Helen Keller and Ivy Green

Helen Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, lecturer and advocate born in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Deaf and blind from the age of 19 months, she learned to communicate with the help of teacher Anne Sullivan, graduated from Radcliffe College in 1904 and became an internationally known writer and campaigner.[1] Her birthplace, Ivy Green, is a house museum in Tuscumbia.[2]

Early life

Keller was born to Capt. Arthur H. Keller, a newspaper editor, and Kate Adams Keller. At 19 months she contracted an illness, diagnosed at the time as brain fever and possibly scarlet fever, that left her deaf and blind.[1]

Anne Sullivan

In 1886 her parents contacted the Perkins School for the Blind through Alexander Graham Bell, and director Michael Anagnos sent Anne Sullivan, a former student who had lost much of her own sight as a child. In 1887 Sullivan, then 21, arrived at Ivy Green and began teaching seven-year-old Keller using finger-spelling. Keller later moved with Sullivan to Boston to attend Perkins.[1]

Education and writing

Keller trained at the Wright-Humason School in New York and the Cambridge School for Young Ladies, then attended Radcliffe College from 1900 and graduated in 1904. Her autobiography The Story of My Life appeared in 1903 and became a best seller in several languages. She followed it with The World I Live In, Out of the Dark, My Religion (1927), Midstream (1929) and Journal (1938).[1]

Advocacy and honors

Keller lectured widely, supported suffrage, labor causes and birth control, and in the 1920s worked with the American Foundation for the Blind to raise funds and lobby legislatures. She traveled to more than 30 countries, visiting Japan in 1937 and 1948. She won an Academy Award for the documentary The Unconquered in 1955 and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Lyndon Johnson in 1964.[1] Alabama chose her for its 2003 state quarter, and on October 7, 2009, a bronze statue of her at the water pump replaced one of J. L. M. Curry in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall.[1]

Ivy Green

Ivy Green was built in 1820 by Keller’s paternal grandparents, David and Mary Fairfax Moore Keller, on part of a 640-acre parcel. The main house is a one-and-a-half-story white clapboard cottage with a brick foundation, a cedar shingle roof and twin chimneys at each end. Outdoors, the water pump is where Keller made her breakthrough in communicating with Sullivan, and it is now covered by an open structure.[2]

The city of Tuscumbia bought the property from the Keller family in 1954 and opened it to the public that year. A 1972 fire damaged the west side of the house, which was repaired to preserve its original appearance. Exhibits include Keller’s books, gifts and mementos, and the grounds host outdoor performances of The Miracle Worker each June and July. Ivy Green was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970, and it is open Monday to Saturday, with visitor rates listed by the museum.[2]

FAQs

What is Ivy Green? Ivy Green is Helen Keller’s birthplace and now a house museum in Tuscumbia, Alabama.

What was Helen Keller known for? She was a deaf-blind author and activist who wrote The Story of My Life and advocated for people with disabilities.

Sources

1. Encyclopedia of Alabama: Helen Keller
2. Encyclopedia of Alabama: Ivy Green

Editorially reviewed by Specialty Digest Editorial TeamLast reviewed November 10, 2026Researched and drafted with AI assistanceReport an issue