Gertrude Stein was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris in 1903, and made France her home for the remainder of her life. She hosted a Paris salon, where the leading figures of modernism in literature and art, such as Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson and Henri Matisse, would meet.
Alice Babette Toklas was an American-born member of the Parisian avant-garde of the early 20th century, and the life partner of American writer Gertrude Stein.
Jan Miner was an American actress best known for her role as the character "Madge", the manicurist in Palmolive dish-washing detergent television commercials beginning in the 1960s.
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas is a book by Gertrude Stein, written in October and November 1932 and published in 1933. It employs the form of an autobiography authored by Alice B. Toklas, her life partner. In 1998, Modern Library ranked it as one of the 20 greatest English-language nonfiction books of the 20th century.
James Laughlin was an American poet and literary book publisher who founded New Directions Publishing.
Janet Flanner was an American writer and pioneering narrative journalist who served as the Paris correspondent of The New Yorker magazine from 1925 until she retired in 1975. She wrote under the pen name "Genêt". She also published a single novel, The Cubical City, set in New York City. She was a prominent member of America's expatriate community living in Paris before WWII. Along with her longtime partner Solita Solano, Flanner was called "a defining force in the creative expat scene in Paris." She returned to New York during the war and split her time between there and Paris until her death in 1978.
William Edwards Cook was an American-born expatriate artist, architectural patron, and long-time friend of American writer Gertrude Stein. Following his 1903 departure from the U.S., Cook resided in Paris, Rome, Russia, and on the island of Majorca, in the Balearic Islands off the eastern coast of Spain. Today he is chiefly remembered not for his artistic achievements, but because, during World War I, he taught Stein to drive an automobile so that she could contribute to the French war effort, and because, in 1926, he commissioned the Swiss architect Le Corbusier to design an innovative cubist home, on the outskirts of Paris, now called Maison Cook or Villa Cook.
Leo Stein was an American art collector and critic. He was born in Allegheny City, the older brother of Gertrude Stein. He became an influential promoter of 20th-century paintings.
Three Lives (1909) is a work of fiction written in 1905 and 1906 by American writer Gertrude Stein. The book is separated into three stories, "The Good Anna," "Melanctha," and "The Gentle Lena."
Richard Aldrich was an American music critic. From 1902–23, he was music critic for The New York Times.
Mary A. Bookstaver (1875–1950) was a feminist, political activist, and editor, widely known by the nickname "May." Daughter of Judge Henry W. Bookstaver and Mary Baily Young, she attended Miss Florence Baldwin's School and graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1898 in history and political science. After graduation she moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where she was part of a circle of lesbian Bryn Mawr graduates, including Bookstaver's lover, Mabel Haynes. Gertrude Stein, then a Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine student, became infatuated with Bookstaver, who found Stein's naïveté literally laughable, but introduced Stein to physical love. The experience made a deep impression on Stein, whose first novel, QED, completed in Baltimore in 1903, was an autobiographical account of this love triangle, with Bookstaver's character named "Helen Thomas."
The Book of Salt is a 2003 debut novel by Vietnamese-American author Monique Truong.
Mildred Adams was the name used by Mildred Adams Kenyon, an American journalist, writer, translator, and critic of Spanish literature.
Edwin Sherrill Dodge was an American architect.
Jennie Loitman Barron was an American suffragist, lawyer, and judge. She was the first woman to present evidence to a Grand Jury in Massachusetts and the first to prosecute major criminal cases. She was the first woman judge appointed for life to the Municipal Court in Boston (1937), and the first woman appointed to the Massachusetts Superior Court (1959).
27 rue de Fleurus was the home of the American writer Gertrude Stein and her partner Alice B. Toklas from 1903 to 1938. It is in the 6th arrondissement of Paris on the Left Bank. It was also the home of Gertrude's brother Leo Stein for a time in the early 20th century. It was a renowned Saturday evening gathering place for avant-garde artists and writers, notably Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway.
World War I marked the first war in which American women were allowed to enlist in the armed forces. While thousands of women did join branches of the army in an official capacity, receiving veterans status and benefits after the war's close, the majority of female involvement was done through voluntary organizations of the war effort or through becoming a nurse for the military. Additionally, women made an impact on the war indirectly by filling the workforce, becoming employed in the jobs left behind by male soldiers.
Mira Edgerly-Korzybska, also known as Myra Edgerly and Countess de Korzybska, was an American painter. She specialized in miniature portraits on ivory, though her "miniatures" tended to be larger than average.
Gertrude and Alice is a 1991 book about Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas by English biographer Diana Souhami.
The American Fund for French Wounded (AFFW) was a private military relief organization founded by American women living abroad that provided aid to small hospitals in France, medical assistance for wounded French soldiers and civilians, and support for refugees during World War I. Headquartered in New York City, committees across the United States raised funds and collected dressings, blankets, pillows, clothing, food, and amusements for the organization. The AFFW worked closely with several similar organizations, including the American Red Cross.
