Tuesday 7 April 2020
Helen Keller (L5U6)
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| Helen Keller as depicted on the Alabama state quarter. |
Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, political
activist, and lecturer. She was the first deaf blind person to earn a Bachelor
of Arts degree. The story of how
Keller's teacher, Anne Sullivan, broke through the isolation imposed by a near
complete lack of language, allowing the girl to blossom as she learned to
communicate, has become widely known through the dramatic depictions of the
play and film The Miracle Worker. Her birthplace in West Tuscumbia,
Alabama is now a museum and sponsors an annual "Helen Keller Day".
Her birthday on June 27 is commemorated as Helen Keller Day in the U.S. state
of Pennsylvania and was authorized at the federal level by presidential
proclamation by President Jimmy Carter in 1980, the 100th anniversary of her
birth.
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| Helen and Anne in 1898 |
Johanna "Anne"
Mansfield Sullivan Macy (April 14, 1866 – October 20, 1936), better known as Anne Sullivan,
was an American teacher, best known for being the instructor and lifelong
companion of Helen Keller. She contracted trachoma, a highly infectious eye
infection, when she was eight years old which left her blind and without
reading or writing skills. She received her education as a student of the Perkins
School for the Blind where upon graduation she became a teacher to Helen.
Louis Braille (L5U6)
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|
Bust of Louis Braille (1809-1852)
by Étienne Leroux (1836-1906) |
Blinded
in both eyes as a result of an early childhood accident, Braille mastered his
disability while still a boy. He excelled in his education and received
scholarship to France's Royal Institute for Blind Youth. While still a student
there, he began developing a system of tactile code that could allow blind
persons to read and write quickly and efficiently. Inspired by the military
cryptography of Charles Barbier, Braille constructed a new method built
specifically for the needs of the blind. He presented his work to his peers for
the first time in 1824.
In
adulthood, Braille served as a professor at the Institute and enjoyed an
avocation as a musician, but he largely spent the remainder of his life
refining and extending his system. It went unused by most educators for many
years after his death, but posterity has recognized braille as a revolutionary
invention, and it has been adapted for use in languages worldwide.
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