Chronology: Ayn Rand

1897	September 22	Frank O’Connor (Ayn Rand’s husband) born in Lorain, Ohio
1904	May 3	parents married
1905	February 2	Born Alissa Zinovienvna Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg, Russia: three weeks after bloody Revolution, where, one morning, 12,000 of Czar Nicholas II’s cavalrymen opened fire on 30,000 factory workers, their wives and children, and students who had walked to the Winter Palace to petition for better working conditions and a role in the government. The slaughter gave rise to rioting and set stage for Bolshevik Revolution of Oct., 1917. (1)
1907	June 28	Sister Natasha born in St. Petersburg
1910	September 4	Sister Nora born in St. Petersburg
1914- 1919		World War I briefly united Russia against Germans; from 1915 – 1919 Russia was war torn and starving: Marxism gained a following; a dangerous time to be a Jew in Russia – made scapegoats for cause of poverty.
1914		Begins study at Stoiunin, a famous and progressive private girls’ primary school (for 3 ½ years). Her sisters stayed at home with a governess. (1, 17) Rand was known as “the brain” of her class. (1, 19)
1917	October	6 million Russians had been killed, captured, or wounded in WWI. Bolshevik Revolution- led by Vladimir Lenin, archenemy of the propertied classes. (1, 28) Rand’s father’s pharmacy, along with many of the city’s factories, banks, shops, and offices, were raided, stamped with a red seal, and shuttered. Lenin called this “looting the looters.” Lenin’s new government consciously initiated the Red Terror. (1, 31)
1918	Fall	Family flees to the Crimea, still at center of resistance to the Communists. They lived in Yevpatoria for three years. Rand and sisters attended a private girls’ school
1921		Family returns to Petrograd (St. Petersburg was renamed)
	August	Enters Petrograd State University – declared a major in history and a minor in philosophy. Studied under eminent N.O. Lossky
1922		University purges: Lossky and 220 other famous Russian philosophers and intellectuals arrested for so-called anti-Soviet activity and deported (on what came to be known as the “Philosophy Ship.” (1, 46)
1923		Rand was one of 4,000 students expelled as “socially undesirable elements” among students: a third sent to Siberian prison camps. . . visiting Western scientists heard about the purge, complained to hosts: she and other third-year students were reinstated and allowed to graduate. (Receives diploma Oct., 1924) (1, 47)
1923-24		Joseph Stalin focuses repression on the cities. Food rations down to 1,000 calories per day; dirt, poverty, disease sweep the cities.
1924	October	Enrolled in State Technicum for Screen Arts, a new performing-arts-school. She wanted to learn screenwriting: she wanted to immigrate to America and work in the rapidly growing movie industry. (1, 49)
1926	January 16	Departs Leningrad [She had changed her name to Ayn Rand by this time] (1, 55)
	January 20	Departs Soviet Union
		February to August: resides in Chicago with relatives
	September 3	Arrives in Hollywood
	September 4	Meets Cecil B. DeMille
		Meets Frank O’Connor, an actor playing small parts in movies
1927	January	Hired by DeMille as a junior screen writer
1929	April 15	Marries Frank O'Connor in Los Angeles
		Begins work in the RK0 wardrobe department (Depression era)
1931	March 13	Becomes a U.S. citizen
1932	September 2	Sells "Red Pawn"; hired by Universal Pictures as screenwriter. (“Red Pawn” was never produced.). O’Connor’s acting career was doing well at this time.
1933	July 12	Hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for eight weeks
1934	April 9	Makes first entry in philosophic Journal
	June 25	Hired by Paramount Pictures
	October 22	“Woman on Trial” opens at Hollywood Playhouse (other titles were “Penthouse Legend,” and “Night of January 16^th)
	November 24	Moved to New York City to help in production of “Night of January 16^th”
1935	September 16	“Night of January 16^th” opens on Broadway; Jack Dempsey, fighter, served as foreman on celebrity jury.
		Made first extensive notes about her next novel, The Fountainhead. It’s theme: The ideal man: her vision of what it meant to be an individualist. The working title: Second-Hand Lives (1, 99)
mid-30s		Becomes aware of growing “admiration” of Communism among the intellectuals in America: Many literary celebrities were members of or sympathizers of U.S. Communist Party. Rand was warned by newspaperman H.L. Mencken and others that anti-Communist messages would be hard to get published or produced in movies and plays. Rand realizes that the Depression was producing “political monsters” of the kind she thought she left behind in Russia. (1 83).
	1930s & 1940s	Dominant European ideologies: communism, socialism, fascism. In American politics, the New Deal prescribed taking these collectivist toxins in doses to prevent a more serious ‘outbreak.’ It was in this hostile environment that Rand was further developing her ideas and philosophy. Rand worked for the Willkie campaign to defeat Roosevelt; became disillusioned with politics when Willkie quickly ‘moved to the center’ after winning nomination.
1936	April 18	We the Living published by Macmillan.
		In effect, she was blacklisted by the Hollywood intellectual Left, lasting until The Fountainhead. Became in demand as an anti-Soviet speaker: lectured at New York Town Hall Club; gave dozens of radio and print interviews.
		Makes concerted effort to rescue her parents from their life of hardship in Russia (1, 96)
1937		Took a short break from planning The Fountainhead, and wrote Anthem: Theme: exposing the ultimate logic of totalitarianism: perfect conformity for perfect control; to demonstrate that brainwashed slaves of the state cannot produce technological achievement. She originally conceived this as a four-act play during her university years (1, 102-3)
1938	May	Anthem (novella) published in England under title Ego. In U.S., not until the 1960s, did a paperback edition became available, and some high schools made it mandatory reading. To date, more than 3 ½ million copies have been sold.
	June 26	Begins writing The Fountainhead
1939	January	Receives last communication from parents in Soviet Union
		Works on new production of her 1936 play rendition of We the Living: director George Abbott offered to produce it. Rand retained script control.
1940	February 13	“The Unconquered” opens on Broadway (We the Living play title)
early- ‘40s		Becomes very active in politics: helps to organize conservative intellectuals with intent to frame and promote a full-fledged moral justification of laissez-faire capitalism; becomes good friends with Isabel Paterson, novelist and libertarian book-review columnist for New York Herald Tribune (1, 134)
		Wrote “The Individualist Manifesto,” a 33 page polemical essay. She wanted to do for free-market capitalism what The Communist Manifesto had done for Communism. (1, 137)
		World War II
1943	May	The Fountainhead published by Bobbs-Merrill. Rand’s first full portrait of an individualist hero.
	August	Writes outline for “The Moral Basis of Individualism”
	October 12	Sells The Fountainhead to Warner Brothers: Received an unprecedented $50,000
	November	Travels to California to begin writing screenplay for The Fountainhead
1944		July 1944 – October 1951: Resides at 10,000 Tampa Ave., Chatsworth, Calif. O’Connors purchased a 4,000 sq. ft. “Roarkian” house designed for Marlene Dietrich and her director husband in 1935 by Richard Neutra, who had been an apprentice of Frank Lloyd Wright. This included 13 acres of fertile farmland, and cost them $24,000. (1, 166)
	Summer	Hired as screenwriter by Hal Wallis (war caused delay in The Fountainhead); Wallis launched his own production company in partnership with Paramount; Rand was his first employee; she worked for him six months a year and wrote in private the other half of each year. She was eager to begin work on her next novel.
		Fan mail from The Fountainhead pours into Bobbs-Merrill, publisher. The letters would continue to come for as long as she lived. She was famous now.
	September	Writes screenplay for “Love Letters” (adapted from a novel by Christopher Massie). Movie became box-office hit, staring Joseph Cotton and Jenifer Jones.
1945	January 1	First notes for Atlas Shrugged. Working title: The Strike
		Writes short nonfiction The Moral Basis of Individualism, promised to Bobbs-Merrill. Severely condensed, an early draft of book appeared as “The Only Path to Tomorrow” in an issue of The Reader’s Digest. This book was not finished.
	December	First episode of the illustrated serial of The Fountainhead appears in newspapers
1946	January	WWII is over; two atomic bombs had been used, setting off a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. The Cold War had begun. Wallis asks Rand for an outline for screenplay documenting the development of the atomic bomb: Top Secret. She interviews General Leslie Groves and J. Robert Oppenheimer. (This was purchased by MGM who scrapped it because they were making a competing picture)
	February 18	Attends her first meeting of the Motion Picture Alliance (MPA). Along with friends John Ford, King Vidor, Walt Disney, and other Hollywood opponents of Communism, she helped create opposition to left-leaning craft guilds & unions in setting up the MPA. She contributed articles to MPA’s newsletter, serving as lessons in libertarian political thought. (1, 199) She wrote the “Screen Guide for Americans” addressed to movie producers who wanted to avoid the appearance of left-wing influence. (1, 201)
1946	Spring- Summer	Writes hundreds of pages of preliminary notes for Atlas Shrugged. Instead of demonstrating the importance of individualism within a man’s soul (as in The Fountainhead), it would dramatize the importance of individualism within the sweeping social, political, and moral realms of what was basically a panoramic nineteenth-century novel. (1, 196)
	July	Anthem (revised edition) published by Pamphleteers
1947	October 20	Testifies before House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)- in DC. She said she had been promised an opportunity to make a full statement of her views on the dangers of Communist propaganda in the movies . . . Instead, the committee used her for its own purposes . . . just to demonstrate that MGM had engaged in Communist propaganda in the making of Song of Russia movie. . . . HUAC was also a publicity disaster for her.
		Back in Hollywood, after the hearings, studios began excising so-called un-American content from films. Rand’s “Screen Guide” itemized recommendations were printed in the Sunday New York Times. Requests for reprints poured into MPA from studios. Producers began looking for pro-capitalist, anti-Communist screen material. (1, 207)
1948	March 23	Resumes work on The Fountainhead film at Warner Brothers
1949	June 23	The Fountainhead movie opens at Warner’s Hollywood Theater
early- 1950s		Begins meeting weekly with a group of young fans (including Alan Greenspan), having long philosophical discussions and reading new pages from her Atlas Shrugged manuscript in progress. They called themselves [jokingly] “the Collective” (1, 242)
1951		Moves back to New York City; became friends with William F. Buckley, Jr. (who wanted government to support traditional Christian values, and was future host of Firing Line), Frances and Henry Hazlitt (economics journalist who championed laissez-faire capitalism to readers of The New York Times, The Nation, and Newsweek); and the now canonical Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises. (1, 245-8)
1953		First American hardcover edition of Anthem published by Caxton
1955	October 13	Finishes Galt’s speech (in Atlas Shrugged)
1957	March 20	Finishes writing Atlas Shrugged
	October 10	Atlas Shrugged published; it was panned by most reviewers in the press. The most vicious review was by communist-turned-Quaker Whittaker Chambers in the National Review (publication edited by Rand’s friend William F. Buckley) (2)
	November 30	First notes for unpublished novel, tentatively titled To Lorne Dieterling
1958	January	Begins fiction-writing class
	March 6	Gives first campus talk (Queens College): “Faith and Force: Destroyers of the Modern World.” Contrasting the fruit of reason (freedom) with the historical consequences of mysticism and tyranny (the annihilation of independent thought).
		Talk to first Ayn Rand Club at Brooklyn College titled “Zero Worship”
1959	February	appeared on TV show: The Mike Wallace Interview
1960s		Throughout the ‘60s, students came to jeer but stayed to listen, then bought her books and joined her movement. Ayn Rand clubs sprang up on campuses.(1, 320)
1960	February 17	Delivers “Faith and Force” at annual lecture in the Yale Law School’s prestigious Challenge series. This attracted the largest audience in the history of the Yale series, with a large overflow crowd.

1960	month?	Speech at Princeton: “Conservatism: An Obituary.” She criticized the Right directly and identified herself not as a conservative but as a “radical for capitalism.”
	November	Second lecture at Yale: “For the New Intellectual.” Nearly twice as many people attended.(1, 319)
1961	March 24	“For the New Intellectual” published by Random House (collection of essays)
	March	Delivers lecture at U. of Wisconsin: “The Objectivist Ethics.” (1, 319)
	March 26	Delivers first Ford Hall Forum talk (Northeastern U., Boston): “The Intellectual Bankruptcy of Our Age.” People came from around the world to hear these Rand talks annually at this Forum. (1, 320) Rand spoke there almost every year 1961-1981 (3, 222)
	May 14	Delivers “Esthetic Vacuum” talk at U. of Michigan Arts Festival
1962	January	First issue: “The Objectivist Newsletter.” Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI) opens. Branden, almost single-handedly organized Objectivism into a national movement, offering classes and material for interested Ayn Rand fans. For Rand, compared to constructing a novel, composing essays was child’s play. All she had to focus on were clarity and logic. Thus she entered into a new career as a cultural polemicist . . . she published scores of both “cranky” and brilliant essays. (1, 321)
	June 17	First Los Angeles Times column printed (Book: Any Rand: Los Angeles Times column collection)
	October 2	First radio show appearance: WKCR – Columbia University
1963	February 2	Delivers “How Not to Fight Against Socialized Medicine” (Ocean Co., NJ)
	September 29	Delivers “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business” (McCormick Pl, Chicago)
	October 2	Receives honorary doctorate from Lewis and Clark University
1964	March	Playboy interview with questions by Alvin Toffler (Future Shock author): Perhaps the purest, least rhetorical, and hardest-hitting public statement of her views. . . reached 2 ½ million readers. (1, 324)
	December	The Virtue of Selfishness published by New American Library (collection of Rand’s essays on ethics)
1966	April	First installment of Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology appears in The Objectivist: The full formal treatise was published in 1970
	November 23	Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal published by New American Library (NAL) (collection of Rand’s essays on politics)
1967	August 16	First appearance on the “Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson”
1968	May	Nathaniel Branden Institute closes
1969	March 8	Begins nonfiction-writing class
	July 16	Witnesses Apollo 11 launch at Cape Canaveral
	October 11	Gives first workshop on Objectivist epistemology
	November	The Romantic Manifest” published by World Publishing (collection of Rand’s essays on aesthetics)
1970		Book published: Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology
1971	October 11	First issue of “The Ayn Rand Letter” published
	September	“The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution” published by NAL
1972		Artful splicing and editing of Noi Viva and Addio Kira! with English subtitles became available to art-house audiences. (Italian version of We the Living film which had much Facist propaganda added to it which had to be eliminated.)
1974	March 6	Gives talk to West Point Military Academy seniors: “Philosophy: Who Needs It”
1974	September 4	Attends White House searing-in of Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors
1976	Jan-Feb	Publishes last issue of The Ayn Rand Letter
1977	April 10	Ford Hall Forum luncheon honors Ayn Rand
	Sept 6-18	Outlines script for Atlas Shrugged miniseries
1979	April	Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology published by NAL
	May 1	Appears on the Phil Donahue Show
	November 9	Frank O”Connor (husband) dies
1981	June 10	Writes first page of Atlas Shrugged miniseries
	April 26	Delivers last Ford Hall Forum talk: “The Age of Mediocrity”
	November	Delivers last lecture at an economic conference in New Orleans: “The Sanction of the Victims”
1982	January 1	Final writing for script of Atlas Shrugged miniseries
	March 6	Dies at home in New York City (became ill during New Orleans trip)
NOTE	Sources	Items with no citation are from the introductory chronology in: 100 Voices: An Oral History of Ayn Rand, by scott McConnell (published 2010) 1 - Ayn Rand and the World She Made book by Anne C. Heller (published 2009) 2 - The Ideas of Ayn Rand by Ronald E. Merrill (published 1991)