Pearl Buck, 1938 Winner of Nobel Prize in Literature
Pearl Buck is best known for her novel “The Good Earth,” which received the Pulitzer Prize in 1935 and helped earn her the Nobel...
Butch Cassidy, Wild West Outlaw
Butch Cassidy was a famed outlaw in the dying days of the Old West, leading the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang and the Wild Bunch in daring...
Stevie Wonder, Musician, Producer and Activist
Stevie Wonder, the Motown sensation, chart topper, producer and humanitarian, has been in the spotlight for four decades.
Early Days
Stevland Hardaway Judkins was born prematurely...
Sonia Sotomayor, First Hispanic Supreme Court Justice
Sonia Sotomayor is the first Hispanic and the third female justice to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. Hailing from a working-class background, Sotomayor...
Upton Sinclair, Muckraking Journalist and Author of “The Jungle”
Best known for exposing horrific practices in the meatpacking industry with his novel, “The Jungle,” Upton Sinclair was more than just a muckraker. From...
Jean Renoir, French Filmmaker
Lauded after his death as one of cinema’s greatest directors, Jean Renoir earned comparatively few words of praise during his lifetime. From a childhood...
Niccolò Machiavelli, Author of “The Prince”
Niccolò Machiavelli lived through one of the most tumultuous periods in Italian history. An early alliance with the wrong faction suspended his political career;...
Saul Bellow, American Novelist
“The backbone of 20th-century American literature”—this was novelist Philip Roth’s assessment of Saul Bellow. His struggle with modernism, his Jewish upbringing, his feelings of...
Milton Bradley, Father of the Modern Board Game
Milton Bradley is a household name for his creation of such board game classics as The Game of Life, but he was more than...
Mae West, Hollywood Star of the 1930s
Comic actress and playwright Mae West was known for her bold sensuality, clever one-liners and resurrection of Paramount Studios. She was the first actress...
