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57-801: Arturo Giovannitti was born January 7, 1884, in Ripabottoni in what is now the Province of Campobasso , Italy , at the time part of the Abruzzi but now part of Molise . He immigrated to Canada in 1900 and, after working in a coal mine and railroad crew, began preaching in a Presbyterian mission. He soon came to the United States , where he studied at Union Theological Seminary . Although he did not graduate, he ran rescue missions for Italians in Brooklyn and Pittsburgh . He also began writing for

114-400: A coma as a result of coronary thrombosis . Keller and Thomson moved to Connecticut . They traveled worldwide and raised funds for the blind. Thomson had a stroke in 1957 from which she never fully recovered and died in 1960. Winnie Corbally, a nurse originally hired to care for Thomson in 1957, stayed on after Thomson's death and was Keller's companion for the rest of her life. The few own

171-503: A favorite of the Japanese people. Keller met every U.S. president from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon B. Johnson and was friends with many famous figures, including Alexander Graham Bell , Charlie Chaplin and Mark Twain . Keller and Twain were both considered political radicals allied with leftist politics. Keller, who believed that the poor were "ground down by industrial oppression", wanted children born into poor families to have

228-678: A house museum and sponsors an annual " Helen Keller Day ". Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama , the daughter of Arthur Henley Keller (1836–1896), and Catherine Everett (Adams) Keller (1856–1921), known as "Kate". Her family lived on a homestead, Ivy Green , that Helen's paternal grandfather had built decades earlier. She had four siblings: two full siblings, Mildred Campbell (Keller) Tyson and Phillip Brooks Keller; and two older half-brothers from her father's first marriage, James McDonald Keller and William Simpson Keller. Keller's father worked for many years as an editor of

285-671: A love affair, became secretly engaged, and defied her teacher and family by attempting an elopement with the man she loved." He was the fingerspelling socialist "Peter Fagan, a young Boston Herald reporter who was sent to Helen's home to act as her private secretary when lifelong companion, Anne, fell ill." At the time, her father had died and Sullivan was recovering in Lake Placid and Puerto Rico . Keller had moved with her mother in Montgomery, Alabama . Anne Sullivan died in 1936, with Keller holding her hand, after falling into

342-440: A misty consciousness as of something forgotten—a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that w-a-t-e-r meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. The living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, set it free! Keller quickly demanded that Sullivan sign the names of all the other familiar objects in her world. In May 1888, Keller started attending

399-530: A talk with her own lips on "Happiness", and it will be remembered always as a piece of inspired teaching by those who heard it. Keller became a world-famous speaker and author. She was an advocate for people with disabilities , amid numerous other causes. She traveled to twenty-five different countries giving motivational speeches about Deaf people's conditions. She was a suffragist , pacifist , radical socialist, birth control supporter, and opponent of Woodrow Wilson . In 1915, she and George A. Kessler founded

456-417: A total of 12 published books and several articles. One of her earliest pieces of writing, at age 11, was The Frost King (1891). There were allegations that this story had been plagiarized from The Frost Fairies by Margaret Canby. An investigation into the matter revealed that Keller may have experienced a case of cryptomnesia , which was that she had Canby's story read to her but forgot about it, while

513-725: Is faithful to his ideals of right living. The Helen Keller Archives in New York are owned by the American Foundation for the Blind . Archival material of Helen Keller stored in New York was lost when the Twin Towers were destroyed in the September 11 attacks . Keller had a series of strokes in 1961 and spent the last years of her life at her home. On September 14, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded her

570-535: Is ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease. —Helen Keller, 1911 On January 22, 1916, Keller and Sullivan traveled to the small town of Menomonie in western Wisconsin to deliver a lecture at the Mabel Tainter Memorial Building . Details of her talk were provided in the weekly Dunn County News on January 22, 1916: A message of optimism, of hope, of good cheer, and of loving service

627-410: Is there a second, a minute, an hour or anything that is in the old clock -- there is nothing but the night, the sleepless night, the watchful, wistful night, and footsteps that go, and footsteps that come and the wild, tumultuous beatings that trail after them forever. The imprisonment of Ettor and Giovannitti became a cause célèbre , attracting nationwide attention and inspiring activists who called for

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684-530: The Brooklyn Eagle wrote that her "mistakes sprung out of the manifest limitations of her development". Keller responded to that editor, referring to having met him before he knew of her political views: At that time the compliments he paid me were so generous that I blush to remember them. But now that I have come out for socialism he reminds me and the public that I am blind and deaf and especially liable to error. I must have shrunk in intelligence during

741-955: The 1912 strike of textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts for instigating her support of socialism. Keller supported eugenics which had become popular with new understandings (as well as misapprehensions) of principles of biological inheritance. In 1915, she wrote in favor of refusing life-saving medical procedures to infants with severe mental impairments or physical deformities, saying that their lives were not worthwhile and they would likely become criminals. Keller also expressed concerns about human overpopulation . From 1946 to 1957 Keller visited 35 countries. In 1948 she went to New Zealand and visited deaf schools in Christchurch and Auckland . She met Deaf Society of Canterbury Life Member Patty Still in Christchurch. Keller wrote

798-690: The Helen Keller International (HKI) organization. This organization is devoted to research in vision, health, and nutrition. In 1916, she sent money to the NAACP , as she was ashamed of the Southern un-Christian treatment of " colored people ". In 1920, Keller helped to found the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). She traveled to over 40 countries with Sullivan, making several trips to Japan and becoming

855-726: The Presidential Medal of Freedom , one of the United States' two highest civilian honors. In 1965, she was elected to the National Women's Hall of Fame at the New York World's Fair . Keller devoted much of her later life to raising funds for the American Foundation for the Blind . She died in her sleep on June 1, 1968, at her home, Arcan Ridge, located in Easton, Connecticut , at the age of 87. A service

912-703: The Tadoma method, which means using her fingers to feel the lips and throat of the speaker. She became proficient at using braille and using fingerspelling to communicate. Shortly before World War I, with the assistance of the Zoellner Quartet , she determined that by placing her fingertips on a resonant tabletop she could experience music played close by. Anne Sullivan stayed as a companion to Helen Keller long after she taught her. Sullivan married John Macy in 1905, and her health started failing around 1914. Polly Thomson (February 20, 1885 – March 21, 1960)

969-890: The Christian theologian and mystic who gave a spiritual interpretation of the teachings of the Bible and who claimed that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ had already taken place. Keller described the core of her belief in these words: But in Swedenborg's teaching it [Divine Providence] is shown to be the government of God's Love and Wisdom and the creation of uses. Since His Life cannot be less in one being than another, or His Love manifested less fully in one thing than another, His Providence must needs be universal ... He has provided religion of some kind everywhere, and it does not matter to what race or creed anyone belongs if he

1026-607: The Gale , in 1914. In an introduction to the book, Helen Keller wrote: "Giovannitti is, like Shelley, a poet of revolt against the cruelty, the poverty, the ignorance which too many of us accept." But Giovannitti, following ten months in prison, avoided involvement in volatile strikes. Instead, he devoted himself to poetry, editing radical journals and protesting World War I , which claimed two of his brothers. In 1916, he participated in Percy MacKaye 's production of Caliban by

1083-475: The IWW between 1916 and 1918. In Why I Became an IWW , Keller explained that her motivation for activism came in part from her concern about blindness and other disabilities: I was appointed on a commission to investigate the conditions of the blind. For the first time I, who had thought blindness a misfortune beyond human control, found that too much of it was traceable to wrong industrial conditions, often caused by

1140-611: The Omega (In Memory of a very Rich Holy Man) , are housed at the University of Minnesota . Translator: Ripabottoni Ripabottoni is a comune (municipality) in the Province of Campobasso in the Italian region Molise , located about 20 kilometres (12 mi) northeast of Campobasso . As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 644 and an area of 31.9 square kilometres (12.3 sq mi). Ripabottoni borders

1197-1011: The Perkins Institute for the Blind. In 1893, Keller, along with Sullivan, attended William Wade House and Finishing School. In 1894, Keller and Sullivan moved to New York to attend the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf , and to learn from Sarah Fuller at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf . In 1896, they returned to Massachusetts, and Keller entered The Cambridge School for Young Ladies before gaining admittance, in 1900, to Radcliffe College of Harvard University , where she lived in Briggs Hall, South House . Her admirer, Mark Twain , had introduced her to Standard Oil magnate Henry Huttleston Rogers , who, with his wife Abbie, paid for her education. In 1904, at

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1254-623: The Tuscumbia North Alabamian . He had served as a captain in the Confederate Army . The family was part of the slaveholding elite before the American Civil War , but lost status later. Her mother was the daughter of Charles W. Adams , a Confederate general. Keller's paternal lineage was traced to Casper Keller, a native of Switzerland. One of Helen's Swiss ancestors was the first teacher for

1311-511: The Yellow Sands , translating it into Italian . Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, he appeared at various workers' rallies, charming crowds with his Vandyke beard and flowery Italian and English. In 1950, Giovannitti was stricken by paralysis in both legs. He remained bedridden until his death in the Bronx , in 1959. Giovannitti's papers, including a typescript play called The Alpha and

1368-586: The age of 24, Keller graduated as a member of Phi Beta Kappa from Radcliffe, becoming the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. She maintained a correspondence with the Austrian philosopher and pedagogue Wilhelm Jerusalem , who was one of the first to discover her literary talent. Determined to communicate with others as conventionally as possible, Keller learned to speak and spent much of her life giving speeches and lectures on aspects of her life. She learned to "hear" people's speech using

1425-441: The bacterium Neisseria meningitidis (meningococcus), or possibly Haemophilus influenzae , which can cause the same symptoms but is less likely because of its 97% juvenile mortality rate at that time. She was able to recover from her illness, but was left permanently blind and deaf, as she recalled in her autobiography, "at sea in a dense fog". At that time, Keller was able to communicate somewhat with Martha Washington, who

1482-467: The charge of inciting a riot leading to the loss of life. While in jail, Giovannitti wrote many poems. By the time of the trial, that fall, several were published in leading journals, bringing him widespread fame. Giovannitti's poem "The Walker," in which he recounted the tormented footsteps of a prisoner, brought him comparisons to Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde . For not for the Walker, nor for my heart

1539-462: The deaf in Zürich . Keller reflected on this fact in her first autobiography, asserting that "there is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his". At 19 months old, Keller contracted an unknown illness described by doctors as "an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain". Contemporary doctors believe it may have been meningitis , caused by

1596-421: The doll that she had brought Keller as a present. Keller initially struggled with lessons since she could not comprehend that every object had a word identifying it. When Sullivan was trying to teach Keller the word for "mug", Keller became so frustrated she broke the mug. Keller remembered how she soon began imitating Sullivan's hand gestures: "I did not know that I was spelling a word or even that words existed. I

1653-527: The effects of war; in addition, she supported causes that opposed military intervention . She had speech therapy to have her voice understood better by the public. When the Rockefeller-owned press refused to print her articles, she protested until her work was finally published. She supported Socialist Party candidate Eugene V. Debs in each of his campaigns for the presidency. Before reading Progress and Poverty by Henry George , Helen Keller

1710-480: The eyes of every newborn baby with a disinfectant solution. At the time, only a fraction of doctors and midwives were doing this. Thanks to Keller's advocacy, this commonsense public health measure was swiftly and widely adopted. Keller wrote The World I Live In in 1908, giving readers an insight into how she felt about the world. Out of the Dark , a series of essays on socialism, was published in 1913. When Keller

1767-467: The first deafblind person in the United States to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. Keller was also a prolific author, writing 14 books and hundreds of speeches and essays on topics ranging from animals to Mahatma Gandhi . Keller campaigned for those with disabilities and for women's suffrage , labor rights , and world peace . In 1909, she joined the Socialist Party of America (SPA). She

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1824-666: The following municipalities: Bonefro , Campolieto , Casacalenda , Monacilioni , Morrone del Sannio , Provvidenti , Sant'Elia a Pianisi . Ripabottoni is served by a railway station, the Ripabottoni-S:Elia railway station , on the Termoli-Campobasso and Termoli–Venafro line . This article on a location in Molise is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Helen Keller Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968)

1881-654: The guaranteeing of free speech . Workers from across the US contributed to the Ettor-Giovannitti Defense Fund, which eventually totaled $ 50,000. The trial of Ettor, Giovannitti, and the co-defendant accused of actually firing the shot that killed the picketer, began on September 30, 1912, in Salem, Massachusetts , before Judge Joseph F. Quinn . As was the custom in capital cases in Massachusetts,

1938-641: The lost work time, and a strike ensued. On January 12, 1912, the Italian-language branch of the Industrial Workers of the World Local 20 decided to send to New York City for Joe Ettor , the organization's top Italian-language leader, to come to Lawrence and lead the strike. Within a few days, Ettor called his friend Giovannitti to Lawrence to coordinate relief efforts. Giovannitti soon began speaking to Italians. His most noted address

1995-417: The many because they possess the means of livelihood of all ... The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands—the ownership and control of their livelihoods—are set at naught, we can have neither men's rights nor women's rights. The majority of mankind

2052-421: The memory remained in her subconscious. At age 22, Keller published her autobiography, The Story of My Life (1903), with help from Sullivan and Sullivan's husband, John Macy. It recounts the story of her life up to age 21 and was written during her time in college. In an article Keller wrote in 1907, she brought to public attention the fact that many cases of childhood blindness could be prevented by washing

2109-541: The passion of living in my heart. Yet if allowed to go free, he added, Let me tell you that the first strike that breaks again in this Commonwealth or any other place in America where the work and the help and the intelligence of Joseph J. Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti will be needed and necessary, there we shall go again regardless of any fear and any threat. We shall return again to our humble efforts, obscure, humble, unknown, misunderstood -- soldiers of this mighty army of

2166-431: The same opportunities to succeed that she had enjoyed. She wrote, "I owed my success partly to the advantages of my birth and environment. I have learned that the power to rise is not within the reach of everyone." In 1909 Keller became a member of the Socialist Party ; she actively campaigned and wrote in support of the working class from 1909 to 1921. Many of her speeches and writings were about women's right to vote and

2223-428: The scabs." Yet defense witnesses testified without contradiction that Ettor and Giovannitti were miles away from the scene of the murder while Joseph Caruso , the third defendant in the case, was at home eating supper at the time of the killing. Giovannitti and Ettor both delivered closing statements at the end of the two-month trial. Giovannitti's speech brought many in the gallery to tears. Though he began by noting it

2280-511: The school's director, asked Anne Sullivan , a 20-year-old alumna of the school who was visually impaired, to become Keller's instructor. It was the beginning of a nearly 50-year-long relationship Sullivan developed with Keller as her governess and later her companion . Sullivan arrived at Keller's house on March 5, 1887, a day Keller would forever remember as "my soul's birthday". Sullivan immediately began to teach Helen to communicate by spelling words into her hand, beginning with "d-o-l-l" for

2337-423: The selfishness and greed of employers. And the social evil contributed its share. I found that poverty drove women to a life of shame that ended in blindness. The last sentence refers to prostitution and syphilis , the former a "life of shame" that women used to support themselves, which contributed to their contracting syphilis. Untreated, it was a leading cause of blindness. In the same interview, Keller also cited

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2394-400: The three defendants were kept in an open metal cage in the courtroom. The trial received coverage throughout North America and Europe. Prosecution witnesses quoted from speeches by Ettor and Giovannitti. Ettor: "This town won't be very happy in two days. Something is going to happen... keep the gun shops busy...." Giovannitti (to strikers): "Prowl around like wild animals looking for the blood of

2451-482: The weekly newspaper of the Italian Socialist Federation . In 1911, he became the newspaper's editor. On January 1, 1912, in accordance with a new state law, the textile mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts , posted new rules limiting the hours of workers to 54 a week, down from the previous 56. It soon became clear that the employers had no intention of adjusting wage rates upwards to make up for

2508-418: The working class of the world, which out of the shadows and the darkness of the past is striving towards the destined goal which is the emancipation of human kind, which is the establishment of love and brotherhood and justice for every man and every woman in this earth. All three defendants were acquitted, on November 26, 1912. In the wake of the trial, Giovannitti published his first book of poems, Arrows in

2565-525: The years since I met him. ... Oh, ridiculous Brooklyn Eagle ! Socially blind and deaf, it defends an intolerable system, a system that is the cause of much of the physical blindness and deafness which we are trying to prevent. In 1912, Keller joined the Industrial Workers of the World (the IWW, known as the Wobblies), saying that parliamentary socialism was "sinking in the political bog". She wrote for

2622-655: The young Keller and her father to consult physician J. Julian Chisholm, an eye, ear, nose and throat specialist in Baltimore , for advice. Chisholm referred the Kellers to Alexander Graham Bell , who was working with deaf children at the time. Bell advised them to contact the Perkins Institute for the Blind , the school where Bridgman had been educated. It was then located in South Boston . Michael Anagnos,

2679-424: Was "the first time in my life that I speak publicly in your wonderful language," he soon spoke eloquently about his love of life: I am twenty-nine years old. I have a woman that loves me and that I love. I have a mother and father that are waiting for me. I have an ideal that is dearer to me than can be expressed or understood. And life has so many allurements and it is so nice and bright and so wonderful that I feel

2736-413: Was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Keller's autobiography, The Story of My Life (1903), publicized her education and life with Sullivan. It was adapted as a play by William Gibson , later adapted as a film under the same title, The Miracle Worker . Her birthplace has been designated and preserved as a National Historic Landmark . Since 1954 it has been operated as

2793-502: Was already a socialist who believed that Georgism was a good step in the right direction. She later wrote of finding "in Henry George's philosophy a rare beauty and power of inspiration, and a splendid faith in the essential nobility of human nature". Keller claimed that newspaper columnists who had praised her courage and intelligence before she expressed her socialist views now called attention to her disabilities. The editor of

2850-620: Was an American author, disability rights advocate, political activist and lecturer. Born in West Tuscumbia, Alabama , she lost her sight and her hearing after a bout of illness when she was 19 months old. She then communicated primarily using home signs until the age of seven, when she met her first teacher and life-long companion Anne Sullivan . Sullivan taught Keller language, including reading and writing. After an education at both specialist and mainstream schools, Keller attended Radcliffe College of Harvard University and became

2907-420: Was brought to Menomonie Saturday—a message that will linger long with those fortunate enough to have received it. This message came with the visit of Helen Keller and her teacher, Mrs. John Macy, and both had a hand in imparting it Saturday evening to a splendid audience that filled The Memorial. The wonderful girl who has so brilliantly triumphed over the triple afflictions of blindness, dumbness and deafness, gave

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2964-698: Was held at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., and her body was cremated in Bridgeport, Connecticut . Her ashes were buried at the Washington National Cathedral next to her constant companions, Anne Sullivan and Polly Thomson. Keller's life has been interpreted many times. She and her companion Anne Sullivan appeared in a silent film , Deliverance (1919), which told her story in

3021-422: Was hired to keep house. She was a young woman from Scotland who had no experience with deaf or blind people. She progressed to working as a secretary as well, and eventually became a constant companion to Keller. Keller moved to Forest Hills, Queens , together with Sullivan and Macy, and used the house as a base for her efforts on behalf of the American Foundation for the Blind . "While in her thirties Helen had

3078-465: Was his "Sermon on the Common," which modified Jesus's Beatitudes to decidedly less passive stances, such as "Blessed are the rebels, for they shall reconquer the earth." On January 29, a striker, Anna LoPizzo , was shot and killed during a police crackdown on an unruly mob. Although Ettor and Giovannitti were three miles from the scene, both were arrested and imprisoned, along with one other striker, on

3135-438: Was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation." The next month Keller made a breakthrough, when she realized that the motions her teacher was making on the palm of her hand, while running cool water over her other hand, symbolized the idea of "water". Writing in her autobiography, The Story of My Life , Keller recalled the moment: I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt

3192-488: Was two years older and the daughter of the family cook, and understood the girl's signs; by the age of seven, Keller had more than 60 home signs to communicate with her family, and could distinguish people by the vibration of their footsteps. In 1886, Keller's mother, inspired by an account in Charles Dickens ' American Notes of the successful education of Laura Bridgman , a deaf and blind woman, dispatched

3249-478: Was young, Anne Sullivan introduced her to Phillips Brooks , who introduced her to Christianity, Keller famously saying: "I always knew He was there, but I didn't know His name!" Her spiritual autobiography, My Religion , was published in 1927 and then in 1994 extensively revised by Ray Silverman and re-issued under the title Light in My Darkness . It advocates the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg ,

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