regularly sent flowers to her grave.
We The Living.
Today, it’s difficult to imagine Marilyn
Monroe growing old. She’ll always be
remembered for her beauty and a
wonder of what she would have been
like—or whether she would have
found happiness-- as an older woman.
Born in 1905, Rand and her family
suffered under the Bolshevik regime
that followed the 1917 Russian
revolution. Partly due to the vagaries
of a vicious totalitarian regime, she
was able to obtain a 6 months
student traveling visa in 1925. By
leaving the Soviet Union and reaching
the U.S. (her real destination)
through Europe, she vowed to expose
the Communist regime. Rand adopted
her name, “Ayn Rand”, to protect her
family in Russia against retaliation.
Sandra Day O’Connor
She was the first female U.S. Supreme
Court justice. Born in 1930 on a ranch
outside El Paso, Texas, Sandra Day
O’Connor grew up knowing the land
and its people. Her early childhood
may not have been poor, but was
certainly not luxurious.
After graduating from Stanford in
1950, she became an attorney at a
time when there were few female
members of the bar. She then moved
to Arizona, and served in the state
senate from 1969 to 1974, including
the position of majority leader.
O’Connor then became a judge,
including a spot with the Arizona
Court of Appeals.
In 1981, President Reagan appointed
her to the U.S. Supreme Court, the
first female to hold that position. In
her opinions, she was considered a
moderate conservative on economic
issues, but more liberal on social
issues, such as abortion rights.
O’Connor retired from the Court in
2006, to care for her ailing husband.
Her well-written legal opinions and
integrity in the U.S. judicial system
will be long remembered.
Ayn Rand
Russian born U.S. author, who
developed the first complete
philosophical system, Objectivism,
since Aristotle, Plato, and Kant. This
was necessary to validate the
individualistic philosophy enunciated
in her fictional novels, Atlas
Shrugged, Fountainhead, Anthem and
After marrying actor Frank O’Connor
in 1929, Rand struggled during the
30s as a screenwriter, playwright,
and then as an author, trying to have
We The Living (her Soviet expose)
published, despite critical hostility.
In the early 1940s, The Fountainhead
described a young architect of
unbending integrity, who succeeds
despite incredible obstacles from his
profession and society. After
numerous publishers had rejected it,
MacMillan decided to publish it.
Despite critics’ negative reviews, the
novel wound up a best seller. This led
to The Fountainhead being made into
a movie, with Gary Cooper and
Patricia Neal.
Later, while working as a
screenwriter in Hollywood, Rand was
inspired to write Atlas Shrugged. This
project arose from her contemplating
what would happen if men of ability
decided to strike against a
collectivist society that claimed the
right to control their talents and
minds. It was then that she saw the
necessity for completely articulating
her philosophy, simultaneously with
writing the novel that depicted it.
Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957
and remains a favorite on the New
York Times Best Seller List, being
outsold only by the Bible.
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