Literary Landmarks: Matilda Joslyn Gage House The Matilda Joslyn Gage House is especially significant because it interprets a rich five-dimensional segment of United States History: women’s rights, abolition, the Iroquois influence on democracy and women’s rights, the ongoing struggle to keep religion out of government and the vision of peace and social justice contained in the Oz books. Matilda Joslyn Gage was a co-leader of the early women’s rights movement alongside Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Her magnificent Greek Revival house in Fayetteville, N.Y., in which she lived and worked for 44 years, stands today as a testament to the ongoing struggle for liberty, justice and civil rights. The Gage Home is also the only house in the United States open to the public where L. Frank Baum lived. The author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz married Gage’s daughter Maud in its front parlor, and the young couple visited there often, later living in the home for a brief period of time. Gage became one of Baum’s intellectual mentors and encouraged him to write down his stories. For more information click here: Gage House, or click here for books by L. Frank Baum, or here for books on Women's Studies .

Today's Birthdays:

• Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882), Italian general and nationalist
• Stephen Collins Foster (1826-1864), Pennsylvania-born songwriter, composer (Oh! Susannah, My Old Kentucky Home)
• Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), 30th President of U.S.
• George M. Cohan (1878-1942), Rhode Island-born songwriter, actor, singer, dancer
• Reuben Lucius "Rube" Goldberg (1883-1970), San Franciscan cartoonist, sculptor, cofounder and president of National Cartoonists Society
• Dr. Pilar Barbosa de Rosario (1898-1997), Puerto Rican educator, historian and political activist
• Louis Armstrong (1901-1971), New Orleans' most famous jazz trumpeter of the 20th century