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Excellent Resource for Information Regarding Harriet Tubman

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The Harriet Tubman Residence, Harriet Tubman Home for the Elderly and the AME Zion Church are National Historic Landmarks. In 1858 New York Senator William Seaward made Harriet Tubman a proposition. He would sell her his property in Auburn, NY for a reasonable price and flexible terms. Auburn had a strong abolitionist group and Seaward [...]

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The Harriet Tubman Residence, Harriet Tubman Home for the Elderly and the AME Zion Church are National Historic Landmarks. In 1858 New York Senator William Seaward made Harriet Tubman a proposition. He would sell her his property in Auburn, NY for a reasonable price and flexible terms. Auburn had a strong abolitionist group and Seaward [...]

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Lester Laminack

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Lester L. Laminack's The Ultimate Read-Aloud Resource. Please type the last word of the quotation that opens Chapter 5.

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Guide to Creating Text Dependent Questions for Close Reading Lessons

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Guide to Creating Text Dependent Questions for Close Reading Lessons

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Patrick Spencer Johnson (November 24, 1938 - July 3, 2017) was an American physician and author, known for the ValueTales series of children's books, and for his 1998 motivational book Who Moved My Cheese? , which recurred on the New York Times Bestseller list, on the Publishers Weekly Hardcover nonfiction list.

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Dan Andreasen is an illustrator and author. He has worked on many American Girl books, specifically Felicity's series and Samantha's series. He has written and illustrated his own books, and focuses on children's books.

"Dan Andreasen began professionally as a sculptor for American Greetings Corp. where he designed figurines, Christmas ornaments and gift products. In the last 25 years he has illustrated more than 25 picture books. He is the illustrator of two of the American Girl historical characters, Felicity and Samantha. Dan also is the illustrator of the New Little House series of books, The Rose Years, The Caroline Years and The Charlotte Years. His publishing clients include Harper Collins, Simon and Schuster, Penguin, Scholastic, American Girl, Harcourt and Henry Holt. His illustrations have also been used to advertise a wide variety of products including Folgers, Harley Davidson, Fanny Farmer, Orville Redenbacher, Kraft and Marshall Fields. He lives in Medina, Ohio with his wife and three children."

Taken from "Shannon Associates". See Further Reading.

Authored Books

American Girl Books

The Baker's Dozen (Also Illustrated by Dan Andreasen)

The Attic Christmas (With B.G. Hennessy)

Illustrated Books

American Girl Books

My Dad, John McCain

The Baker's Dozen (Also Written by Dan Andreasen)

River Boy: The Life of Mark Twain

The Little House Series

Keeping Up With Roo

Sailor Boy Jig

Tattered Sails

Treasury of Literature: Sea of Wonder

Little Spotted Cat

Jeannette Rankin: First Lady of Congress

Joshua T. Bates Takes Charge

The Bite of the Gold Bug: A Story of the Alaskan Gold Rush

The Giant of Seville: A "Tall" Tale Based on a True Story

Further reading

Biography of Dan Andreasen

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Dan Andreasen is an illustrator and author. He has worked on many American Girl books, specifically Felicity's series and Samantha's series. He has written and illustrated his own books, and focuses on children's books. Taken from "Shannon Associates". See Further Reading.

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Video Link - Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad

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Video Link - Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad

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Harriet Tubman was an escaped enslaved woman who became a "conductor" on the Underground Railroad, leading enslaved people to freedom before the Civil War, all while carrying a bounty on her head. But she was also a nurse, a Union spy and a women's suffrage supporter. Tubman is one of the most recognized icons in American history and her legacy has inspired countless people from every race and background.

When Was Harriet Tubman Born?

Harriet Tubman was born around 1820 on a plantation in Dorchester County, Maryland. Her parents, Harriet ("Rit") Green and Benjamin Ross, named her Araminta Ross and called her "Minty."

Rit worked as a cook in the plantation's "big house," and Benjamin was a timber worker. Araminta later changed her first name to Harriet in honor of her mother.

Harriet had eight brothers and sisters, but the realities of slavery eventually forced many of them apart, despite Rit's attempts to keep the family together. When Harriet was five years old, she was rented out as a nursemaid where she was whipped when the baby cried, leaving her with permanent emotional and physical scars.

Around age seven Harriet was rented out to a planter to set muskrat traps and was later rented out as a field hand. She later said she preferred physical plantation work to indoor domestic chores.

A Good Deed Gone Bad

Harriet's desire for justice became apparent at age 12 when she spotted an overseer about to throw a heavy weight at a fugitive. Harriet stepped between the enslaved person and the overseer-the weight struck her head.

She later said about the incident, "The weight broke my skull ... They carried me to the house all bleeding and fainting. I had no bed, no place to lie down on at all, and they laid me on the seat of the loom, and I stayed there all day and the next."

Harriet's good deed left her with headaches and narcolepsy the rest of her life, causing her to fall into a deep sleep at random. She also started having vivid dreams and hallucinations which she often claimed were religious visions (she was a staunch Christian). Her infirmity made her unattractive to potential slave buyers and renters.

Escape from Slavery

In 1840, Harriet's father was set free and Harriet learned that Rit's owner's last will had set Rit and her children, including Harriet, free. But Rit's new owner refused to recognize the will and kept Rit, Harriett and the rest of her children in bondage.

Around 1844, Harriet married John Tubman, a free Black man, and changed her last name from Ross to Tubman. The marriage was not good, and the knowledge that two of her brothers-Ben and Henry-were about to be sold provoked Harriet to plan an escape.

Harriet Tubman: Underground Railroad

On September 17, 1849, Harriet, Ben and Henry escaped their Maryland plantation. The brothers, however, changed their minds and went back. With the help of the Underground Railroad, Harriet persevered and traveled 90 miles north to Pennsylvania and freedom.

Tubman found work as a housekeeper in Philadelphia, but she wasn't satisfied living free on her own-she wanted freedom for her loved ones and friends, too.

She soon returned to the south to lead her niece and her niece's children to Philadelphia via the Underground Railroad. At one point, she tried to bring her husband John north, but he'd remarried and chose to stay in Maryland with his new wife.
READ MORE: 6 Strategies Harriet Tubman and Others Used to Escape Along the Underground Railroad
Fugitive Slave Act

The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act allowed fugitive and freed workers in the north to be captured and enslaved. This made Harriet's job as an Underground Railroad conductor much harder and forced her to lead enslaved people further north to Canada, traveling at night, usually in the spring or fall when the days were shorter.

She carried a gun for both her own protection and to "encourage" her charges who might be having second thoughts. She often drugged babies and young children to prevent slave catchers from hearing their cries.

Over the next ten years, Harriet befriended other abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass, Thomas Garrett and Martha Coffin Wright, and established her own Underground Railroad network. It's widely reported she emancipated 300 enslaved people; however, those numbers may have been estimated and exaggerated by her biographer Sarah Bradford, since Harriet herself claimed the numbers were much lower.

Nevertheless, it's believed Harriet personally led at least 70 enslaved people to freedom, including her elderly parents, and instructed dozens of others on how to escape on their own. She claimed, "I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger."
READ MORE: The Little-Known Underground Railroad That Ran South to Mexico
Harriet Tubman's Civil War Service

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Harriet found new ways to fight slavery. She was recruited to assist fugitive enslave people at Fort Monroe and worked as a nurse, cook and laundress. Harriet used her knowledge of herbal medicines to help treat sick soldiers and fugitive enslaved people.

In 1863, Harriet became head of an espionage and scout network for the Union Army. She provided crucial intelligence to Union commanders about Confederate Army supply routes and troops and helped liberate enslaved people to form Black Union regiments.

Though just over five feet tall, she was a force to be reckoned with, although it took over three decades for the government to recognize her military contributions and award her financially.

Harriet Tubman's Later Years

After the Civil War, Harriet settled with family and friends on land she owned in Auburn, New York. She married former enslaved man and Civil War veteran Nelson Davis in 1869 (her husband John had died 1867) and they adopted a little girl named Gertie a few years later.

Harriet had an open-door policy for anyone in need. She supported her philanthropy efforts by selling her home-grown produce, raising pigs and accepting donations and loans from friends. She remained illiterate yet toured parts of the northeast speaking on behalf of the women's suffrage movement and worked with noted suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony.

In 1896, Harriet purchased land adjacent to her home and opened the Harriet Tubman Home for Aged and Indigent Colored People. The head injury she suffered in her youth continued to plague her and she endured brain surgery to help relieve her symptoms. But her health continued to deteriorate and eventually forced her to move into her namesake rest home in 1911.

Pneumonia took Harriet Tubman's life on March 10, 1913, but her legacy lives on. Schools and museums bear her name and her story has been revisited in books, movies and documentaries.
READ MORE: After the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman Led a Brazen Civil War Raid
Harriet Tubman: 20 Dollar Bill

Tubman even had a World War II Liberty ship named after her, the SS Harriet Tubman.

In 2016, the United States Treasury announced that Harriet's image will replace that of former President and slaveowner Andrew Jackson on the twenty-dollar bill. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (who served under President Trump) later announced the new bill would be delayed until at least 2026. In January 2021, President Biden's administration announced it would speed up the design process.

Sources

Early Life. Harriet Tubman Historical Society.

General Tubman: Female Abolitionist was Also a Secret Military Weapon. Military Times.

Harriet Tubman Biography. Biography.

Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged, Residence, and Thompson AME Zion Church. National Park Service.

Harriet Tubman Myths and Facts. Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman Portrait of An American Hero by Kate Clifford Larson, Ph.D.

Harriet Tubman. National Park Service.

Harriet Tubman. National Women's History Museum.

Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People. Harriet Tubman Historical Society.

Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad. National Park Service.

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Harriet Tubman was an escaped enslaved woman who became a "conductor" on the Underground Railroad, leading enslaved people to freedom before the Civil War, all while carrying a bounty on her head. But she was also a nurse, a Union spy and a women's suffrage supporter.

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See Last Column of this Padlet for Additional Resources Related to the Other Individuals Included in the Value Tales Treasury ( Louis Pasteur, Confucius, Helen Keller, and Will Rogers

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See Last Column of this Padlet for Additional Resources Related to the Other Individuals Included in the Value Tales Treasury ( Louis Pasteur, Confucius, Helen Keller, and Will Rogers

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Quick Facts
"Chance only favors the prepared mind.""The role of the infinitely small appeared to me to be infinitely great.""I still have hope, and if my life is spared, I believe that by analogy and experiment, I will attain to the discovery of a remedy.""The universe is an asymmetrical entity. I am inclined to believe that life as it is manifested to us must be a function of [that] asymmetry.""There is no such thing as a special category of science called applied science. There is science and there are its applications, which are related to one another as the fruit is related to the tree that has borne it.""After death, life reappears in a different form and with different laws.""One must not assume that an understanding of science is present in those who borrow its language.""Life is the germ, and the germ is life.""A known enemy is already half disarmed.""If one boasts of having done 250 experiments, it means that one has done them badly more than 249 times.""The thought that my name might some day awaken in a child's soul the first stirrings of patriotism makes my heart beat faster.""The universe is asymmetric and I am persuaded that life, as it is known to us, is a direct result of the asymmetry of the universe or of its indirect consequences."

Name

Louis Pasteur

Birth Date

December 27, 1822

Death Date

September 28, 1895

Place of Birth

Dole, France

Place of Death

Marnes-la-Coquette, France

Full Name

Louis Pasteur

Scientist Louis Pasteur came up with the food preparation process known as pasteurization; he also developed vaccinations for anthrax and rabies.

Who Was Louis Pasteur?

Louis Pasteur discovered that microbes were responsible for souring alcohol and came up with the process of pasteurization, where bacteria are destroyed by heating beverages and then allowing them to cool. His work in germ theory also led him and his team to create vaccinations for anthrax and rabies.

Early Life

Louis Pasteur was born on December 27, 1822, in Dole, located in the Jura region of France. He grew up in the town of Arbois, and his father, Jean-Joseph Pasteur, was a tanner and a sergeant major decorated with the Legion of Honor during the Napoleonic Wars. An average student, Pasteur was skilled at drawing and painting. He earned his bachelor of arts degree (1840) and a bachelor of science degree (1842) at the Royal College of Besançon and a doctorate (1847) from the École Normale in Paris.

Pasteur then spent several years researching and teaching at Dijon Lycée. In 1848, he became a professor of chemistry at the University of Strasbourg, where he met Marie Laurent, the daughter of the university's rector. They wed on May 29, 1849, and had five children, though only two survived childhood.

First Major Contribution in Chemistry

In 1849, Pasteur was attempting to resolve a problem concerning the nature of tartaric acid - a chemical found in the sediments of fermenting wine. Scientists were using the rotation of polarized light as a means for studying crystals. When polarized light is passed through a solution of dissolved tartaric acid, the angle of the plane of light is rotated. Pasteur observed that another compound called paratartaric acid, also found in wine sediments, had the same composition as tartaric acid. Most scientists assumed the two compounds were identical. However, Pasteur observed that paratartaric acid did not rotate plane-polarized light. He deduced that although the two compounds had the same chemical composition, they must somehow have different structures.

Looking at the paratartaric acid under a microscope, Pasteur observed there were two different types of tiny crystals. Though they looked almost identical, the two were actually mirror images of each other. He separated the two types of crystals into two piles and made solutions of each. When polarized light was passed through each, he discovered that both solutions rotated, but in opposite directions. When the two crystals were together in the solution the effect of polarized light was canceled. This experiment established that just studying the composition is not enough to understand how a chemical behaves. The structure and shape is also important and led to the field of stereochemistry.

Commercial Achievements

In 1854, Pasteur was appointed professor of chemistry and dean of the science faculty at the University of Lille. There, he worked on finding solutions to the problems with the manufacture of alcoholic drinks. Working with the germ theory, which Pasteur did not invent but further developed through experiments and eventually convinced most of Europe of its truth, he demonstrated that organisms such as bacteria were responsible for souring wine, beer and even milk. He then invented a process where bacteria could be removed by boiling and then cooling liquid. He completed the first test on April 20, 1862. Today the process is known as pasteurization.

Shifting focus, in 1865, Pasteur helped save the silk industry. He proved that microbes were attacking healthy silkworm eggs, causing an unknown disease and that the disease would be eliminated if the microbes were eliminated. He eventually developed a method to prevent their contamination and it was soon used by silk producers throughout the world.

Pasteur's first vaccine discovery was in 1879, with a disease called chicken cholera. After accidentally exposing chickens to the attenuated form of a culture, he demonstrated that they became resistant to the actual virus. Pasteur went on to extend his germ theory to develop causes and vaccinations for diseases such as anthrax, cholera, TB and smallpox.

In 1873, Pasteur was elected as an associate member of the Académie de Médecine. In 1882, the year of his acceptance into the Académie Française, he decided to focus his efforts on the problem of rabies. On July 6, 1885, Pasteur vaccinated Joseph Meister, a 9-year-old boy who had been bitten by a rabid dog. The success of Pasteur's vaccine brought him immediate fame. This began an international fundraising campaign to build the Pasteur Institute in Paris, which was inaugurated on November 14, 1888.

Personal Life

Pasteur had been partially paralyzed since 1868, due to a severe brain stroke, but he was able to continue his research. He celebrated his 70th birthday at the Sorbonne, which was attended by several prominent scientists, including British surgeon Joseph Lister. At that time, his paralysis worsened, and he died on September 28, 1895. Pasteur's remains were transferred to a Neo-Byzantine crypt at the Pasteur Institute in 1896.

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"Chance only favors the prepared mind." "The role of the infinitely small appeared to me to be infinitely great." "I still have hope, and if my life is spared, I believe that by analogy and experiment, I will attain to the discovery of a remedy." "The universe is an asymmetrical entity.

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Links Noted in the Text     pasteurfoundation.org    harriettubman.com   chinaculture.org   helenkellerbirthplace.org wrinstitute.org                   Library of Congress at loc.gov

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Links Noted in the Text     pasteurfoundation.org    harriettubman.com   chinaculture.org   helenkellerbirthplace.org wrinstitute.org                   Library of Congress at loc.gov

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Lived 1822 - 1895.
Louis Pasteur is one of the 'greats' of science. Countless millions of people alive today owe their lives to his discoveries.

Pasteur revolutionized chemistry and biology with his discovery of mirror-image organic molecules, then founded microbiology with his work on fermentation, his discovery of anaerobic bacteria, and his establishment of the germ theory of disease. The process he invented to stop foodstuffs going bad, pasteurization, is still in use worldwide today.

Beginnings

Louis Pasteur was born in the market town of Dole in eastern France on December 27, 1822. His father was Jean-Joseph Pasteur, a decorated former sergeant major in Napoleon Bonaparte's army, who now worked as a tanner. His mother was Jeanne-Etiennette Roqui. Loius had an older sister and two younger sisters. The family lived modestly.

When Louis was four years old his family moved to the nearby town of Arbois. He started school aged eight at the École Primaire Arbois - it was actually a single room in the town hall. He could already read, having been taught by his father. His teachers rated his childhood academic ability as middling.

In his teenage years Louis received free tutoring from his father's friend, Buousson de Mairet, a scholar. With this extra help, Louis began to show a growing academic ability - he started winning prizes at school - and it increasingly looked like a degree-level education would be appropriate for him.

His father envisaged his son becoming a respected teacher at a high school.

In addition to his academic prowess, Louis also showed considerable artistic talent, especially his pastel portraits.

At the end of October 1838, aged 15, Louis Pasteur arrived in Paris, where he was to live in a dormitory and attend a boarding school - the Institution Barbet - to prepare him for the École Normale Supérieure in Paris - an elite college - often called more simply the École Normale or ENS.

Unfortunately Louis was utterly miserable in Paris, missing home terribly. He lasted a little over two weeks before his father made a long journey and took him home to Arbois.

In 1839, aged 16, he moved to Besançon, just 30 miles (49 km) from Arbois to board at the Royal College, a high school. Closer to his hometown, he felt less homesick, worked very hard, and passed his school diploma exam in 1840. He was then able to earn money as a teaching assistant at the Royal College.

For two years Pasteur earned money while he improved his academic qualifications. He then sat the entrance exam for the ENS. He failed. Although he had prepared for the exam by taking extra lessons in mathematics, physics and chemistry, he had also spent of lot of his time - too much time - drawing pastel portraits.

Pasteur worked for another year as a teaching assistant before moving to Paris in 1843 to study at Lycée Saint-Louis, a high school that aimed to get its students into the ENS. There he won the prize for top physics student and passed the ENS's entrance exam with a high rank.

In 1844, aged 21, he entered the École Normale Supérieure. In 1845 he earned his science degree. In 1846 he placed third in physical sciences in the Agrégation - a highly prestigious government-run open exam for anyone who wanted to work in education: following this he was assigned to a high school teaching job in Tournon - a thought that horrified him.

He wanted to stay in Paris and continue with scientific research and higher-level teaching.

A Life in Science

Fortunately, a chemistry professor at the École Normale by the name of Antoine Jérome Balard had liked what he'd seen of Pasteur.

Balard was an eminent scientist, famed for his discovery of the element bromine in 1826. He offered Pasteur work as a chemistry graduate assistant along with the opportunity to carry out research for a doctorate.

Balard also waged a successful campaign against the government education department, which was trying to force Pasteur to move to the teaching job in Tournon.

In 1847 the 24 year-old Pasteur submitted a thesis in chemistry and a further thesis in physics. He was awarded a Ph.D. He had worked incredibly hard on his research - a habit that would remain with him all his life.

The following year, aged just 25, he was appointed as professor of chemistry at the University of Strasbourg.

Louis Pasteur's Contributions to Science

Optically Active Molecules

Pasteur made his first great discovery in 1848. For a number of years, scientists had been puzzled about organic chemicals such as tartaric acid. A large number of natural organic substances had been found to rotate the plane of polarized light to the left or right, while the apparently identical substances made in the laboratory did not.

Pasteur, who had made a study of polarized light for his physics thesis, discovered the solution to the puzzle. He showed that molecules could exist in mirror-image forms, as shown in the image below.

This was an enormously significant discovery in the history of science, revealing an asymmetry at the very heart of the natural world: many of the molecules made in nature are either left- or right-handed. Pasteur's discovery paved the way for crucial breakthroughs in chemistry, biochemistry, and pharmaceuticals.

Fermentation

In 1854, aged 31, Pasteur left Strasbourg to become Dean of the Faculty of Sciences at Lille University - a very senior position for such a young scientist.

One of his students at Lille told him about a problem that was bothering his industrialist father. Emile Bigo-Danel's father owned a distillery in Lille that converted sugar beet to alcohol by fermentation. Sometimes the fermentations went wrong and produced low concentrations of alcohol. Sometimes the alcohol soured.

Pasteur was fascinated by the problem and decided to investigate the phenomenon of fermentation.

At the time, the most commonly accepted explanation of fermentation was that it was a process caused by yeast - a single-celled microorganism - dying and decomposing. This was despite the fact that in 1836 Theodor Schwann had already shown that fermentation of sugar to alcohol required the action of living yeast. Schwann had been ridiculed for his work!

In 1858 and subsequent years, Pasteur published the results of the intensive research work he carried out in Lille, establishing that fermentation is a process involving the action of living yeast. Living yeast converts sugar into alcohol.

He found that the action of a different yeast makes milk go sour, converting milk sugars to lactic acid. If this yeast contaminates a wine fermentation, the wine is soured by the production of lactic acid.

Pasteur wrote:

"alcoholic fermentation is an act correlated with the life and organization of the yeast cells, not with the death or putrefaction of the cells."

His work was conclusive. The scientific world now accepted that the action of living yeast was necessary for fermentation to take place.

Years later Pasteur wrote a personal letter to Schwann expressing his admiration, saying:

The Discovery of Anaerobic Life

In 1857, aged 34, Pasteur returned to the École Normale in Paris as Director of Scientific Studies. No laboratory was available for him and the government said there was no money to fund any research. Determined to continue with his work, Pasteur personally paid for the conversion of part of the École Normale's attic space to a laboratory and funded his own research work there.

His faith in his ability to make more scientific breakthroughs was soon rewarded with the discovery of an entirely new type of living organism - anaerobic microbes - microbes that live without the need for air or the oxygen gas it contains.

Pasteurization

After spending several years observing the beneficial and harmful effects of microbes on foodstuffs, in 1862 Pasteur invented the pasteurization process. During pasteurization, farm and brewery products such as milk, wine and beer are heated briefly to a temperature between 60 and 100°C, killing microorganisms that can cause them to go bad.

Spontaneous Generation of Life

Many scientists continued to believe that simple lifeforms were spontaneously generated; this despite the fact that a number of scientists, such as Theodor Schwann, had carried out work showing that microbes could not simply appear out of nowhere in dirty ponds or decaying meat.

When they learned that Pasteur was going to enter the 'life' debate, his scientific friends tried to dissuade him - it was too hot a topic to handle and they didn't want to see their friend burned! However, Pasteur's work in the laboratory had already convinced him that Schwann was correct.

In 1860 the French Academy announced a prize of 2,500 Francs to anyone who provided convincing experimental proof for or against spontaneous generation of life.

Pasteur was awarded the prize in 1862. He showed that no microbes ever grew in nutrient solutions that had been sterilized by heating, provided the air above the solutions was also sterilized. If unsterilized air was allowed into the space above the solutions, microbes began growing in the solutions. The microbes were present in the unheated air.

The Germ Theory of Disease

Pasteur's work in fermentation and spontaneous generation and his discovery that pasteurization could prevent foodstuffs going bad led him to the conclusion that diseases are caused by germs - microscopic organisms. To stay healthy we need to prevent these organisms getting into our bodies.

Pasteur recommended using filtration, exposure to heat, or exposure to chemicals to remove germs.

Joseph Lister read Pasteur's work, and in 1867 he implemented antiseptic methods in surgery - sterilizing surgical instruments and cleaning wounds with carbolic acid. These innovations cut infections and deaths following operations dramatically.

Years later, at a gathering in Paris to celebrate Pasteur's seventieth birthday, Lister said to Pasteur:

Silkworm Disease

In 1863 Pasteur became professor of geology, physics, and chemistry at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts of Paris.

Soon he turned his attention to a problem that had very little to do with any of the subjects that he was professor of.

The French silkworm industry - indeed the entire European silkworm industry - was being destroyed by a disease nobody seemed to be able to stop. Government tax revenues had been devastated and areas once prosperous were beset by poverty and hunger.

Pasteur was not a biologist. He knew nothing about worms. He had never performed a dissection in his life. In 1865, however, he was implored to investigate the problem. He did not want to get involved, but after turning down repeated requests, he finally accepted the task.

And having accepted it, he launched himself into it with enormous energy, working until his health broke from exhaustion. His wife, Marie, also launched herself into the work, growing the silkworms he needed for experiments and writing notes.

Finally, after several false dawns and mistakes, near the end of 1867, Pasteur discovered that the silkworm's eggs were being attacked by parasitic microbes. He gave instructions to owners of farms telling them how to prevent the problem. Next season, he was almost reduced to tears when problems persisted. He realized then that there must be a second microbe at work, totally independent of the first one.

Pasteur conquered this microbe too, but at great personal cost - in 1868, aged 45 he suffered a stroke. In the same year the brilliance of his work was recognized by the University of Bonn, where he was made an honorary Doctor of Medicine. The Austrian Government awarded Pasteur the 5,000 Florins they had offered as a reward to anyone who could solve the silkworm problem.

The work he carried out on silkworm diseases left him eager, despite now suffering from health issues of his own, to apply the lessons he had learned to human health.

Anthrax and Rabies Vaccines

Pasteur discovered methods of protecting people against two deadly diseases - anthrax (demonstrated in 1881) and rabies (demonstrated in 1885). He devised ways of producing weakened forms of the anthrax and rabies microbes and used these to vaccinate people.

When injected into people, Pasteur's vaccines fired up their immune systems so potently that they were able to overcome the deadly forms of the diseases.

Pasteur's success in the case of anthrax left a bitter taste in the mouth of a medical rival, and was certainly not in the best traditions of science. Pasteur secretly used the method of Jean Joseph Henri Toussaint, a veterinarian, to prepare anthrax vaccine for a public demonstration, rather than his own patented method. Toussaint should be remembered as the discoverer or (at the very least) co-discoverer of the anthrax vaccine.

The Pasteur Institute

In 1887 Pasteur founded the institute that bears his name. The Pasteur Institute seeks to continue its founder's goals of studying microorganisms and treating and preventing diseases.

Eight of its researchers have been awarded Nobel Prizes in medicine. Its researchers were the first to isolate the HIV virus and their discoveries have led to better treatments for deadly diseases such as diphtheria, influenza, plague, polio, tetanus, tuberculosis, and yellow fever.

Pasteur spent the final years of his life, from 1888 onwards, living with his wife Marie in a large apartment he created for himself at the Institute in Paris. She continued to live there for 15 years after her husband's death, until her own death in 1910.

Some Personal Details and the End

Soon after arriving to become professor of chemistry at Strasbourg, Pasteur met Marie Laurent, daughter of the university's rector. They married in May 1849. Pasteur was 26 and Marie was 23 years old.

Marie married Pasteur knowing and accepting that he was unusually dedicated to his research work - the story goes that on their wedding day someone had to be sent to the laboratory to remind Pasteur to go to his wedding!

Following their marriage, Marie became Pasteur's trusted sounding board for ideas and the recorder of his thoughts.

The couple had five children, of whom three died of typhoid in childhood - an almost unbearable loss for the couple.

At the age of just 45 Pasteur suffered the first of the strokes that would undermine his health in his later years. In 1894, aged 71, a major stroke hit his health badly.

Louis Pasteur died of a stroke in Paris on September 28, 1895, aged 72.

He was held in such high esteem by the people of France that he was buried in the Cathedral of Notre Dame after a state funeral. Later his remains were moved to a crypt in the Pasteur Institute in Paris. When Marie died, she was also buried in the Institute's crypt.

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Further Reading
Percy Frankland & Mrs Percy Frankland
Pasteur
Cassell and Company Limited, London, 1901

Albert Keim & Louis Lumet, translated by Frederic Taber Cooper
Louis Pasteur
Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York, 1914

Rene J. Dubos
Louis Pasteur Free Lance Of Science
Little, Brown And Company, Boston, 1950

Patrice Debré, translated by Elborg Forster
Louis Pasteur
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000

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Lived 1822 - 1895. Louis Pasteur is one of the 'greats' of science. Countless millions of people alive today owe their lives to his discoveries. Pasteur revolutionized chemistry and biology with his discovery of mirror-image organic molecules, then founded microbiology with his work on fermentation, his discovery of anaerobic bacteria, and his establishment of the [...]

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Confucius was an influential Chinese philosopher, teacher and political figure known for his popular aphorisms and for his models of social interaction.

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Enjoy the best Confucius Quotes at BrainyQuote. Quotations by Confucius, Chinese Philosopher, Born 551 BC. Share with your friends.

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Who Was Helen Keller?

Helen Keller was an American educator, advocate for the blind and deaf and co-founder of the ACLU. Stricken by an illness at the age of 2, Keller was left blind and deaf. Beginning in 1887, Keller's teacher, Anne Sullivan, helped her make tremendous progress with her ability to communicate, and Keller went on to college, graduating in 1904. During her lifetime, she received many honors in recognition of her accomplishments.

Family and Early Life

Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Keller was the first of two daughters born to Arthur H. Keller and Katherine Adams Keller. Keller's father had served as an officer in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. She also had two older stepbrothers.

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The family was not particularly wealthy and earned income from their cotton plantation. Later, Arthur became the editor of a weekly local newspaper, the North Alabamian.

Keller was born with her senses of sight and hearing, and started speaking when she was just 6 months old. She started walking at the age of 1.Loss of Sight and Hearing

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Keller lost both her sight and hearing at just 19 months old. In 1882, she contracted an illness - called "brain fever" by the family doctor - that produced a high body temperature. The true nature of the illness remains a mystery today, though some experts believe it might have been scarlet fever or meningitis.

Within a few days after the fever broke, Keller's mother noticed that her daughter didn't show any reaction when the dinner bell was rung, or when a hand was waved in front of her face.

As Keller grew into childhood, she developed a limited method of communication with her companion, Martha Washington, the young daughter of the family cook. The two had created a type of sign language. By the time Keller was 7, they had invented more than 60 signs to communicate with each other.

During this time, Keller had also become very wild and unruly. She would kick and scream when angry, and giggle uncontrollably when happy. She tormented Martha and inflicted raging tantrums on her parents. Many family relatives felt she should be institutionalized.

Helen Keller's Teacher, Anne Sullivan

Keller worked with her teacher Anne Sullivan for 49 years, from 1887 until Sullivan's death in 1936. In 1932, Sullivan experienced health problems and lost her eyesight completely. A young woman named Polly Thomson, who had begun working as a secretary for Keller and Sullivan in 1914, became Keller's constant companion upon Sullivan's death.

Looking for answers and inspiration, Keller's mother came across a travelogue by Charles Dickens, American Notes, in 1886. She read of the successful education of another deaf and blind child, Laura Bridgman, and soon dispatched Keller and her father to Baltimore, Maryland to see specialist Dr. J. Julian Chisolm.

After examining Keller, Chisolm recommended that she see Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, who was working with deaf children at the time. Bell met with Keller and her parents, and suggested that they travel to the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston, Massachusetts.

Photo: Thaxter P. Spencer Family, New England Historic Genealogical Society [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

There, the family met with the school's director, Michael Anaganos. He suggested Keller work with one of the institute's most recent graduates, Sullivan.

On March 3, 1887, Sullivan went to Keller's home in Alabama and immediately went to work. She began by teaching six-year-old Keller finger spelling, starting with the word "doll," to help Keller understand the gift of a doll she had brought along. Other words would follow.

At first, Keller was curious, then defiant, refusing to cooperate with Sullivan's instruction. When Keller did cooperate, Sullivan could tell that she wasn't making the connection between the objects and the letters spelled out in her hand. Sullivan kept working at it, forcing Keller to go through the regimen.

As Keller's frustration grew, the tantrums increased. Finally, Sullivan demanded that she and Keller be isolated from the rest of the family for a time, so that Keller could concentrate only on Sullivan's instruction. They moved to a cottage on the plantation.

In a dramatic struggle, Sullivan taught Keller the word "water"; she helped her make the connection between the object and the letters by taking Keller out to the water pump, and placing Keller's hand under the spout. While Sullivan moved the lever to flush cool water over Keller's hand, she spelled out the word w-a-t-e-r on Keller's other hand. Keller understood and repeated the word in Sullivan's hand. She then pounded the ground, demanding to know its "letter name." Sullivan followed her, spelling out the word into her hand. Keller moved to other objects with Sullivan in tow. By nightfall, she had learned 30 words.

In 1905, Sullivan married John Macy, an instructor at Harvard University, a social critic and a prominent socialist. After the marriage, Sullivan continued to be Keller's guide and mentor. When Keller went to live with the Macys, they both initially gave Keller their undivided attention. Gradually, however, Anne and John became distant to each other, as Anne's devotion to Keller continued unabated. After several years, the couple separated, though were never divorced.

Helen Keller's Formal Education

In 1890, Keller began speech classes at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf in Boston. She would toil for 25 years to learn to speak so that others could understand her.

From 1894 to 1896, Keller attended the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf in New York City. There, she worked on improving her communication skills and studied regular academic subjects.

Around this time, Keller became determined to attend college. In 1896, she attended the Cambridge School for Young Ladies, a preparatory school for women.

As her story became known to the general public, Keller began to meet famous and influential people. One of them was the writer Mark Twain, who was very impressed with her. They became friends. Twain introduced her to his friend Henry H. Rogers, a Standard Oil executive.

Rogers was so impressed with Keller's talent, drive and determination that he agreed to pay for her to attend Radcliffe College. There, she was accompanied by Sullivan, who sat by her side to interpret lectures and texts. By this time, Keller had mastered several methods of communication, including touch-lip reading, Braille, speech, typing and finger-spelling.

Keller graduated, cum laude, from Radcliffe College in 1904, at the age of 24.

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'The Story of My Life'

With the help of Sullivan and Macy, Sullivan's future husband, Keller wrote her first book, The Story of My Life. Published in 1905, the memoirs covered Keller's transformation from childhood to 21-year-old college student.

Social Activism

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Keller tackled social and political issues, including women's suffrage, pacifism, birth control and socialism.

After college, Keller set out to learn more about the world and how she could help improve the lives of others. News of her story spread beyond Massachusetts and New England. Keller became a well-known celebrity and lecturer by sharing her experiences with audiences, and working on behalf of others living with disabilities. She testified before Congress, strongly advocating to improve the welfare of blind people.

In 1915, along with renowned city planner George Kessler, she co-founded Helen Keller International to combat the causes and consequences of blindness and malnutrition. In 1920, she helped found the American Civil Liberties Union.

When the American Federation for the Blind was established in 1921, Keller had an effective national outlet for her efforts. She became a member in 1924, and participated in many campaigns to raise awareness, money and support for the blind. She also joined other organizations dedicated to helping those less fortunate, including the Permanent Blind War Relief Fund (later called the American Braille Press).

Soon after she graduated from college, Keller became a member of the Socialist Party, most likely due in part to her friendship with John Macy. Between 1909 and 1921, she wrote several articles about socialism and supported Eugene Debs, a Socialist Party presidential candidate. Her series of essays on socialism, entitled "Out of the Dark," described her views on socialism and world affairs.

It was during this time that Keller first experienced public prejudice about her disabilities. For most of her life, the press had been overwhelmingly supportive of her, praising her courage and intelligence. But after she expressed her socialist views, some criticized her by calling attention to her disabilities. One newspaper, the Brooklyn Eagle, wrote that her "mistakes sprung out of the manifest limitations of her development."

In 1946, Keller was appointed counselor of international relations for the American Foundation of Overseas Blind. Between 1946 and 1957, she traveled to 35 countries on five continents.

In 1955, at age 75, Keller embarked on the longest and most grueling trip of her life: a 40,000-mile, five-month trek across Asia. Through her many speeches and appearances, she brought inspiration and encouragement to millions of people.

Helen Keller Movie: 'The Miracle Worker'

Keller's autobiography, The Story of My Life, was used as the basis for 1957 television drama The Miracle Worker.

In 1959, the story was developed into a Broadway play of the same title, starring Patty Duke as Keller and Anne Bancroft as Sullivan. The two actresses also performed those roles in the 1962 award-winning film version of the play.

Helen Keller's Awards and Honors

During her lifetime, she received many honors in recognition of her accomplishments, including the Theodore Roosevelt Distinguished Service Medal in 1936, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964, and election to the Women's Hall of Fame in 1965.

Keller also received honorary doctoral degrees from Temple University and Harvard University and from the universities of Glasgow, Scotland; Berlin, Germany; Delhi, India; and Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. She was named an Honorary Fellow of the Educational Institute of Scotland.

When and How Helen Keller Died

Keller died in her sleep on June 1, 1968, just a few weeks before her 88th birthday. Keller suffered a series of strokes in 1961 and spent the remaining years of her life at her home in Connecticut.

During her remarkable life, Keller stood as a powerful example of how determination, hard work, and imagination can allow an individual to triumph over adversity. By overcoming difficult conditions with a great deal of persistence, she grew into a respected and world-renowned activist who labored for the betterment of others.

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Helen Keller was an American educator, advocate for the blind and deaf and co-founder of the ACLU. Stricken by an illness at the age of 2, Keller was left blind and deaf. Beginning in 1887, Keller's teacher, Anne Sullivan, helped her make tremendous progress with her ability to communicate, and Keller went on to college, graduating in 1904.

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Helen Keller was an author, lecturer, and crusader for the handicapped. Born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, She lost her sight and hearing at the age of nineteen months to an illness now believed to have been scarlet fever. Five years later, on the advice of Alexander Graham Bell, her parents applied to the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston for a teacher, and from that school hired Anne Mansfield Sullivan. Through Sullivan's extraordinary instruction, the little girl learned to understand and communicate with the world around her. She went on to acquire an excellent education and to become an important influence on the treatment of the blind and deaf.

Keller learned from Sullivan to read and write in Braille and to use the hand signals of the deaf-mute, which she could understand only by touch. Her later efforts to learn to speak were less successful, and in her public appearances she required the assistance of an interpreter to make herself understood. Nevertheless, her impact as educator, organizer, and fund-raiser was enormous, and she was responsible for many advances in public services to the handicapped.

With Sullivan repeating the lectures into her hand, Keller studied at schools for the deaf in Boston and New York City and graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College in 1904. Her unprecedented accomplishments in overcoming her disabilities made her a celebrity at an early age; at twelve she published an autobiographical sketch in the Youth's Companion, and during her junior year at Radcliffe she produced her first book, The Story of My Lif e, still in print in over fifty languages. Keller published four other books of her personal experiences as well as a volume on religion, one on contemporary social problems, and a biography of Anne Sullivan. She also wrote numerous articles for national magazines on the prevention of blindness and the education and special problems of the blind.

In addition to her many appearances on the lecture circuit, Keller in 1918 made a movie in Hollywood, Deliverance, to dramatize the plight of the blind and during the next two years supported herself and Sullivan on the vaudeville stage. She also spoke and wrote in support of women's rights and other liberal causes and in 1940 strongly backed the United States' entry into World War II.

In 1924, Keller joined the staff of the newly formed American Foundation for the Blind as an adviser and fund-raiser. Her international reputation and warm personality enabled her to enlist the support of many wealthy people, and she secured large contributions from Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, and leaders of the motion picture industry. When the AFB established a branch for the overseas blind, it was named Helen Keller International. Keller and Sullivan were the subjects of a Pulitzer Prize-winning play, The Miracle Worker, by William Gibson, which opened in New York in 1959 and became a successful Hollywood film in 1962.

Widely honored throughout the world and invited to the White House by every U.S. president from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon B. Johnson, Keller altered the world's perception of the capacities of the handicapped. More than any act in her long life, her courage, intelligence, and dedication combined to make her a symbol of the triumph of the human spirit over adversity.

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Helen Keller was an author, lecturer, and crusader for the handicapped. Born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, She lost her sight and hearing at the age of nineteen months to an illness now believed to have been scarlet fever.

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Helen Keller Quotes - The Quotations Page

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Helen Keller (1880 - 1968) US blind & deaf educator [more author details]

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Video - When Helen Keller Learned to Talk

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Video - When Helen Keller Learned to Talk

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Animated Hero Classics Helen Keller on DVD(1)

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Will Rogers Quotes - The Quotations Page

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Will Rogers (1879 - 1935) US humorist & showman [more author details]

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Will Rogers - Memorial Museum, Biography, Facts

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Will Rogers - Memorial Museum, Biography, Facts

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Video:  Man of the Year 1935 -    Will Rogers

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Video:  Man of the Year 1935 -    Will Rogers

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Ropin' Fool

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Video Links - Multiple Videos About the Life of Harriet Tubman

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Video Links - Multiple Videos About the Life of Harriet Tubman

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