Philosophy

Ayn Rand (1905-82), pseudonym of Alisa Rosenbaum, was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and emigrated with her family to the United States in 1926, never returning to her homeland. Her novel The Fountainhead, published in 1943, immediately became a bestseller.
Also writing for film, Rand moved to New York in 1951 and published Atlas Shrugged Six years later, his novels cemented what is now called Objectivism, the philosophy that defends capitalism and the prevalence of the individual.