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Primary sourceBook1903

The Story of My Life

Helen Keller · 1903

Helen Keller's 1903 autobiography, dedicated to Alexander Graham Bell, describing his role connecting her family to teacher Anne Sullivan.

Keller's dedication and account document Bell's personal role as her teacher and advocate for the deaf.

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About this source

What it is

This is Helen Keller's autobiography, written while she was a student at Radcliffe College and published as a book in 1903, after first appearing in installments in a magazine. It is dedicated to Alexander Graham Bell.

Why it matters

The book is one of the earliest and most influential personal accounts of living with disability, and it records Bell's role as one of Keller's teachers and as a lifelong advocate for deaf people, as well as his connection to Anne Sullivan. It shows how Bell's work and relationships reached beyond invention into education and advocacy for the deaf community.

Look closer

  • Why might Keller have chosen to dedicate her autobiography to Bell rather than only to Anne Sullivan?
  • What does the book reveal about Bell's life outside of his inventions?
  • Since Keller wrote this as an adult looking back on childhood, what kinds of details might be uncertain or reshaped by memory?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Alexander Graham on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Recording of the Voice of Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell · 1885

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Drawing of a Liquid Transmitter, 8 March 1876

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Book

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Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race

Alexander Graham Bell · 1884

Black-and-white studio portrait of an elderly man with white hair and a full white beard, wearing a dark suit, vest, and tie, looking toward the camera against a soft gray backdrop.Photograph

Primary source

Portrait of Alexander Graham Bell

Moffett Studio

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