Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas

Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas’s romance is iconic in American literature, starting in 1907 in Paris. They became cultural magnets, attracting luminaries like Hemingway and Picasso. Their shared life of travel and literary salons spanned the 1920s and 1930s.

With WWII’s onset, Stein and Toklas retreated to a French mountain house. Their enduring partnership lasted until Toklas’s demise in 1946. Despite Toklas leaving her estate to Stein, legal non-recognition left Stein in financial hardship.