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HISTORY. The Literary Salon That Made Ayn Rand Famous. Seventy-five years after the publishing of ‘The Fountainhead’, a look back at the public intellectuals who disseminated her Objectivist...
- Who Was Ayn Rand?
- Early Years
- Early Writing Career
- 'The Fountainhead' and 'Atlas Shrugged'
- Objectivism and Later Years
- Death and Legacy
Ayn Rand moved to the United States in 1926 and tried to establish herself in Hollywood. Her first novel, We the Living (1936), championed her rejection of collectivist values in favor of individual self interest, a belief that became more explicit with her subsequent novels The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged(1957). Following the immense su...
Ayn Rand was born Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum on February 2, 1905, in St. Petersburg, Russia. The oldest daughter of Jewish parents (and eventually an avowed atheist), she spent her early years in comfort thanks to her dad's success as a pharmacist, proving a brilliant student. In 1917, her father's shop was suddenly seized by Bolshevik soldiers, f...
Following a chance encounter with Hollywood titan Cecil B. DeMille, Rand became an extra on the set of his 1927 film The King of Kings, where she met actor Frank O'Connor. They married in 1929, and she became an American citizen in 1931. Rand landed a job as a clerk at RKO Pictures, eventually rising to head of the wardrobe department, and continue...
In 1937, Rand began researching a new novel by working for New York architect Ely Jacques Kahn. The result, after years of writing and more rejections, was The Fountainhead. Underscoring Rand’s individualistic underpinnings, the book’s hero, architect Howard Roark, refuses to adhere to conventions, going so far as to blowing up one of his own creat...
Around 1950, Rand met with a college student named Nathan Blumenthal, who changed his name to Nathaniel Branden and became the author's designated heir. Along with his wife, Barbara, Braden formed a group that met at Rand's apartment to engage in intellectual discussions. The group, which included future Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, cal...
Rand was working on a television adaptation of Atlas Shruggedwhen she died of heart failure at her home in New York City on March 6, 1982. Although she weathered criticism for her perceived literary shortcomings and philosophical arguments, Rand undeniably left her mark on the Western culture she embraced. In 1985, Peikoff founded the Ayn Rand Inst...
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The Fountainhead, novel by Ayn Rand, published in 1943. An exposition of the author’s anticommunist philosophy of “objectivism,” The Fountainhead tells of the struggle of genius architect Howard Roark—said to be based on Frank Lloyd Wright—as he confronts conformist mediocrity.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Dec 1, 2010 · Take Two: The Fountainhead of Bedford Falls | Joe Carter | First Things. Frank Capra and Ayn Rand are two names not often mentioned together. Yet the cheery director of Capra-corn and the dour novelist who created Objectivism have more in common than you might imagine. Both were immigrants who made their names in Hollywood.
Jun 30, 2010 · This essay is reprinted from The Fountainhead: A Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration, published by The Atlas Society. Six decades after its publication, The Fountainhead is still very much alive. New readers by the hundreds find it every day.
Jul 16, 1995 · TWILIGHT OF THE GODDESS. A CRITIC AT LARGE about Ayn Rand. 13 years after Rand's death, her books still sell more than 300,000 copies a year; "The Fountainhead," her slow-building blockbuster...
The Fountainhead is a 1943 novel by Russian-American author Ayn Rand, her first major literary success. The novel's protagonist, Howard Roark, is an intransigent young architect who battles against conventional standards and refuses to compromise with an architectural establishment unwilling to accept innovation.