In northwestern Alabama, the simple white clapboard house known as Ivy Green has been preserved as a museum dedicated to Helen Keller’s life and work.
Ivy Green was the home in which Keller grew up and where she first met Anne Sullivan, the teacher who would help her change the course of her life.
Keller’s paternal grandparents, David and Mary Fair fax Moore Keller, built Ivy Green in 1820. Located on 640 acres of land, the estate included a main house and a small cottage designed for use as the plantation office. A separate building also was constructed for the kitchen to prevent the main house from overheating with cooking fires. When the Kellers’ son, Captain Arthur H. Keller, married for a second time in 1878 (his first wife died in 1877, leaving him with two sons), he moved back to Ivy Green with new wife, Katharine “Kate” Adams.
Captain Keller had studied law before enlisting in the Confederate army during the Civil War (1861–1865). After the war, he resumed the practice of law. In 1874, he became the owner and editor of the Tuscumbia North Alabamian, and later he served as U.S. marshal for the Northern District of Alabama. Arthur and Kate initially lived in the cottage, where Helen was born in 1880. They had two more children: Mildred (born around 1886), and Phillip (born in 1891). The growing Keller family eventually moved into the main house.
Denne historien er fra March 2017-utgaven av Cobblestone American History Magazine for Kids.
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Denne historien er fra March 2017-utgaven av Cobblestone American History Magazine for Kids.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Eye in the Sky
An interview with Joe Piotrowski
Airborne Animals
Humans have taken to the skies in balloons, gliders, and airplanes-but we're not alone among the clouds. Animals of all sorts have evolved to harness wind power.
TAKING OFF
The Wright brothers expected airplanes to “take off,” but even they might be amazed at the way the airline industry has become big business. In the past, it was expensive to send something by plane.
GROWTH OF AN INDUSTRY
After their historic flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright returned to Dayton, Ohio. They spent the next few years making adjustments and building additional versions of their powered aircraft in their bicycle shop.
WHY KITTY HAWK?
The Wright brothers searched carefully for the best place to test their gliders and flying machines. Their main concern was for good, steady winds. But they also hoped to find a remote location to allow them to perform tests away from the public eye.
Two Brothers From Ohio
Most people do not realize that the Wright brothers—Wilbur, born in 1867, and Orville, born in 1871—performed various scientific experiments before inventing their aircraft. For as long as anyone in their hometown of Dayton, Ohio, could remember, the Wright boys had worked on mechanical projects.
A Helping Hand
May 6, 1896. A group of people who had gathered beside the Potomac River, just south of the U.S. capital, grew quiet. Then, it erupted in cheers as a small, unmanned aircraft took to the skies and flew for more than half a mile. The flight came seven years before the Wright brothers’ first manned, powered flight. The inventor of the aircraft was Dr. Samuel Pierpont Langley.
THE IDEA MEN
People dreamed of flying thousands of years before the Wright brothers found success near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. These dreamers, such as Leonardo da Vinci, studied birds flying and imagined how humans might do the same—if only they had wings. Other men developed a more hands-on approach to the topic. Early inventors made wings of cloth, glue, and feathers and tied these creations to their arms in an attempt to imitate nature.
Da Vinci's 4 Designs
Have you ever wondered how a bird flies? Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) did. He thought that understanding how a bird flies would provide the key to human flight. So, what did da Vinci learn from birds?
Silken Wings
Seven hundred years before the Wright brothers began experimenting with human flight, the Chinese had already mastered its secrets—with kites.
