runs over it; Keller connects the word to its meaning and rapidly begins acquiring language.
First Deafblind Bachelor of Arts Graduate
Helen Keller graduated from Radcliffe College, widely recognized as the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree, proving that rigorous higher education is possible for deaf-blind students.
National Advocacy with the American Foundation for the Blind
Keller begins working with the American Foundation for the Blind, traveling extensively and championing education, employment, and civil rights for blind and deafblind people around the world.
History of Helen Keller Day
This event got its official start in the United States when it was first proclaimed in 1938 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. At the time, the date was set for the third Thursday in March, which occurred on March 3, due to its connection with a celebration by the American Foundation for the Blind.
This was in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the first meeting between Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan – which Keller always considered to be her ‘spiritual birthday’.
Years later, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Helen Keller in 1980, this event began to gain traction, and the date was changed to reflect the actual anniversary of Keller’s birth, which was on June 27, 1880.
During this time, a proclamation by the mayor of New Jersey, as well as by US President Jimmy Carter, to honor Keller’s contributions and accomplishments. Later, Helen Keller Day was established through presidential proclamation and has been observed each year since.
Other events throughout the year that can be celebrated related to this day include National ASL Day in April, International Day of Sign Languages in September, or Deaf Awareness Week in May.
Keller Was Also a Radical Political Organizer
Beyond her work on disability and education, Helen Keller joined the Socialist Party of America in 1909, campaigned for workers’ rights, and spoke out for women’s suffrage, birth control, and against World War I, positioning herself within some of the most controversial social movements of her time.
The First Deafblind College Graduate in the United States
Helen Keller graduated with honors from Radcliffe College in 1904 and is widely recognized as the first deafblind person in the United States to earn a college degree, an achievement that challenged prevailing assumptions about the educability of people with profound sensory disabilities.
How Annie Sullivan Turned Tactile Spelling into a Full Language System
Trained at Perkins School for the Blind, Annie Sullivan adapted the one‑handed manual alphabet so that words were spelled directly into Helen Keller’s palm, systematically pairing each tactile spelling with real objects and experiences; modern educators recognize this as an early, sophisticated form of multisensory, experiential language instruction for deafblind learners.
From Laura Bridgman to Helen Keller in Deafblind Education
Decades before Helen Keller, Perkins School for the Blind educated Laura Bridgman, a deafblind girl who learned language through raised letters and manual spelling, and this earlier experiment directly informed the methods later used with Keller, helping to establish deafblind education as a distinct field by the late nineteenth century.
Tadoma: Feeling Speech Through the Face
For much of the first half of the twentieth century, many deafblind students were taught speech using the Tadoma method, in which a learner places a thumb on the speaker’s lips and fingers along the jaw and throat to feel patterns of articulation; Perkins School for the Blind notes that Tadoma was a primary speech‑teaching tool for deafblind children until it was largely replaced by other communication approaches after the early 1950s.
Modern Deafblind Communication Relies on Multiple Tactile Languages
Today, educators typically use a “total communication” approach with deafblind students that may combine tactile finger spelling, tactile sign language adapted from signed languages like ASL, objects and symbols; and braille, reflecting a shift from reliance on a single technique to highly individualized communication systems.
Disability Civil Rights Culminated in the ADA in 1990
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, signed by President George H. W. Bush, prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, state and local government services, public accommodations, transportation, and telecommunications, and its definition of disability explicitly includes sensory conditions such as blindness, low vision, deafness, and deafblindness.
