The Maryhill Museum of Art is located on 5,300 acres in the Columbia
River Gorge. Miles from any sizeable town and surrounded by the gorge's
spectacular scenery, Maryhill is an internationally recognized -- and
undeniably eclectic -- repository of art that ranges from one of the
nation's best Rodin collections to one of the world's largest assemblage
of chess sets. It is, as The New York Times once described it, "oddly
fitting -- it brought the better works of man near one of the better
works of nature."
Dancer, Dreamers, and the Queen of Romania is the story of the four
widely disparate people whose lives intertwined in such a way as to lay
the foundation for the museum. Loie Fuller was once the world's most
famous dancer, who dreamed of becoming beautiful by creating beauty.
Alma Spreckels was one of America's wealthiest women, who dreamed of
being accepted for who she wanted to be rather than who she was. Sam
Hill was a rich man who dreamed of becoming a great man. And Marie of
Romania was a real-life queen who dreamed of being a fairy-tale queen.
And it is the story of those who followed them. These people nurtured
and grew Maryhill from a fascinating oddity that Time magazine once
called "a top hat in the jungle" to one of the relatively few U.S.
museums accredited in every category by the American Alliance of
Museums.
This is a book that will appeal to readers who like both biography and
history, and will have particular appeal, but by no means be limited to,
Western U.S. and Pacific Northwest audiences. It is "side-street"
history in the tradition of Boys in the Boat, Unbroken, or Dead
Wake. It will appeal to art lovers. It will also appeal to everyone who
has visited or just passed by an inviting-but-oddly-located museum and
wondered how it got there and who keeps it going.
This heretofore untold and remarkable story is narrated by a master
wordsmith and historian. Steve Wiegand is the author or co-author of
numerous books, including U.S. History for Dummies (Wiley), the 4th
edition of which will be out in March 2019; Lessons from the Great
Depression for Dummies (Wiley, 2009); The Mental Floss History of the
World (Collins, 2008) and Papers of Permanence: The First 150 Years of
the McClatchy Company (McClatchy, 2007).
Wiegand spent 35 years as a newspaper reporter and columnist for the San
Diego Union-Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, and Sacramento Bee, and
has published in numerous magazines and periodicals.
