Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand (February 2, 1905 - March 6, 1982) was a popular and controversial American philosopher and novelist, most famous for her philosophy of Objectivism.

She was born Alyssa (or Alice) Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg, Russia. She studied philosophy and history at the University of Petrograd. In 1925, she was permitted by the Soviet government to leave the USSR briefly to visit her relatives in America. Although she was only allowed a brief visit, she was resolute never to return to Russia. When she arrived in America, at the age of 21, she stayed with relatives in Chicago for 6 months before moving to Hollywood to become a screenwriter. She changed her name to Ayn Rand, suspecting that, if her anti-socialist views became famous in America, her family back in Russia might be persecuted by the Soviet government. She met an actor, Frank O'Connor, by tripping him on purpose, and they married in 1929.

Initially, Rand struggled in Hollywood, and was forced to take odd jobs to pay her rent. Her first success came with the sale of her screenplay Red Pawn in 1932 to Universal Studios. Rand released The Night of January 16th, a play, in 1934, and published two commercially unsuccessful novels, We The Living (1936), and Anthem (1938).

Rand's first major success came with the best-selling novel, The Fountainhead (1943). The royalties and movie rights made Rand famous and financially secure.

In 1947, as a "friendly witness" in the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Rand tesified against the activities of communist propogandists in Hollywood. Rands testimony involved analysis of the 1943 film Song to Russia, which grossly misrepresented the socio-economic conditions in the Soviet Union. The film presented Russia as an amazing paradise of comfort, beauty and plenty for everybody, when in reality the conditions of the average Russian peasant farmer were apalling. Aparrently this 1943 film was intentional wartime propoganda, to keep the US public happy in their allegience wih Russia. When asked later about her feelings on the HUAC hearings, she described them as "futile".

In 1951 Rand met the young psychology student Nathaniel Branden, who had read her book, The Fountainhead at the age of 14. Branden, now 18, enjoyed discussing philosophy with Rand. Branden's relationship with Rand eventually took on a romantic aspects, though they were both married at the time.

Rand published her "magnum opus", Atlas Shrugged in 1957. This also became a best seller. According to a joint survey conducted in 1991 by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club, Atlas Shrugged is recognised as the "second most influential book for Americans today", after The Bible by numerous authors. The same survey also listed Atlas Shrugged as the second of "25 books that have most shaped readers lives", after The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain.

Along with Branden, Rand launched the Objectivist movement to promote her philosophy, which she termed Objectivism.

Throughout the 60's and 70's, Rand developed and promoted her Objectivist philosophy through non-fiction works, including:

• For the New Intellectual (1961)
• The Virtue of Selfishness (1964) - essays by Branden and Rand
• Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966) - essays by Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen, and Rand.
• The Romantic Manifesto (1969)
• The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution (1971)
• Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (1979)

Rand broke with Branden in 1968.

She died March 6, 1982.

Leonard Piekoff was named by Ayn Rand as her "intellectual heir" - to be the face of Objectivism. Her choice of heir is a matter of some controversy.