Optimism (1903)

Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama. At nineteen months old an acute illness nearly took her life and left her deaf and blind. was sent to tutor Helen. Helen was dedicated to helping the blind and handicapped, raising funds for the American Foundation for the Blind and lobbying for commissions for the blind in thirty states. A women's rights activist, a Swedenborgian, a socialist and a world-famous celebrity, Helen Keller received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and many honorary degrees. Her other books include The World I Live In (1908), Midstream: My Later Life (1929), Helen Keller's Journal (1938) and Let Us Have Faith (1940). She died in 1968. Her burial urn is in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.