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Ayn Rand Biography & Facts

Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum; February 2 [O.S. January 20], 1905 – March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand ( INE), was a Russian-born American author and philosopher. She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system she named Objectivism. Born and educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926. After two early novels that were initially unsuccessful and two Broadway plays, Rand achieved fame with her 1943 novel The Fountainhead. In 1957, she published her best-selling work, the novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward, until her death in 1982, she turned to non-fiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own periodicals and releasing several collections of essays. Rand advocated reason and rejected faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism as opposed to altruism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and supported laissez-faire capitalism, which she defined as the system based on recognizing individual rights, including private property rights. Although she opposed libertarianism, which she viewed as anarchism, Rand is often associated with the modern libertarian movement in the United States. In art, she promoted romantic realism. She was sharply critical of most philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her, with a few exceptions. Rand's books have sold over 37 million copies. Her fiction received mixed reviews from literary critics, with reviews becoming more negative for her later work. Although academic interest in her ideas has grown since her death, academic philosophers have generally ignored or rejected Rand's philosophy, arguing that she has a polemical approach and that her work lacks methodological rigor. Her writings have politically influenced some right-libertarians and conservatives. The Objectivist movement circulates her ideas, both to the public and in academic settings. Life Early life Rand was born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum on February 2, 1905, into a Jewish bourgeois family living in Saint Petersburg in what was then the Russian Empire. She was the eldest of three daughters of Zinovy Zakharovich Rosenbaum, a pharmacist, and Anna Borisovna (née Kaplan). She was 12 when the October Revolution and the rule of the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin disrupted her family's lives. Her father's pharmacy was nationalized, and the family fled to the city of Yevpatoria in Crimea, which was initially under the control of the White Army during the Russian Civil War. After graduating high school there in June 1921, she returned with her family to Petrograd (as Saint Petersburg was then named), where they faced desperate conditions, occasionally nearly starving. When Russian universities were opened to women after the revolution, Rand was among the first to enroll at Petrograd State University. At 16, she began her studies in the department of social pedagogy, majoring in history. She was one of many bourgeois students purged from the university shortly before graduating. After complaints from a group of visiting foreign scientists, many purged students, including Rand, were reinstated. She completed her studies at the renamed Leningrad State University in October 1924. She then studied for a year at the State Technicum for Screen Arts in Leningrad. For an assignment, Rand wrote an essay about the Polish actress Pola Negri; it became her first published work. By this time, she had decided her professional surname for writing would be Rand, and she adopted the first name Ayn (pronounced ). In late 1925, Rand was granted a visa to visit relatives in Chicago. She arrived in New York City on February 19, 1926. Intent on staying in the United States to become a screenwriter, she lived for a few months with her relatives learning English before leaving for Hollywood, California. In Hollywood a chance meeting with director Cecil B. DeMille led to work as an extra in his film The King of Kings and a subsequent job as a junior screenwriter. While working on The King of Kings, she met the aspiring actor Frank O'Connor; they married on April 15, 1929. She became a permanent American resident in July 1929 and an American citizen on March 3, 1931. She tried to bring her parents and sisters to the United States, but they could not obtain permission to emigrate. Early fiction Rand's first literary success was the sale of her screenplay Red Pawn to Universal Studios in 1932, although it was never produced. Her courtroom drama Night of January 16th, first staged in Hollywood in 1934, reopened successfully on Broadway in 1935. Each night, a jury was selected from members of the audience; based on its vote, one of two different endings would be performed. Rand and O'Connor moved to New York City in December 1934 so she could handle revisions for the Broadway production. Her first novel, the semi-autobiographical We the Living, was published in 1936. Set in Soviet Russia, it focuses on the struggle between the individual and the state. Initial sales were slow, and the American publisher let it go out of print, although European editions continued to sell. She adapted the story as a stage play, but the Broadway production closed in less than a week. After the success of her later novels, Rand was able to release a revised version in 1959 that has since sold over three million copies. Rand started her next major novel, The Fountainhead, in December 1935, but took a break from it in 1937 to write her novella Anthem. The novella presents a dystopian future world in which totalitarian collectivism has triumphed to such an extent that the word I has been forgotten and replaced with we. Protagonists Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000 eventually escape the collectivistic society and rediscover the word I. It was published in England in 1938, but Rand could not find an American publisher at that time. As with We the Living, Rand's later success allowed her to get a revised version published in 1946, and this sold over 3.5 million copies. The Fountainhead and political activism During the 1940s, Rand became politically active. She and her husband were full-time volunteers for Republican Wendell Willkie's 1940 presidential campaign. This work put her in contact with other intellectuals sympathetic to free-market capitalism. She became friends with journalist Henry Hazlitt, who introduced her to the Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises. Despite philosophical differences with them, Rand strongly endorsed the writings of both men throughout her career, and they expressed admiration for her. Mises once called her "the most courageous man in America", a compliment that particularly pleased her because he said "man" instead of "woman". Rand became friends with libertarian writer Isabel Paterson. Rand questioned her about American history and politics during their many meetings, and gave Paterson ideas for her only non-fiction book, The God of the Machine. Rand's.... Discover the Ayn Rand popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Ayn Rand books.