Mary Elizabeth Braddon was an English popular novelist of the Victorian era. She is best known for her 1862 sensation novel Lady Audley's Secret, which has also been dramatised and filmed several times.
Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim was an American art collector, bohemian, and socialite. Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with the Titanic in 1912, and the niece of Solomon R. Guggenheim, who established the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Guggenheim collected art in Europe and America between 1938 and 1946. She exhibited this collection as she built it. In 1949, she settled in Venice, where she lived and exhibited her collection for the rest of her life. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is a modern art museum on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy, and is one of the most visited attractions in Venice.
Rhoda Broughton was a Welsh novelist and short story writer. Her early novels earned a reputation for sensationalism, so that her later, stronger work tended to be neglected by critics, although she was called a queen of the circulating libraries. Her novel Dear Faustina (1897) has been noted for its homoeroticism. Her novel Lavinia (1902) depicts a seemingly "unmanly" young man, who wishes he had been born as a woman. Broughton descended from the Broughton baronets, as a granddaughter of the 8th baronet. She was a niece of Sheridan le Fanu, who helped her to start her literary career. She was a long-time friend of fellow writer Henry James and was noted for her adversarial relationship with both Lewis Carroll and Oscar Wilde.
Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow was an American novelist who won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1942 for her novel In This Our Life. She published 20 novels, as well as short stories, to critical acclaim. A lifelong Virginian, Glasgow portrayed the changing world of the contemporary South in a realistic manner, differing from the idealistic escapism that characterized Southern literature after Reconstruction.
Hoyt Sherman, a member of the prominent Sherman family, was an American banker. He served as a member of the Iowa House of Representatives in 1866.
Adela Nora Rogers St. Johns was an American journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. She wrote a number of screenplays for silent movies, but is best remembered for her groundbreaking exploits as "The World's Greatest Girl Reporter" during the 1920s and 1930s and her celebrity interviews for Photoplay magazine.
Servants' Entrance is a 1934 American Pre-Code musical comedy film. It was written by Samson Raphaelson from the Sigrid Boo novel and directed by Frank Lloyd, with a cartoon sequence by Walt Disney in which an understandably startled Janet Gaynor sings a song while obstreperous animated singing silverware prance around on her bed, an early example of combining live action with animation. Critics found this musical interlude especially charming.
Helen Sewell was an American illustrator and writer of children's books. She won a Caldecott Medal Honor as illustrator of The Thanksgiving Story by Alice Dalgliesh and she illustrated several novels that were runners-up for the Newbery Medal.
Margaret Elizabeth Sangster was an American poet, author, and editor. Her poetry was inspired by family and church themes, and included hymns and sacred texts. She worked in several fields including book reviewing, story writing, and verse making. For a quarter of a century, Sangster was known by the public as a writer, beginning as a writer of verse, and combining later the practical work of a critic and journalist. Much of her writing did not include her name.
How Could You, Jean? is a 1918 American silent comedy-drama film, starring Mary Pickford, directed by William Desmond Taylor, and based on a novel by Eleanor Hoyt Brainerd. Casson Ferguson was the male lead; Spottiswoode Aitken and a young ZaSu Pitts had supporting roles.
Ruth Suckow was an American writer from Iowa. She wrote novels and stories.
Hoyt Sherman Place, the home of Hoyt Sherman, was built in 1877 and is located in Des Moines, Iowa.
Anne Crawford Flexner born Anne Laziere Crawford, was an American playwright.
Sterling Lord was an American literary agent, editor, and author. His clients included Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, Howard Fast, Jimmy Breslin, and Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Mary Stewart Doubleday Cutting (1851–1924) was an author of domestic realism novels and short stories.
Agnes Weinrich was an American visual artist. In the early twentieth century, she played a critical role in introducing cubist theory to American artists, collectors, and the general public and became one of the first American abstractionists. A life-long proponent of modernist art, she was an active participant in the art communities of Provincetown and New York. Early in her career, she traveled widely in Europe and spent extended periods studying in Paris and Berlin. She also studied art in Chicago, Provincetown, and New York. During most of her career, she worked in a Provincetown studio during the warm months and a Manhattan studio during the cold ones. Weinrich's easel work included oil paintings, watercolors, and pastels. She also made block prints and etchings and drew using pencil and crayon. Her paintings, prints, and drawings appeared in solo and group exhibitions throughout her career and she received favorable critical attention both during her life and after her death.
Pegeen is a 1920 American silent drama film based on the 1915 novel of the same name by Eleanor Hoyt Brainerd. It was produced by Vitagraph Studios and directed by David Smith. It stars Bessie Love in the title role.
Nancy Wood was an American author, poet, and photographer. Wood published numerous collections of poetry as well as children's novels, fiction, and nonfiction. Major themes and influences in her work were the Native American cultures of the Southwestern United States.
Jean Smith Young is an American psychiatrist, writer, and civil rights activist. She was an organizer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the 1964 Freedom Summer.
The Des Moines Women's Club, founded in 1885 as the women's club movement swept through the United States, today serves the Des Moines community by providing scholarships, support for the local arts community, and other civic projects.
