Helen Keller was born healthy in Ivy Green, her family homestead in Alabama. At 19 months old, she contracted an illness that left her deaf and blind. By the age of 7, she developed her own sign language to communicate with her family. Her mother sought ways to improve her daughter’s life and contacted the director of the Perkins Institute for the Blind, who sent her Anne Sullivan, a young teacher who was a former student and visually impaired. Keller described Sullivan’s arrival as “my soul’s birthday.” It was the beginning of a relationship that lasted for 50 years. As her governess, Sullivan taught Keller to communicate by spelling words into her hand. It took a month till Keller understood the concept, which happened when Sullivan taught her the word water, spelling it on one hand while pouring water on her other hand. This breakthrough opened Keller a door to a world of opportunities. After several months of intensive training at home, Keller, with Sullivan by her side, started attending the Perkins Institute for the Blind. She moved between several schools, acquiring formal education and learning to live as a blind-deaf person. Keller learned to speak English, hear conversations by touching lips, hear music by touch and vibration, and the braille and sign languages. At 16, she attended a preparatory school and later Radcliffe College, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts, becoming the first deaf and blind person to earn this degree. After college, Keller became an author and worldwide lecturer and dedicated her life to improving the lives of disabled people. She advocated for women’s suffrage, labor rights, world peace, and equal rights. She traveled the world, gave lectures, promoted laws for people with disabilities, raised funds, wrote articles, and published 14 books, including her biography that got adapted into a movie, television drama, and Broadway play. Keller died a few weeks before her 88th birthday. In her lifetime, she changed the way society treated people with disabilities and proved that determination and willpower can enable one to overcome any obstacle.   Dive deeper into the inspiring story of Helen Keller with our fun and engaging printable worksheet! Available now on Etsy and Teachers Pay Teachers.   Read more...

Abigail Smith was born and raised in Massachusetts. Her father was a liberal minister, her mother was a member of the famous Quincy family mother, and she had two sisters. At a time when women were not allowed to receive a formal education, she was homeschooled and satisfied her appetite for knowledge at the family’s library, forming progressive views. After a two-year courtship, she married John Adams, a country lawyer, and became his closest advisor and partner. They settled in the house John had inherited from his father in Braintree, MA. When his practice expanded, John had to frequently travel while Abigail managed their finances, investments, household, and growing family. For a while, they even moved to Boston next to his practice. Between 1784 and 1788, Abigail joined John in his diplomatic missions in Paris and London. On March 4th, 1797, John became the second president of the United States, and she was the first lady. They lived in the Presidential Mansion in Philadelphia and later in the White House in Washington, DC. She was a politically active first lady, made frequent public appearances, and was involved in the decision-making process, paving the way for future first ladies to be proactive figures. When John lost presidential re-election, the family retired to Peacefield in Quincy in 1800. During his frequent travels before and during the presidency, the couple corresponded in more than 1100 letters, where Abigail demonstrated her talent for writing and opinionated spirit. In one of those letters, she urges her husband to consider women’s rights in the new legislation after independence, warning that if not given equal representation: “women will rebel.” He dismissed her suggestion by writing back that it makes him laugh, but her words “remember the ladies” became an iconic feminist slogan. Before her death, she wrote a will favoring her female relatives. It was an act of protest against the laws prohibiting married women from owning assets. Read more...