On June 28, , Helen Keller —deaf and blind since an illness at just 19 months old—graduates cum laude from Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. According to an article the next day in The Boston Herald , Keller earned enthusiastic applause at the commencement exercises held at Sanders Theatre.
Keller went on to live a life of extraordinary achievement. She grew up in a small town in Alabama but later traveled to nearly 40 countries as a Goodwill Ambassador.
She become a prominent advocate for improved educational and job opportunities for people with disabilities. She wrote more than a dozen books, the best-known being The Story of My Life , which was translated into 50 languages and adapted for both stage and screen as The Miracle Worker.
Keller fought for many causes, working as a pacifist, suffragist, labor union advocate, supporter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a card-carrying socialist and a member of the American Civil Liberties Union ACLU. She met with every U. Keller lived to be 87, and died on June 1, in her longtime home of Easton, Connecticut.
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