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Detail of Biography - Helen Keller
Name :
Helen Keller
Date :
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633
Category :
Birth Date :
27/06/1880
Birth Place :
Tuscumbia in USA
Death Date :
Not Available
Biography - Helen Keller
Not Available
[b]LIFE[/b][br /]
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Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia in USA in 1880. Her father Captain Arthur Helen Keller had fought with theConfederate army of Vicksburg. He edited a news weekly and was periodically a US Marshall. She had a brother and a sister.[br /]
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At the age of 18 months a serious illness – meningitis – destroyed her sight and hearing. Before her illness she was a healthy child. For 5 years she grew up as wild and unruly, giggling and chuckling to express her feelings. She could not understand how to tell and she kicked and screamed. But her father and mother Mrs. Kate Keller didn’t believe in punishing their handicapped, child. Her father took her to Dr. Alexander Graham Bell in Washington who was an activist in deaf education. He advised him to write to the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston. Annie Sullivan was offered to tutor her. In March 1887, Annie arrived Tuscumbia – Alabama to live with her as a governess.[br /]
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Helen learned to communicate many of her wishes with various signs – these were some 60 gestures which she frustration led to behavioral problems. When she misbehaved her teacher Annie Sullivan treated her as a perfectly normal child and gave her punishment. With the support of her family and the training of Anne, she realized that the life was worth living and she could achieve anything if she was determined.[br /]
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In spite of her losing her sight and hearing, she learnt to do small tasks such as folding laundry and getting things for her mother. She later said, “Sometimes I stood between two persons who were conversing and touched their lips. I could not understand and was vexed. I moved my lips and gesticulated frantically without result. This made me so angry at times that I kicked and screamed until I was exhausted.”[br /]
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Annie Sullivan began to use fingers spelling in Helen’s hand to name objects. Helen quickly learnt the finger spell patterns, but considered them a game and did not yet relate them to names of objects. She did not accept her teacher’s authority and continued wild ravings. After sometime, the problem of her behavior was brought under control, but she did not understand words.[br /]
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Helen Keller described her discovery of water in her autobiography. “We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Someone was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other word ‘water’ first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten a thrill of returning thought; and some how the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew that ‘w-a-t-e-r’ meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hop, joy, set it free ! There were berries still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away.”[br /]
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This experience opened up a new world for her. Her curiosity could not be satisfied. Annie was a patient teacher. Gradually she taught Helen to express herself through the manual alphabet. There were names for everything.[br /]
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When she was seven years old she had a vocabulary numbering hundreds of words and was forming simple sentences. Much of her communication was by finger spelling, but she had also learned the shapes of letters. Meanwhile she could print using block letters, for writing she used a grooved writing board that was placed over a sheet of paper and wrote the letters in the grooves, writing with a pencil and guiding the end of the pencil with the index finger of her left hand. In 1887 she also learned the Braille alphabet.[br /]
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At the age of 8 Helen left Alabama and went to Perkins School in Boston with Annie. Helen was exposed to a wonderful array of resources and her abilities increased. She learnt quickly and had an exceptional memory for details. Her capacity for quick learning and relation gave her the name of ‘miracle’ child.[br /]
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There she also learnt Latin, French and German. At the age of nine she began to learn to speak. Sarah Fuller, her speech teacher, had her feel the shape of her mouth she spoke, feeling inside the mouth to feel the position of the tongue. Helen shaped the sounds on her own. First she learned to say letter sounds and then syllables. She spent many years trying to perfect her speaking ability even into adulthood. She also learned to read lips with her fingers. It was a brand new form of communication that Helen began to use immediately.[br /]
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At the age of 14 she enrolled in the Wright – Humson School for the Deaf in New York where she made remarkable progress in learning to speak.[br /]
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At the age of 16 entered the Cambridge school for ‘Young Ladies in Massachusetts and studied history, literature, mathematics, astronomy and physics. Then she went on to Radcliff College and graduated there in 1904 with honors. During her graduation she wrote ‘The Story of my Life’ for the Ladies Home Journal.[br /]
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Her next battle was the public indifference to the welfare of the handicapped. She devoted the rest of her life to promoting social reforms. Her aim was to educate and to give treatment to the blind and deaf.[br /]
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She won many awards for her humanitarian work. She helped put a stop to placing blind and deaf individuals in mental asylums. As a pioneer in educating the public in the prevention of blindness of the newborn.[br /]
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She wrote articles in newspaper and magazine about the relationship between venereal disease a sexually transmitted disease, and blindness in a newborn child.[br /]
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She toured Europe, North and South America, Asia and Africa and lecturing about the need to improve the lives of disabled people. In 1929 she wrote the second volume of her autobiography. ‘Midstream : My Later Life’.[br /]
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At the age of 36, she fell in love with Peter Fagan 29 years socialist and news paper man who was hired to help Helen Keller while Annie Sullivan was ill. He had been hired to help Helen. He declared his love and told her that she was beautiful. She had never been told such things before. They decided to marry secretly. A reporter had found an application for a marriage license by them in the city records. Her mother came to know about this matter. Peter was immediately relieved of his duties and sent away. The romance died. Although there were a few follow up letters between them of course in Braille.[br /]
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She wrote, “The love which had come, unseen and unexpected, departed with tempest on his wings. The love remained with her as ‘a little island of joy which is surrounded by dark waters.”[br /]
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In her last few years Helen Keller lived on into retirement. She often walked the grounds of “Arcan Ridge” and could be talking to herself with her fingers. Her fingers were her windows to the world – which fluttered with unspoken memories of her long and wonderful life.[br /]
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Many books were written about her and several plays and films were made on her life. She became so famous that she was invited abroad and received many honors.[br /]
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Without the help of Annie Sullivan the faithful teacher who accompanied her everywhere for almost fifty years. Helen perhaps would have remained trapped within an isolated and confused world Annie’s health was failing. She lost her sight and there was an ‘internal disorder’. In 1935 in the month of October Annie – Helen’s teacher, companion and dearest friend died.[br /]
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Helen Keller lived a long and successful life. She died on 1st of June 1968 at the age of 88 just before her birthday. She will always be remembered as one of the greatest woman in the world.[br /]
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[b]1880[/b]
Born in Tuscumbia on June 27.[br /]
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[b]1881[/b] At the age of 19 months lost sight and hearing as a result of meningitis.[br /]
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[b]1886[/b] Recognized by Alexander Graham Bell as being exceptionally bright despite her severe sensory loss.[br /]
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[b]1887[/b] Began instruction under Anne Sullivan. She taught her to use the manual alphabet pressed in her palm, that things have names.[br /]
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[b]1888-98[/b] Matured under the instruction of Sullivan and learns to read and write in Braille.[br /]
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[b]1899[/b] Mark Twain recognized her great intellect and indomitable spirit despite her blindness and deafness. He predicted that she would create a fame, which will endure in history for centuries, and she was the most extraordinary product of the ages.[br /]
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[b]1900[/b] Enrolled in Radcliffe College as a regular student aided by Sullivan who spelled lectures into her hand.[br /]
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[b]1903 [/b]Published her first book ‘The Story of My Life’ as an effort to satisfy the insatiable interest of people throughout the world in her ‘miraculous’ accomplishment.[br /]
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[b]1908[/b] Graduate cum Laude from Radcliff College. She was the first blind / deaf college graduate.[br /]
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[b]1915[/b] Published ‘The World I Live In’.[br /]
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[b]1919[/b] Helen Keller International (HKI) was founded, targeting services to the blind and blindness prevention in developing countries. It continues to remain an eminent organization worldwide in its role.[br /]
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[b]1919-24[/b] Met Charlie Chaplin the first of many figures in the entertainment world.[br /]
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Listed the music of the young Jascha Heifetz one of the greatest violin virtuosos of the 20th country.[br /]
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Lectures and tours in the United States.[br /]
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Began life-long work as the International Counselor for the American Foundation for the Blind.[br /]
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[b]1925 [/b]Successfully challenged Lions International, the world’s largest fraternal organization.[br /]
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[b]1926[/b] Hellen Keller met President Calvin Coolidge.[br /]
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[b]1927[/b] Published ‘My Religion’.[br /]
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[b]1929[/b] Published ‘Midstream : My later Life at 49’. Traveled for the first time to Europe.[br /]
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[b]1932[/b] Braille is accepted as the world’s standard alphabet for the blind, thanks largely to that she became a vice-president of Royal National Institute for Blind in U. K.[br /]
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[b]1937[/b] Embarked on first of three tours of Japan, established a close friendship with the Japanese people. Gave 97 lectures in 39 cities.[br /]
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[b]1938[/b] Published Hellen Keller’s Journal. Began a close friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt. Met Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Became friend with Katherine Cornwell – the actress.[br /]
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[b]1941[/b] As a Music lover, Hellen Keller attended a performance of Tristan and Isolde at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and met Lauritz Melchior. Where she experienced music through vibration.[br /]
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[b]1943-46[/b] Visited military hospitals calling it the crowning experience of her life.[br /]
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[b]1946-57[/b] Visited 35 countries on five continents on behalf of the handicapped, causing governments to begin schools for the blind and deaf.[br /]
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[b]1952[/b] Helen Keller was awarded the Gold Medal of the National Institute of Social Science given annually to distinguished individual who had been of outstanding service humanity.[br /]
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[b]1953[/b] Heralded by the world’s ambassadors to the United States at the Waldorf Astoria as she dreft on a world tour.[br /]
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Met with Winston Churchill who called Helen Keller the most remarkable woman of our age.[br /]
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Met the Prime Minister Nehru and was honored by massive crowds on a tour of India.[br /]
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Honored at the Sorbonne in Paris by the French government, with its highest honor, in a ceremony commemorating the birth of Louie Braille.[br /]
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[b]1954 [/b]Nancy Hamilton produced a film Helen Keller in her story. Helen danced with Martha Graham and other dancers at Martha Graham’s studio.[br /]
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Ivy Green, Helen Keller’s birthplace in Tuscumbia, Alabama is made a permanent Shrine.[br /]
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[b]1955 [/b]Won an Oscar Award for Helen Keller in her Story – a documentary movie made on life.[br /]
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[b]1956[/b] Published Teacher – Annie Sullivan Macy.[br /]
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[b]1960[/b] Helen Keller was the first woman to receive an honorary degree from Harvard University.[br /]
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[b]1961[/b] Met President Eisenhower who became the first non-blind person to use talking books during his convalescence from a heart- attack.[br /]
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[b]1964[/b] ‘The Miracle Worker’ the story of Helen Keller’s early instruction by Annie Sullivan, debuted on Broadway, starring Patty Duke and Anne Bancroft.[br /]
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Met President John F. Kennedy the 10th and last United States President with whom she became personally acquainted.[br /]
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Helen suffered a stroke and retired from public life.[br /]
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Awarded the Presidential Medal of freedom by President Lyndon Johnson.[br /]
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This was the highest civilian honor bestowed by the United States of America.[br /]
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• I believe that the welfare of each is bound up in the welfare of all.[br /]
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• I am a child of God, an inheritor of a fragment of the Mind that created All words.[br /]
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• I am only one, but still I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.[br /]
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• When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life or in the life of another.[br /]
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• There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors and no slave who has not had a king among his.[br /]
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• We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough.[br /]
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• Smell is a potent wizard that transports us across thousands of miles and all the years we have lived.[br /]
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• Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.[br /]
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• The highest result of education is tolerance.[br /]
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• It is not possible for civilization to flow backwards while there is youth in the world. youth may be headstrong but it will advance its allotted length.[br /]
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• Knowledge is happiness because to have knowledge – broad, deep knowledge – is to know true ends from false and lofty things from low.[br /]
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• One can never consent to creep when one feels the impulse to soar.[br /]
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• Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.[br /]
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• I do not want peace that passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace.[br /]
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• Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst them all the apathy of human beings.[br /]
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• When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened forus.[br /]
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• The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next.[br /]
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• Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.[br /]
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• We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.[br /]
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• Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shuts you in and a great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding – line and you waited with beating heart for something to happen ? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding line, and no way of knowing how near the harbor was. Light ! Give me light was the wordless cry of my soul and the light of love shone on me in that very hour.[br /]
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• The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched… but are felt in the heart.[br /]
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• When one door of happiness closes another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.[br /]
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• Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.[br /]
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• I thank God for my handicap, for through them I have found myself, my work and my God.[br /]
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• Many a persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.[br /]
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• Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.[br /]
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• We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world.[br /]
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• There is no lovelier way to thank God for your sight than by giving a helping hand to someone in the dark.[br /]
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• She became a vice-president of the Royal National Institute for the blind in the United Kingdom.[br /]
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• In 1921 American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) was organized and Helen was invited to be spokesperson for the organization. She gave speeches and raised funds for blind and the related causes. Her many books and the articles became her life’s work.[br /]
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• She received the honorary degree of laws from the university of Glasgow in 1932. She met and visited the Queen at Buckingham Palace.[br /]
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• She collected one million Dollars and founded the American Foundation for the blind.[br /]
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• The highest honor of her own country, USA, the Presidential Medal of Freedom
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• She was elected to membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters.[br /]
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• During the Louis Braille Centennial Commemoration in 1952. Helen Keller was made a Chevelier of the French Legion of Honour.[br /]
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• Radcliffe granted her its Alumnae Achievement Award [50 years after her graduation].[br /]
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• She received the Americas Award for Inter-American Unity, the Gold Medal Award from the National Institute of Social Sciences, the National Humanitarian Award from Variety Clubs.[br /]
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• She had honorary membership in scientific societies and philanthropic organizations throughout the world.[br /]
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• Helen Keller’s last major public appearance in 1961 at Washington, D. C. Lions Club meeting where she received the Lions Humanitarian Award for her life time service to humanity and inspiration of the Lions programs in sight conservation and aid to blind persons.[br /]
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• During the visit to Washington she called on President Kennedy at the White House.[br /]
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• Acceptance of Honorary Degree, delivered before Temple University at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Feb 16, 1931).[br /]
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• Acceptance of Honorary Degree delivered before Glasgow university at Glasgow, Scotland (June – 15,1932).[br /]
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• Dedication of AFB Cornerstone, delivered before the American Foundation for the Blind at New York, New York (December 5, 1934).[br /]
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• Helen Keller won an Oscar Award for her story a documentary movie of her life.[br /]
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• Awarded the President Lyndon Jhonson. This is the highest civilian honor bestowed by the United States of America.[br /]
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• “Life” magazine called Helen Keller one of the 100 most important Americans of the 20th century – a national treasure.[br /]
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• The Helen Keller Prize is established to bring public attention to vision research as a solution to sight loss.[br /]
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• She was awarded the “GOLD MEDAL” of the National Institute of Social Science given annually to a distinguished individual who has been of outstanding service to humanity – (1952).[br /]
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• Met Winston Churchill who called her “the most remarkable woman of the twentieth century”.[br /]
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[b]HER OTHER AWARDS INCLUDE :[/b][br /]
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• Order of the Southern Cross (Brazil).[br /]

• Order of Golden Heart (Philippines).[br /]

• Gold Medal of Merit (Lebanon).[br /]
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