John Dos Passos – 1896-1970

After graduating from Harvard in 1916, Dos Passos volunteered as an ambulance driver in World War I and, like many young men of his age, was emotionally scarred by the experience, becoming one of the so-called “Lost Generation.” After the war, Dos Passos became deeply involved in the struggle for social justice, culminating in his efforts to save the Anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, charged with murder. After their execution in 1927, he set to work on his masterpiece, the epic trilogy U.S.A., which depicts America as “two nations,” one of the wealthy and the other of the poor.