Helen Adams Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on June 27, 1880. She developed normally until the age of nineteen months, when she was stricken by a severe fever. In Keller's writings, she describes her parents' relief that she recovered from the fever, touching on the irony that, in their early rejoicing, they were unaware that she could no longer see or hear.

Keller spent the next five or so years locked into her isolated, dark world. Unable to see or hear, she also became mute. Her frustrations frequently boiled to the surface, and her behavior was described as angry, wild, and animal-like. She struck out at others, scratched, and hurled herself to the ground in fury at being unable to communicate with the people around her. Finally, when Keller was six, her parents reached the end of their rope. The consulted Alexander Graham Bell (inventor of the telephone and...