Helen Keller Timeline: Key Dates and When She Died

Helen Keller died on June 1, 1968, at her home in Connecticut, a few weeks before her 88th birthday. She was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama, and lost both her sight and her hearing at 19 months old. This page puts her life in order, with the source behind each date and a note wherever the sources disagree.

Key points

• Helen Keller was born June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. She died June 1, 1968, at age 87.
• Her teacher, Anne Sullivan, arrived on March 3, 1887. The water-pump breakthrough came on April 5, 1887.
• She graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College on June 28, 1904, the first deafblind person to earn a bachelor's degree.
• She joined the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) in October 1924 and worked with it for more than 40 years.
• President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in September 1964. She was unable to attend the ceremony.
• The sources disagree on a handful of smaller dates. A table near the end lists them and says which version we use.

Helen Keller at a glance

Sources: AFB chronology, Perkins timeline, Perkins FAQ, The Story of My Life, History.com, UCSB, Medal of Freedom remarks.

Who was Helen Keller?

Helen Keller was an American author, lecturer and activist. Perkins School for the Blind calls her the world's best-known person with deafblindness, and the National Park Service calls her one of the world's best-known people with a disability.

She saw herself as a writer first: AFB says her passport listed her profession as author. Her autobiography has been translated into 50 languages (AFB biography). She also campaigned for women's suffrage and workers' rights and worked with AFB for decades.

The National Park Service adds a caution: she is often remembered only for her early triumphs, which leaves out the later decades of activism (NPS). The timeline below tries to include both.

When did Helen Keller die?

Helen Keller died on June 1, 1968, at Arcan Ridge, her home in Connecticut. She was 87, a few weeks short of her 88th birthday. AFB's biography and chronology, the Perkins timeline and FAQ, and History.com all give the same date.

She had stopped appearing in public in 1961, after a stroke. In 1964 she was unable to attend the ceremony for her Presidential Medal of Freedom, according to AFB's chronology and the birthplace museum.

A service at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., drew more than 1,200 people (AFB, Perkins and the Helen Keller Birthplace all report the number). Her ashes were placed in St. Joseph's Chapel at the cathedral, next to those of Anne Sullivan Macy and Polly Thomson. The birthplace museum says a small bronze plaque on the wall marks the place and that its words are also written in braille.

Senator Lister Hill of Alabama spoke at the service. He said her spirit "will endure as long as man can read and stories can be told" (AFB biography, birthplace museum).

Early life, 1880 to 1887

Helen Adams Keller was born on June 27, 1880, at Ivy Green, her family's home in Tuscumbia, Alabama. In her own words: "I was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, a little town of northern Alabama." Her father, Arthur Keller, was a retired Confederate army captain and a newspaper editor. Her mother was Kate Adams Keller (Perkins).

In February 1882, when she was 19 months old, Keller lost both her sight and her hearing. Her own book, AFB's chronology and the Perkins timeline all place it in February.

In 1886 the family met Alexander Graham Bell, who suggested they write to Michael Anagnos, director of the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston. Anagnos turned to his star pupil, Anne Sullivan, a Perkins graduate and valedictorian.

March 3, 1887: Anne Sullivan arrives

Sullivan reached Tuscumbia on March 3, 1887. Keller wrote later: "The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me." Keller was six.

Sullivan was 20, the daughter of poor Irish immigrants, and had been nearly blind as a child (AFB biography, Perkins FAQ). She began by spelling words into Keller's hand.

April 5, 1887: "water"

The breakthrough came a month later, on April 5, 1887. At the water pump, Sullivan spelled w-a-t-e-r into one of Keller's hands while water ran over the other, and Keller understood that things have names (AFB, Perkins). By nightfall she had learned 30 words (AFB, birthplace museum). Of that day she wrote: "Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought." More of her words, each with its source, are in Helen Keller quotes.

How she went on to read raised print and braille is the subject of our post on Helen Keller and braille, so this page sticks to dates. Spelling into the hand is one of several tactile methods; our guide to how deafblind people communicate covers others.

School and college, 1888 to 1904

May 1888. Sullivan took Keller to Boston, and Keller visited Perkins for the first time. She dated the trip to May 1888 in her own book, and so does AFB's chronology. Perkins's own timeline says September, a difference covered in the table below. Afterward she spent almost every winter at Perkins (her book, Perkins).

March 1890. She began speech lessons with Sarah Fuller of the Horace Mann School in Boston. Fuller gave her 11 lessons, and Sullivan continued from there (AFB biography, Keller's own account).

Fall 1891. She wrote a story, "The Frost King," as a birthday gift for Anagnos, and he published it. It turned out to resemble a story published earlier, and the 11-year-old was accused of plagiarism. Perkins says she had probably read the original months before and recreated it from memory, believing it was her own (AFB, Perkins, Keller's own account).

October 1894. She and Sullivan went to New York City, where Keller attended the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf (AFB chronology, Perkins timeline).

October 1896. She entered the Cambridge School for Young Ladies to prepare for Radcliffe College. One source gives a different year (see the table).

September 1900. Keller began at Radcliffe (AFB chronology, Perkins timeline).

June 28, 1904. Keller graduated cum laude from Radcliffe, the first deafblind person to earn a bachelor's degree (AFB chronology). History.com cites a Boston Herald report from the next day: the commencement was held at Sanders Theatre, and the applause seemed "a little more spontaneous" when Keller crossed the stage with Sullivan. Sullivan interpreted lectures and class discussions for her (birthplace museum). AFB's biography says the achievement "was as much Anne's as it was Helen's."

Author and activist, 1903 to 1924

1903. The Story of My Life was published. It had appeared in installments in the Ladies' Home Journal the year before (AFB biography). The editor's preface in the Project Gutenberg edition is dated February 1, 1903, and you can read the book there. Her other books, and where to read them, are in Helen Keller's books.

May 3, 1905. Sullivan married John Macy, the editor who had helped Keller with her book. They separated in 1914 (AFB chronology, Perkins timeline).

1908. Keller published The World I Live In.

1914. Polly Thomson joined the household as a secretary. She stayed with Keller for decades (AFB, Perkins).

1915. Keller took part in founding an organization to help people blinded in World War I. AFB names it the Permanent Blind War Relief Fund, later the American Braille Press, and says she sat on its first board. Perkins describes it as the founding of the American Foundation for Overseas Blind, which later became Helen Keller International.

Her causes in these years were broad. She campaigned for women's suffrage and workers' rights and against child labor (Perkins FAQ, birthplace museum). AFB describes her as a pacifist who protested U.S. involvement in World War I, and the National Park Service notes she was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World. The speeches and essays in AFB's archive cover topics from faith and blindness prevention to birth control, the rise of fascism in Europe and atomic energy. AFB calls her an early member of the American Civil Liberties Union; Perkins and the birthplace museum say she helped found it.

In January 1913, AFB says, she and Sullivan began a lecture career that lasted more than 50 years. She also performed in vaudeville and appeared in a silent film about her life, Deliverance. The dates of both differ by source (table below).

With the American Foundation for the Blind, 1924 to 1957

October 1924. Keller and Sullivan began their work with AFB (AFB chronology; Perkins timeline). AFB says she worked for it for more than 40 years and credits her travels with leading to state commissions for the blind, rehabilitation centers and wider access to education.

June 1925. She spoke to the Lions Clubs convention and asked its members to become "Knights of the Blind" (AFB chronology; Perkins timeline gives 1925). The birthplace museum says the Lions still honor that challenge with programs aimed at preventable blindness.

October 20, 1936. Anne Sullivan Macy died. Thomson then took over as Keller's aide.

1939. Keller moved to Arcan Ridge in Connecticut, her home for the rest of her life.

1943 to 1946. She visited blinded, deaf and disabled soldiers of World War II in military hospitals around the country (AFB, Perkins).

1946 to 1957. She made international tours on behalf of the American Foundation for Overseas Blind, now Helen Keller International. AFB counts seven trips and 35 countries on five continents, and the Perkins timeline also says 35 countries in 11 years.

1948. General Douglas MacArthur sent her to Japan as a goodwill ambassador (AFB biography, birthplace museum).

Later years and honors, 1955 to 1968

1955 or 1956. A documentary about her life, Helen Keller in Her Story, won an Academy Award. Perkins and AFB's biography say 1955. AFB's chronology says the award came in spring 1956, for the best documentary of 1955. AFB's biography also notes that she received honorary degrees from Temple, Harvard and other universities.

March 20, 1960. Polly Thomson died (AFB chronology; Perkins FAQ says 1960).

1961. Keller stopped appearing in public after a stroke.

September 14, 1964. President Johnson presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the East Room of the White House. He had telegraphed Keller on July 1 to say he intended to give her the award (AFB blog, with the telegram's transcript). At the ceremony he read her citation: "An example of courage to all mankind, she has devoted her life to illuminating the dark world of the blind and the handicapped." Keller was unable to attend (AFB chronology, birthplace museum).

June 1, 1968. She died at Arcan Ridge (details in the section on when she died, above).

Over her lifetime she met every U.S. president from Grover Cleveland to John F. Kennedy, according to AFB, the birthplace museum and the Perkins FAQ.

Helen Keller's birthday: June 27

Keller was born on June 27, 1880 (her own book, AFB, Perkins and the birthplace museum agree). The house, Ivy Green, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NPS) and is open to visitors (Helen Keller Birthplace).

On June 22, 1984, President Reagan issued Proclamation 5214, naming the week beginning June 24, 1984, "Helen Keller Deaf-Blind Awareness Week," as Congress had requested in Senate Joint Resolution 261. The text notes that "On June 27 we commemorate the 104th anniversary of the birth of Helen Keller."

The Perkins timeline adds that in 1980 the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp showing Keller and Sullivan for the centennial of her birth.

If you are looking for a Helen Keller Day, the sources we read don't name an official one. The observance they document is that 1984 week.

Where the sources disagree

The AFB, Perkins, National Park Service and birthplace pages sometimes give different dates and numbers for the same event. This is what each says and what we use.

Sources: AFB chronology, AFB biography, Perkins timeline, Perkins biography page, NPS, Helen Keller Birthplace.

Where Braillito fits

Braillito, our app, teaches braille. It teaches the braille cells in lessons with exercises you play, with lives, levels and a daily streak: 59 lessons in 8 worlds in English. It also has a translator, a dictionary and a cell builder. The English lessons are uncontracted braille (grade 1); they don't teach contracted braille or transcription, and Braillito isn't a braille transcriber.

Braille was one of the ways Keller read and wrote, and our post on Helen Keller and braille covers how she used it. If her story makes you curious about the dots themselves, the lessons start with the cells. Without paying, the braille translator works in any browser.

Braillito is a subscription with no free version; depending on the plan, it starts with a free trial or a discounted first period, if it's your first subscription (is Braillito free?). Get Braillito.

Frequently asked questions

When did Helen Keller die?

She died on June 1, 1968, at her home, Arcan Ridge, in Connecticut. She was 87. AFB, Perkins and History.com all give that date.

When was Helen Keller born?

On June 27, 1880, at Ivy Green in Tuscumbia, Alabama. AFB, Perkins, the birthplace museum and her own book agree on the date.

How old was Helen Keller when she lost her sight and hearing?

She was 19 months old. AFB's chronology and the Perkins timeline place it in February 1882.

When did Anne Sullivan arrive, and when did Helen learn that things have names?

Sullivan arrived on March 3, 1887. The water-pump breakthrough came on April 5, 1887.

When did Helen Keller graduate from college?

On June 28, 1904, she graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College, the first deafblind person to earn a bachelor's degree. Radcliffe merged with Harvard University in 1999, according to History.com.

Was Helen Keller a real person?

Yes. Her birthplace, Ivy Green, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and AFB keeps what it calls the world's largest collection of letters, speeches, scrapbooks and photographs about and by her (AFB archive). For the longer answer, see Was Helen Keller real?