At age 19 months Keller was afflicted with an illness, possibly Scarlet Fever, that left her deaf, blind, and mute. At age 6 Alexander Graham Bell examined her and recommended a teacher, Anne Sullivan, at the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston. She learned to read by feeling raised words on cardboard. She was taught to speak by Sarah Fuller of the Horace Mann School for the Deaf, where she also learned to lip-read by placing her fingers on the lips and throat of the speaker while the words were spelled out. Other schools followed, capped by four years at Radcliffe College from age 20 to 24 – she graduated with honors. Keller began her writing career with articles about blindness for women’s magazines like "Ladies Home Journal", followed by general interest magazines. Her writing career spanned 55 years, from age 22 to age 77. Her well-documented struggles and triumphs had made her world famous long before she died, just prior to her 88th birthday.