The Sage of Baltimore

About this event

Hear about Henry Louis Mencken: a journalist, author, arbiter of the American language, opinion maker, ultimately a literary giant and native Baltimorean.

His Scopes trial reporting skewered the sacred cows of the time; his literate magazine work with the Smart Set and American Mercury raised the level of public discourse. We look at the high points of his life -- his personal elitism, a blind spot where empathy should have been and views that bordered on racial bias. His guiding stars were always less government and more personal liberty, but in his negative views of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal made him out of step with the times. Mencken the person was in many ways controversial, yet he was a powerful influencer on American literature.

Sponsored by the Friends of the Perry Hall Library.