Florence Nightingale wasn’t the selfless nurse and founder of modern nursing everyone thought she was. She spent only three years of her life as a nurse and spent the rest lobbying against classifying nursing as a profession. She dismissed women who fought for equality, ignored the discoveries of modern science, and clung to Victorian morals. […] Read more

Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect who had a great influence on twentieth-century design. He made architecture relevant to society and culture in a time of great change in the nation and worldwide. Wright married Catherine Tobin in his 20s and had six children. He built a home in Oak Park that expressed his […] Read more

Reared in a deeply religious home, Gandhi received an indifferent formal education in India, and in 1888 began law studies in England. In quest of clerical work, he went to South Africa in 1893 and was shocked at the racial discrimination there. He became an advocate for his fellow Indians in South Africa and undertook […] Read more

The story of George Eastman’s life is a legend. Born the son of a poor widow, he had to overcome intense competition and repeated failures. He started as a clerk for three dollars a week and became a very different kind of industrial giant. With determination and hard work, he simplified photography by creating the […] Read more

George Gershwin is one of the Country’s most beloved and prolific composers. His easy way with a tune calls up images of starry Manhattan skylines, a top hat and tails, and the perfect martini. The Gershwin brothers George and Ira collaborated together with many other music legends. His songwriting ability merged pop, jazz, swing, and […] Read more

Georgia O’Keeffe revolutionized modern art, both in her time and in the present. We can understand O’Keeffe’s art by the emotional response to nature and her need to create an equivalent in art. In the 1920s she explored this theme in her magnified paintings of flowers. She meant to convey that Nature, in all its […] Read more

Georgia O’Keefe’s rather ordinary childhood on a dairy farm in southern Wisconsin suggested little of the extraordinary life the future American painter would lead. Born November 15, 1887, in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin – a town of 900 near Madison — O’Keefe and her 6 siblings helped with chores on the large, prosperous farm every day […] Read more

Gertrude Bell turned away from the privileged world of eminent Victorians and explored, mapped, and excavated the Middle East. Recruited by British intelligence during World War I, she played a crucial role in gaining the friendship and loyalty of Arab leaders. She played a major role in creating the modern Middle East and was considered […] Read more

The dead are meant to move smoothly from the land of the living to their proper place among the spirits. If this transition goes wrong, the spirit is stranded, neither one thing nor the other. Ghosts have the benefit of hindsight and experience and can give guidance to the living. The novelist, Charles Dickens, had […] Read more