I'm skimming through "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James K. Loewen right now. There are some interesting "omissions" that the author cites. One is the Helen Keller story. According to Loewen, Keller grew up to be a radical Socialist who openly praised communism. Here is a sample of her voice:


"In the East a new star has risen! With pain and anguish the old order has given birth to the new, and behold in the East an new man-child is born! Onward, comrades, all together! Onward to the campfires of Russia! Onward to the coming dawn!"


Keller's conversion to Socialism caused the same people who lauded her courage and determination for overcoming her handicap to assert that her handicap was causing her to make this mistake. The Editor of the Brooklyn Eagle wrote that Keller's:


"mistakes spring out of the manifest limitations of her development."


Why didn't I learn this in my U.S. History class in high school? Instead all I learned about was her heroism, not her shameful turn to communism. Shameful to historians, anyway.