Alice Paul, the founder and leading-light of the National Woman’s Party, inspired devotion that bordered on worship. From her side, Paul cared deeply for her old friend Nina Allender, the cartoonist of the suffrage movement. Allender, who lived alone in Chicago, wrote to Paul in 1947 of her memories of their long association: “No words can tell you ( Read more... )

Robert Joffrey (born Abdullah Jaffa Bey Khan) was an American dancer, teacher, producer, choreographer, and co-founder of the Joffrey Ballet with Gerald Arpino in 1956. He is known for his highly imaginative modern ballets. The company grew from a small touring group to become one of the most prominent dance troupes in US. Gerald Arpino studied ( Read more... )

Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman was a prominent 19th century American author. She is best known for two collections of stories, A Humble Romance and Other Stories (1887) and A New England Nun and Other Stories (1891). Her stories deal mostly with New England life and are among the best of their kind. Many of her celebrated stories are characterized by ( Read more... )

Hans von Marees was a German painter. He mainly painted country scenes in a realistic style. Marees' lifelong companion was art theorist and critic Konrad Fiedler, who, in his Kunstwissenschaft, created the theory of pure form, rejecting the concepts of Beauty and Art. However, Marees also had an 8 years love affair with sculptor Adolph von ( Read more... )

A retrospective of Bruce Cratsley’s work was mounted at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1996 to critical acclaim. White Light, Silent Shadows, containing a selection of his photographs, was published in 1998. Bruce Cratsley died on June 29, 1998, of complications from AIDS. He was survived by his long-time companion, William “Billy” Leight. "It was ( Read more... )

Vincent Gabriel Fourcade was a French interior designer. "Outrageous luxury is what our clients want," he once said. Robert Denning was an American interior designer whose lush interpretations of French Victorian decor became an emblem of corporate raider tastes in the 1980s. Fourcade met Denning in 1959, when Denning was a protégé of Edgar de Evia ( Read more... )

Jane Addams was a pioneer settlement social worker, public philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader in women's suffrage and world peace. She revolutionized American social reform by founding Hull House, an institution Addams established in a poor neighborhood of Chicago to provide services for recent immigrants. Addams later became the first ( Read more... )

Cole Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Porter maintained a luxury apartment in Paris, where he entertained lavishly. His parties were extravagant and scandalous, with "much gay and bisexual activity, Italian ( Read more... )

John Nicholson was a Victorian era military officer known for his role in British India. A charismatic and authoritarian figure, Nicholson created a legend for himself as a political officer under Henry Lawrence in the frontier provinces of the British Empire in India. Nicholson never married, the most significant people in his life being his ( Read more... )

Godfrey Harold "G. H." Hardy was an English mathematician, known for his achievements in number theory and mathematical analysis. He is the main character at David Leavitt The Indian Clerk (2007), which depicts his Cambridge years and the relationship with John Edensor Littlewood and Srinivasa Ramanujan. Starting in 1914, he was the mentor of the ( Read more... )