Gertrude Stein - (1874-1946)
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I. Biography Gertrude Stein was born on February 3, 1874 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, which is now part of Pittsburgh. She is the youngest of five surviving
children of Daniel Stein and Amelia Keyser. Both parents belonged to German Jewish immigrant families who settled in Baltimore, Maryland before the Civil War. Daniel was a partner with his four brothers in the
clothing trade until he moved to Pittsburgh with one brother to form a clothing business. He married Amelia in 1864. Their surviving children were Michael (born 1865), Simon (1868), Bertha (1870), and (Leo, 1872).
Gertrude Stein learned German and French along with English in her childhood. Without finishing high school, Stein attended Radcliffe University from 1893-97, where she studied
under William James. In 1903, she traveled to Paris and lived there for most of her life. In 1907, Gertrude Stein met Alice B. Toklas who became her lover and life companion. She published her first book Three Lives
in 1909. She influenced, through her writing, many literary and artistic figures. In Paris, Stein became interested in art and bought paintings from Picasso and Matisse.
She also helped with the works of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Carlos Williams, Thornton Wilder, and John Ashberry. With those people, she conducted the most famous salon of modern times.
Stein remained in France during World War II, and after the war American soldiers' met at her Paris home. Gertrude Stein died on July 27, 1946 in Paris. She is buried in Père Lachaise
Cemetery in Paris along with her lover Alice B. Toklas.
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II. Literary Works
Written in a mere six weeks, Gertrude Stein's The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas is an entertaining document. Written on behalf of Toklas, the book is certainly as much about
Stein as Toklas. While avoiding most mentions of true intimacy, Toklas is presented as a close and keen observer of Stein and her influence in Paris.
Supremely self-assured, and convinced of her own genius Stein pulls off this neat feat of being center stage in an autobiography in which the first-person narrator (Alice B.) humbly
defers to her. It is fun. Centered on the time that Stein spent in Paris, the autobiography does also fill in some of the details of Stein's youth (as well as a Toklas' origins). It
provides a useful, if not entirely reliable, overview of Stein's life. Once Toklas joins Stein in France the focus is very much on whom Stein knows and what
role she plays among the artists of the day. The name-dropping and gossip amuse, because these are big and important names and Stein does give us unexpected glimpses of
them. However, there is not that much depth to her account. (http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/steing/alicebt.htm) III. Literary Works Things as They Are (1903) IV. Sources
The Complete Review, A Literary Saloon and Site of Review. 1999
Three Lives (1905)
The Making of Americans (1908)
Matisse, Picasso and Gertrude Stein (1912)
Tender Buttons (1911)
Useful Knowledge (1915)
Geography and Plays (1920)
An Acquaintance with Description (1926)
Composition as Explanation (1926)
Lucy Church Amiably (1927)
Before the Flowers of Friendship Faded Friendship Faded (1930)
How to Write (1930)
Operas and Plays (1930)
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1932)
Blood On the Dining-Room Floor (1933)
Four in America (1933)
Portraits and Prayers (1933)
Lectures in America (1934)
Narration (1935)
The Geographical History of America or the Relation of Human Nature to the Human Mind (1935)
Everybody's Autobiography (1936)
What are Masterpieces? (1936)
Picasso (1938)
The World is Round (1938)
Paris France (1939)
Ida, A Novel (1940)
The Gertrude Stein First Reader and Three Plays (1943)
Wars I Have Seen (1944)
Brewsie and Willie (1945)
Last Operas and Plays (1946)
The Complete Review, A Literary Saloon and Site of Review. 1999
http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/steing/tender.htm
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2000. Columbia University
http://www.bartleby.com/65/st/Stein-Ge.html
This essay was submitted by a student of Cheryl Petersohn, a teacher at Harriton High School in Rosemont, Pennsylvania.