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What is now Multnomah County Library dates its existence from 1864, a time when Portland, Oregon, was a frontier town with frame buildings, muddy streets, and few sidewalks. A small group of citizens met to establish a subscription library and reading room, organizing under the name “Library Association of Portland.”
Lan Su Chinese Garden is a nonprofit botanical garden that frequently hosts a variety of workshops, classes, lectures and readings, performances, and exhibits. During the year, members and visitors alike have the opportunity to experience a variety of activities, including Tea & Poetry, which enhance visitors’ understanding of Chinese culture and provide opportunities to learn and play. All activities, unless otherwise noted, are free with membership or admission.
Visitors to Steepletop, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s home in Austerlitz, New York, can see the gardens, walk the Poetry Trail created by the Friends of the Millay Society, visit the gallery in the Visitors Center at Tamarack Cottage, and purchase Millay memorabilia and books at the gift shop. Tours of the home and grounds are available Fridays through Mondays. Check the website before visiting for more information on ongoing renovations.
The “Minot House” Henry David Thoreau refers to is known today on the National Register of Historic Places as the Wheeler-Minot Farmhouse/Henry David Thoreau Birth House. Locally, it is also known as “Thoreau Farm.” The Thoreau Farm Trust, a nonprofit organization, is committed to preserving Thoreau’s birth house.
Visits to the house are by guided tour only and are seasonal. The house also hosts events and offers a writing studio to rent for space to write.
This wood-frame house is the only Chicago home for the noted Chicago poet and journalist Carl Sandburg, who occupied a second-floor apartment in the building from 1912 to 1915. It was here that he lived when writing his ground-breaking poem “Chicago,” which has come to symbolize Chicago’s working-class heritage with its “City of Big Shoulders” verse. As such, the building is a tangible physical connection to one of America’s best-known writers and poets, and a leader in the “Chicago Literary Renaissance” of the early twentieth century.
Prolific author and Pulitzer Prize–winning poet, Gwendolyn Brooks resided in this Chicago home from 1953 to 1994. A dominant figure of twentieth-century American poetry and a leading force in the Chicago Black Renaissance literary movement from the 1930s through the 1950s, Brooks is regarded by literary critics as one of the United States’ most significant poets. Her first collection of poems, A Street in Bronzeville, appeared in 1945 and was followed by other major works including Annie Allen in 1949.
Author of Black Elk Speaks and numerous other works of prose and poetry, John G. Neihardt is the poet laureate in perpetuity of Nebraska. To commemorate his life and work, the John G. Neihardt State Historic Site was established on the site of his former home in Bancroft, Nebraska.
The Beat Museum is dedicated to spreading the spirit of the Beat Generation, which the museum defines as tolerance, compassion, and having the courage to live your individual truth. The museum is home to an extensive collection of Beat memorabilia, including original manuscripts and first editions, letters, personal effects, and cultural ephemera. Located in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood, it occupies the same ground that was once the epicenter for Beat activity during the 1950s.
The historic President’s Cottage on the Arizona State University Tempe Campus is the home of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing. Located on the corner of Palm Walk and Tyler Mall, the house was constructed in 1907 and served as the home of the university’s president until 1959. Since that time, it has been used by the ASU Alumni Association for administrative offices (1961–1972) and as the home of the University Archives (1972–1995). The house, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is especially fitting as a home for the Virginia G.
The Michener Center for Writers is housed in the historic J. Frank Dobie home adjacent to campus. A writer and chronicler of the folklore of Texas and the Southwest, Dobie published some twenty-five books in his distinguished career—among them The Longhorns, Apache Gold and Yaqui Silver, and Coronado’s Children—and from 1914 to 1947 was a member of the English faculty of the University of Texas. Until his death in 1964, Dobie met with students and colleagues in a kind of informal literary salon in the backyard of the house Waller Creek.
