Friends of the Library

As part of Goucher's Alumnae/i Weekend this year, the Friends of the Goucher College Library invited Marion Rodgers '81, author of Mencken: The American Iconoclast, to speak on April 20.  The event, open to the public, was co-sponsored by the Alumnae & Alumni of Goucher College, the Schroedl Lecture, and the Friends.

Rodgers' interest in author H.L. Mencken began right in Goucher's own archives. Shortly before graduation, Rodgers came upon a box of love letters betwen Mencken and alumna Sara Haart.  Her interest in Mencken helped form the basis of her first book, Mencken and Sara.  For Mencken: The American Iconoclast, Rodgers drew her research from more than sixty archives, including several private collections in the U.S. and Germany, FBI files, personal interviews with Mencken's friends, and, of course, Mencken's own love letters.

Rodgers' latest work on Mencken has done much to highlight this champion of the free press.  Fellow Mencken author Charles Fecher has described Mencken: The American Iconoclast as "the most complete and most living picture of H.L. Mencken that has ever been attempted, written with vividness and even poignancy."

This article was written by Jennifer Spieler Curry and was originally published in
Focus: The Friends of the Goucher College Library Newsletter.