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Seven decades ago, Jackie Robinson stepped onto Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field and changed not only the face of professional baseball in America: in ways...
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It’s Grilled Cheese Month. We’re Bookish. So here are books about grilled cheese. You’re welcome.
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Look at that smile filled with charm and smarm. Oh, Ernest. We knew you were trouble when you walked in.
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Frances Benjamin Johnston with group of children looking at her camera between 1890 and 1910.
Famous Outlaw Marriages in History: Mercedes de Acosta & Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo was a stunningly beautiful actress was so talented, so glamorous, and so captivating on screen that she became the epitome of the Hollywood movie star. Mercedes de Acosta, who was born into a socially prominent New York family, taught Garbo how to speak, how to dress, and how to live in the style expected of cinematic royalty. Garbo and de Acosta were in an outlaw marriage from 1931 until 1960.
Read more of their story in Outlaw Marriages: The Hidden Histories of Fifteen Extraordinary Same-Sex Couples.
Famous Outlaw Marriages in History: Walt Whitman & Peter Doyle
Many literary scholars consider Walt Whitman this country’s most influential poet. The works collected in Whitman’s Leaves of Grass pay homage to the freedom and dignity of the individual while celebrating democracy and the brotherhood of man. Peter Doyle was a 21-year-old conductor on a horse-drawn streetcar when he and Whitman, who was 45 at the time, became lovers. Whitman and Doyle were in an outlaw marriage from 1865 until 1892, when Whitman died.
Read about their relationship in Outlaw Marriages: The Hidden Histories of Fifteen Extraordinary Same-Sex Couples
Famous Outlaw Marriages in History: Frances Clayton & Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde was a widely acclaimed author who focused on the issues of racism, sexism, and homophobia. Frances Clayton was a tenured professor of psychology at Brown University, until she left that position to support Lorde’s transformation into a full-time author. Lorde and Clayton were in an outlaw marriage from 1968 until 1988.
Read their story in Outlaw Marriages: The Hidden Histories of Fifteen Extraordinary Same-Sex Couples (25% off on beacon.org all June using code PRIDE)
Happy birthday, Rachel Carson. The writer, scientist, ecologist, and founder of the contemporary environmental movement authored four books before her death including the environmental classic, Silent Spring.
Read the discovered writing of Rachel Carson in Lost Woods.
Happy birthday, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was born 210 years ago today! Emerson, who began his career as a Unitarian minister, went on to become the preeminent lecturer, essayist, and philosopher of 19th century America. The founder of the Transcendentalist movement, he is the author of classic essays including “Self-Reliance,” “Nature,” and “The American Scholar.”
Click to find out more about his spiritual and political writing.
What’s in your backpack? Traildog and Dirt Work author Christine Byl shows us what’s in hers.
Watch the book trailer to Kate Bornstein’s A Queer and Pleasant Danger, which is now out in paperback!
