Ellen Glasgow

popular name: Otto Plath

date_of_death: November 5, 1940

age: 55

cause_of_death: Embolism in the lung and untreated diabetes

claim_to_fame: Writers and Poets

best_know_for: Otto Emil Plath was a German-American writer, academic, and biologist. After reading the writings of Charles Darwin, Plath also developed an interest in biology. In the following years, Plath taught and studied in both German and biology. In 1912, he earned an M.A. from the University of Washington. Beginning in 1922, Plath taught at Boston University. In 1925, Plath earned an M.S. from Harvard University, and in 1928, he earned a Ph.D in science, also from Harvard. Plath worked as a professor of biology and German language at Boston University and as an entomologist, with a specific expertise on bumblebees. He was the father of American poet Sylvia Plath and Warren Plath, and the husband of Aurelia Plath. He wrote the 1934 book Bumblebees and Their Ways. He is notable for being the subject of "Daddy", one of his daughter's most well-known poems. Interesting to note that Otto is the only Plath to be buried at Winthrop Cemetery.

popular name: Sylvia Beach

date_of_death: October 5, 1962

age: 75

cause_of_death: Natural causes

claim_to_fame: Writers and Poets

best_know_for: In the 1920s and 1930s, Sylvia Beach owned and ran Shakespeare and Company, a Paris bookshop. The shop became the community center for "lost generation" intellectuals from Britain and America, including James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Stephen Spender, Djuna Barnes, Kay Boyle, Natalie Barney, Mina Loy, Margaret Anderson , and Gertrude Stein , as well as for prominent French writers like Paul Valéry, André Gide, and Paul Claudel. In 1959, Beach published her memoirs, Shakespeare and Company, a lively conversational account of the shop during the interwar years. She had a large collection of James Joyce's first editions, manuscripts and memorabilia, and as Joyce's reputation continued to grow—though he had died in 1940—Beach was approached by dozens of Joyce scholars for access to her collection.

popular name: Nellie Bly

date_of_death: January 27, 1922

age: 57

cause_of_death: Pneumonia

claim_to_fame: Writers and Poets

best_know_for: Nellie Bly, born Elizabeth Cochran on May 5, 1864, in Cochran's Mills, Pennsylvania, was a pioneering American journalist, industrialist, and humanitarian best known for her groundbreaking investigative reporting. She gained national recognition in 1887 when she feigned insanity to expose the harsh conditions at the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island, resulting in her famous exposé Ten Days in a Mad-House, which revolutionized mental health care. Bly also gained fame for her record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days, inspired by Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in 80 Days. As one of the first female investigative journalists, she challenged the traditional roles of women in journalism with her bold, immersive reporting style. Later in life, she became a businesswoman and continued advocating for social reform until her death on January 27, 1922. She was laid to rest at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York.