Born: November 30, 1894Died: August 2, 1980 Ohio connection: Birth Columbus Donald Ogden Stewart was born in 1894 in Columbus, Ohio, the son of Gilbert Holland Stewart, a prominent judge, and Clara (Landon) Stewart. He received an A.B. degree from Yale University in 1916. After graduation, he attempted a career in business, working for American Telephone …
Read More Donald Ogden StewartBorn: 1934 Ohio connection: Birth Toledo Gloria Steinem, writer and feminist icon, was born in Toledo, Ohio. After a difficult childhood that included her parent’s divorce and her mother’s mental illness, Steinem won a scholarship to Smith College, where she studied government and politics, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1956. She soon broke off …
Read More Steinem, GloriaBorn: June 15, 1931Died: August 15, 1996 Ohio connection: Birth Columbus George Edwin Starbuck, son of George W. and Anna Margaret Polaski (born Starbuck) Beiswanger, was born June 15, 1931, in Columbus, Ohio. George Edwin’s surname was legally changed from Beiswanger to Starbuck after his parents’ divorce. Starbuck grew up in Illinois and California. At age 16, …
Read More George Edwin StarbuckBorn: 1950 Ohio connection: Resident Cleveland Heights Tricia Springstubb has published over a dozen books for young readers. What Happened on Fox Street was published by HarperCollins in August 2010. Her adult fiction and essays have appeared in numerous literary journals, including The Iowa Review, Hunger Mountain, and Brain, Child, and she’s a frequent book critic for The Plain Dealer. She is …
Read More Springstubb, TriciaBorn: 1960 Ohio connection: Resident Columbus Jeffrey Alan Smith was born in 1960 to William Earl and Barbara Smith in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania. He grew up near Columbus. As a child, Smith read and was inspired by Walt Disney’s Uncle Scrooge, Peanuts, and adventure comics like Batman and Superman. Some of his favorite comics are George Herriman’s Krazy Kat and E.C. Segar’s Thimble …
Read More Jeff SmithBorn: November 30, 1904Died: March 11, 1967 Ohio connection: Birth Cleveland Charles Allen Smart, son of George and Lucy (Allen) Smart, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1904. He received an A.B. degree from Harvard University in 1926. He worked for Doubleday, Page & Co. and Doubleday Doran (publishers) as an editorial assistant from 1927 until 1930. …
Read More Charles Allen SmartBorn: 1975 Ohio connection: Birth Cincinnati Curtis Sittenfeld was born in Cincinnati. The second child of four, she is the daughter of Paul G. Sittenfeld (an investment banker) and Elizabeth Curtis (an art history teacher). She attended Seven Hills School in Cincinnati through 8th Grade and then moved to the Groton School, a boarding school in Massachusetts …
Read More Sittenfeld, CurtisBorn: October 17, 1914 Died: January 28, 1996 Ohio connection: Birth Cleveland Born in Cleveland to Jewish immigrants from Lithuania, Jerry Siegel, along with boyhood friend Joe Shuster, created Superman, one of the most recognizable fictional characters of the 20th century. Siegel created the character of Superman, his background story and superpowers, while Joe Shuster worked as the artist, rendering Superman in his now familiar tights …
Read More Siegel, JerryBorn: July 10, 1914Died: July 30, 1992 Ohio connection: Resident Cleveland Joseph Shuster was born July 10, 1914, in Toronto, Canada, and moved to Cleveland with his family at the age of ten. From an early age Joe Shuster demonstrated a penchant for drawing, scrounging paper from various sources as his family was not wealthy. Shuster, …
Read More Joe ShusterBorn: May 2, 1950Died: April 12, 2009 Ohio Connection: Birth Dayton Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick was born May 2, 1950, in Dayton, Ohio, to Leon Kosofsky (an engineer) and Rita Goldstein Kosofsky (a high school teacher). She had two siblings, a brother and a sister. During her childhood the family moved to Bethesda, Maryland, when her father accepted …
Read More Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick