Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein (born February 3, 1874 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania; died July 27, 1946 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France) was a poet, playwright, author, critic and art collector who lived as an expatriate in France from 1903 until her death.

Stein visited Birmingham on February 16-17, 1935, arriving by train from Atlanta and departing by air for New Orleans the next day. She spent the night at the Tutwiler Hotel.

In a letter to her friend Carl Van Vechten, Stein wrote, "Why, oh why didn't you come to Birmingham. It's a SCREAM! IMPAYABLE! UNBELIEVABLE!", and goes on to say, "Yes, Birmingham is unique, and we wouldn't have missed it for anything but we don't want to come back."

She observed that "The intelligence of the Birmans (that's what they called themselves in their newspaper yesterday) descends through their women and the men are weirdly bashful and gauche."

See also

• Ed Willis Barnett a photographer and friend of Steins who later lived in Birmingham.

References

• Stein, Gertrude (February 17, 1935) Letter to Carl Van Vechten, published in The Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 1913-1946 (2013) New York: Columbia University Press
• Stein, Gertrude (1935) "Lecture 2", delivered at the University of Chicago, published in Narration: Four Lectures, (2010) Chicago: University of Chicago Press iSBN 9780226771557