Stein

[stahyn]

Stein, Clarence, 1882-1975, American architect, b. New York City, studied architecture at Columbia Univ. and the École des Beaux-Arts. Stein worked in the office of Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, where he assisted in the planning of the San Diego World's Fair (1915). Along with Lewis Mumford and Henry Wright, Stein was a founding member of the Regional Planning Association of America, a group instrumental in importing Ebenezer Howard's garden city idea from England to the United States. Stein and Wright collaborated on the design of Radburn, New Jersey (1928-32), a garden suburb noted for its superblock layout. Stein wrote Toward New Towns for America (1951).

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Stein

Stein, Gertrude, 1874-1946, American author and patron of the arts, b. Allegheny (now part of Pittsburgh), Pa. A celebrated personality, she encouraged, aided, and influenced—through her patronage as well as through her writing—many literary and artistic figures. After attending (1893-97) Radcliffe, where she was a student of William James, she began premedical work at Johns Hopkins. In 1902, relinquishing her studies, she went abroad and from 1903 until her death lived chiefly in Paris. For many years her secretary and lover was Alice B. Toklas. In Paris, Stein became interested in modern art movements; she encouraged and purchased the work of many new painters, including Picasso and Matisse. During the 1920s, she was the leader of a cultural salon that included such writers as Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, all of whose works she influenced. It was she who first coined the phrase "lost generation" for those post-World War I expatriates. During World War II she remained in France, and after the war her Paris home became a meeting place for American soldiers.

Stein's own innovative writing emphasizes the sounds and rhythms rather than the sense of words. By departing from conventional meaning, grammar, and syntax, she attempted to capture "moments of consciousness," independent of time and memory. Her first published work was Three Lives (completed 1905, pub. 1909), short stories in which she explored the mental processes of three women, but her most characteristic and probably most difficult narrative is the lengthy, dark, dense, and repetitive The Making of Americans (completed 1911, pub. 1925). The famous Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933), a linear narrative written in relatively ordinary language, is the story of her own life presented as that of her companion. Stein's critical essays were published as Composition as Explanation (1926), How to Write (1931), Narration (1935), and Lectures in America (1935). Her many other works include the volume of poetry Tender Buttons (1914), a series of "cubist" verbal portraits; two librettos for the operas of Virgil Thomson, Four Saints in Three Acts (1934) and The Mother of Us All (1947); Wars I Have Seen (1945), some personal observations; and Brewsie and Willie (1946), about American soldiers in France.

See biographies by J. M. Brinnin (1959, repr. 1987) and J. Hobhouse (1975); D. Souhami, Gertrude and Alice (1992); B. Kellner, ed., A Gertrude Stein Companion (1988); A. B. Toklas, What Is Remembered (1963, repr. 1985); J. R. Mellow, Charmed Circle: Gertrude Stein & Company (1974, repr. 1991); L. Simon, ed., Gertrude Stein Remembered (1994); B. Wineapple, Sister Brother: Gertrude and Leo Stein (1996); J. Malcolm, Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice (2007); studies by R. Dubnick (1984), J. L. Walker (1984), and U. E. Dydo (2003); bibliography by R. A. Wilson and A. Uphill (1999).

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Stein

Stein, Karl, Freiherr vom und zum, 1757-1831, Prussian statesman and reformer. Rising through the Prussian bureaucracy, he became minister of commerce (1804-7) but was dismissed by King Frederick William III for his attempts to increase the power of the heads of the ministries. He was recalled (1807) as chief minister after Prussia's defeat by the French only to be dismissed again (1808) on pressure by Napoleon I. An exile in Russia, Stein helped to bring about the Russo-Prussian alliance of 1813 and returned to prominence as chief administrator of the reconquered and newly conquered Prussian provinces, following the Wars of Liberation against Napoleon. His hopes for a united Germany were disappointed at the Congress of Vienna, and his role after 1815, when Prussia turned to reaction, was not prominent. Few men have achieved as many radical and successful reforms in so peaceful a manner and in such difficult circumstances as did Baron Stein. His chief reforms were carried out in 1807-8, when Prussia was a defeated nation and a virtual dependency of France. They were continued by K. A. von Hardenberg after Stein's exile, and they were forwarded by such men as Gerhard von Scharnhorst in the military field and Wilhelm von Humboldt in the educational system. Before Stein's reforms Prussia was still a semifeudal state. Stein caused the king to abolish serfdom and the estate system by the Edict of 1807. The law ended the restrictions against the sale to burghers of land owned by nobles; those restrictions had had disastrous effects on Prussian economy, for the nobles lacked the capital to till their land properly. The edict also opened all trades and professions to all classes. Stein instituted local self-government in towns, cities, and provinces. His administration transformed Prussia into a modern state and enabled it to play its leading role in the eventual unification of Germany. Stein was also responsible for the publication, beginning in 1826, of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, which became the model for editions of national historical documents.

See biography by Sir John R. Seeley (3 vol., 1878, repr. 1968); G. S. Ford, Stein and the Era of Reform in Prussia (1922, repr. 1965); R. C. Raack, The Fall of Stein (1965).

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Stein

Stein, Lorenz von, 1815-90, German economist and sociologist. He studied jurisprudence at the Univ. of Kiel and at Paris and taught (1846-51) at the Univ. of Kiel, but his advocacy of independence for his native Schleswig caused his dismissal. From 1855 until his death he taught at the Univ. of Vienna. He influenced the practice of public finance but is perhaps best known for his sociological ideas, set forth in the third edition of his history of the social movement in France (3 vol., 1850, tr. 1964). He outlined an economic interpretation of history that included concepts of the proletariat and of class struggle. Despite a similarity of these ideas with those of Marxism, the extent of Stein's influence on Karl Marx is uncertain.

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Stein

Stein, William Howard, 1911-80, American biochemist, b. New York, N.Y., Ph.D. Columbia, 1937. Stein was a professor at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller Univ.) from 1937 until he retired in 1971. He shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Christian Anfinsen and Stanford Moore for their work on ribonuclease. Building on Anfinsen's work, which elucidated the way in which ribonuclease is formed in living cells, Moore and Stein articulated critical principles concerning the relationship between the molecular structure and the biological activity of the enzyme, which breaks down ribonucleic acid and translates it into proteins that the body can use.

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Stein-Leventhal syndrome

or polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)

Endocrine disorder in women, characterized by high levels of male hormones (androgens) and infrequent or absent ovulation (see reproductive system). It causes a high proportion of female infertility cases. Symptoms vary but often include increased serum concentrations of androgens, insulin resistance, hirsutism, acne, and obesity. Menstruation may be irregular, absent, or excessive. The ovaries are usually enlarged and contain cysts. The disease may remain undiagnosed until a woman tries to conceive. The underlying cause is not fully understood, and no genetic mutations have been associated with the syndrome. Many women with Stein-Leventhal syndrome are at an increased risk of developing metabolic disorders such as type II diabetes or lipid disorders such as atherosclerosis at an unusually young age. Treatment attempts to reduce androgen production. Infertility may be treated with clomiphene citrate or gonadotropins to induce ovulation.

Learn more about Stein-Leventhal syndrome with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

Stein, Gertrude

(born Feb. 3, 1874, Allegheny City, Pa., U.S.—died July 27, 1946, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France) U.S. avant-garde writer. Born to a wealthy family, Stein studied at Radcliffe College before moving to Paris, where from 1909 she lived with her companion Alice B. Toklas (1877–1967). Their home was a salon for leading artists and writers, including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Sherwood Anderson, and Ernest Hemingway. An early supporter of Cubism, she tried to parallel its theories in her work, including the poetry volume Tender Buttons (1914). Her prose was characterized by a unique style employing repetition, fragmentation, and use of the continuous present, especially in the immense novel The Making of Americans (written 1906–11, published 1928). Her only book to reach a wide public was The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933), actually Stein's own autobiography. Her other works include Four Saints in Three Acts (1934) and The Mother of Us All (1947), opera librettos scored by Virgil Thomson.