Helen Adams Keller 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 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 the first deafblind person in the United States to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. She was 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 and 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, operated as a house museum, and sponsors an annual "Helen Keller Day."