Water Pump at Helen Keller's Birthplace

(Original Caption) Tuscumbia, Alabama: At this pump, behind her birthplace at Tuscumbia, Ala., Helen Keller learned her first word. Miss Sullivan pumped cool liquid over one of Helen's hands, spelling w-a-t-e-r in the manual alphabet in the other. Like an earthquake, Miss Keller saw a connection. "Suddenly," she says, "I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten, a thrill of returning thought, and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me." By nightfall, she had learned 30 words. (Photo by Bettmann via Getty Images)