The Algonquin Round Table also called THE ROUND TABLE, informal group of American literary men and women who met daily for lunch on weekdays at a large round table in the Algonquin Hotel in New York City during the 1920s and '30s. Many of the best-known writers, journalists, and artists in New York City were in this group.
Among them were Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott (author of the quote "All the things I really like are immoral, illegal, or fattening", Heywood Broun, Robert Benchley, Robert Sherwood, George S. Kaufman, Franklin P. Adams, Marc Connelly, Harold Ross, Harpo Marx, and Russell Crouse.
Many of the earliest published black writers were slaves and abolitionists. First to make a name was Phillis Wheatley, a slave brought from Africa as a child and sold to a Boston merchant. Wheatley spoke no English but by the time she was sixteen, under the tutelage of her owners, had mastered the language. Her interest in literature led her to write and publish Poems on Various Subjects in 1773.
Upton Sinclair began earning money by writing at 15, and supported himself by doing literary hackwork while doing graduate work at Columbia University. An assignment from a socialist weekly led him to write The Jungle (1906), his sixth novel and first popular success.
Published at his own expense after several publishers rejected it, it became an immensely influential best-seller. He used the proceeds to open a socialist colony in Englewood, N.J., which was abandoned when the building was destroyed by fire in 1907.
Theodore Roosevelt, after the death of his wife in 1884, he left politics to ranch in the Dakota Territory. He also began writing historical works, including The Naval War of 1812 (1882). In 1886 he returned to run unsuccessfully for governor, then again retired to write such books as Hunting Trips of a Ranch Man (1885), biographies of Thomas Hart Benton and Gouverneur Morris, and The Winning of the West (4 vols., 1889-96).
Paula Gunn Allen was born in 1939 and grew up on Cubero Land Grant in New Mexico. She received her Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico, in 1975. Allen is a well known feminist writer who is highly praised for her creative scholarly works, which promote Native American literature as a viable and rich source of study. Allen has also edited a number of books. She most recently taught at University of California, Los Angeles before her retirement in 1999.
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