News at Eleven: [Gertrude] Stein's audiences, by and large,

did not understand her lectures. Shortly into her tour, psychiatrists speculated that Stein suffered from palilalia, a speech disorder that causes patients to stutter over words or phrases. "Whether it was Picasso or Matisse or Van Gogh, people said that Modernism [a movement that Stein was very much a part of] was the art of the insane," says Corn. "It is a very common reductionism that you find running throughout modern arts and letters." But talk of the putative diagnosis quickly fizzled.

Stein engaged her audience with her personality and the musicality of her language. "Even if people couldn't follow her, she was so earnest and sincere," says [Wanda M.] Corn. "People loved listening to her," especially during her more candid question-and- answer sessions. According to Corn, Americans "welcomed home the prodigal daughter." Or grandmother--the 60-year-old was charming.

from The Smithsonian Magazine: When Gertrude Stein Toured America

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