A true female aesthete, MABEL DODGE LUHAN, an American patron of the arts,was born (d: 1962); Dodge Luhan is particularly associated with the colony of artists who settled in Taos, New Mexico. Mabel Ganson Evans Dodge Sterne Luhan, to give her all her names, was married four times (the last time to an American Indian), had countless lovers, was enormously rich, and virtually originated the idea of “radical chic” by inviting to her salons in New Mexico, New York, and Italy the sort of people usually excluded from the guest lists of the rich — labor leaders, homosexuals, revolutionary artists, Bolsheviks, outré types like John Reed, Margaret Sanger, and D.H. Lawrence.

She was also aware of being a Lesbian and, more astonishingly still, wrote about it for the world to see in a memoir, Intimate Memories, published in 1933. In every way she was fifty years ahead of her time. Mabel Dodge Luhan died at her home in Taos in 1962 and was buried in Kit Carson Cemetery. The Mabel Dodge Luhan House has been designated a national historic landmark and is a historic inn and conference center. Natalie Goldberg frequently teaches at Mabel Dodge Luhan House, where Dennis Hopper wrote Easy Rider.