Independent scholar Eve M. Kahn, a longtime New York Times contributor, will lecture on her new book, Queen of Bohemia Predicts Own Death: Gilded-Age Journalist Zoe Anderson Norris (Fordham U. Press). Zoe (as everyone called her) was a Kentucky belle turned Manhattan activist, writer, and publisher, who set out around 1900 to “fight for the poor with my pen.” She published her own magazine, The East Side, focusing on immigrant poverty and calling for the world to help. To draw more people into her causes, she made sure to have fun, too; she partied with her fellow bohemian reformers, known as the Ragged Edge Klub, and became known as a Queen of Bohemia. Kahn's talk will explore Zoe's adventures at the New York City waterfront, while reflecting on the Gilded Age's cruel economic disparities and xenophobia that echo in our own time. Zoe roamed amusement parks and danced until dawn at resort hotels, while sympathizing with the bewildered recent arrivals from Europe who found solace on Brooklyn beaches during breaks from their sweatshop work weeks.
Join the Coney Island Museum as we welcome author Eve Kahn and celebrate the extraordinary life of Zoe Anderson Norris.
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Admission Free for CIUSA members and residents of 11224
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About the Author:
Eve M. Kahn regularly contributes to, among other publications, The New York Times (where she served as weekly Antiques columnist, 2008-2016). Her new biography of Zoe Anderson Norris, which is a finalist for the Story Circle Network's Sarton prize and for Foreword magazine's Indie award, has been called "a daring story told with exceptional verve" (Amy Reading, Pulitzer finalist biographer of New Yorker editor Katharine White).
