Eugene V. Debs, a Popular Prisoner

In 1920, US union leader and prominent socialist activist Eugene V. Debs was nominated and ran for president on the Socialist Party ticket. He conducted his entire campaign from his prison cell, since he had been convicted of wartime sedition in 1918. Nevertheless, he received almost a million votes. Debs also ran for president in 1900, 1904, 1908, and 1912 on the Socialist ticket, but had started his political career as the Democratic City Clerk of Terre Haute, Indiana.

Source: "Eugene Victor Debs, 1855-1926," EugeneVDebs.com.

Rebecca West, Another Name-Changing Feminist

"I have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is," wrote Rebecca West in 1913, "I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat." The woman known as Rebecca West was born Cicely Isabel Fairfield. She then later changed her first name to Cicily, before finally taking her nom de plume from the name of a character in "Romersholm," a play by Henrik Ibsen.

Source: Richard Robinson, University of East Anglia. "Rebecca West." The Literary Encyclopedia. 19 Dec. 2003. The Literary Dictionary Company. 20 September 2007.

Howard Hampton Versus Scientology

In 1991, then-Attorney General for the Province of Ontario, Canada (and current New Democratic Party leader and MPP for Kenora-Rainy River) filed a preferred indictment against the Church of Scientology in Canada and ten of its individual members, following the revelation of a spectacular set of break-ins and infiltrations of various Ontario governmental offices. The organisation was fined $250 000.

Sources: Joel J. Hanes, "Scientology in Canada."

"Scientology's Criminal History in Canada," Holysmoke.org.

Dorothy Parker, A Busy Woman

During the height of American literary sensation Dorothy Parker's fame, an editor for the New Yorker magazine kept trying to pressure her into writing for him. She kept refusing. Eventually, the hapless editor asked her why she wouldn't write for the New Yorker. She said, "I'm too fucking busy and vice versa."

Source: Malcolm Gladwell, personal anecdote, 1999.

Barbara Ehrenreich, Barbara Who?

When Barbara Ehrenreich was getting ready to begin her experiential research for her book Bait and Switch, she legally changed her name to "Barbara Alexander."

Source: Jill Owens, "Undercover With Barbara Ehrenreich," Powells.com.

Frederik Pohl, A Very Bad Communist

SF writer Frederik Pohl, doubtless influenced by his extremely left-leaning colleagues in The Futurians (a New York City-based group of science fiction fans active between 1938 and 1945), joined the Communist Party in 1936, but got kicked out sometime thereafter.

Source: The Futurians, Damon Knight. John Day, 1977.

Duncan "Atrios" Black, a Very Sweaty Economist

Before star blogger Duncan Black, aka "Atrios," actually revealed his identity, he repeatedly claimed he was a gym teacher.

Noam Chomsky: Eikh Omrim "Context-Free Grammar" b'Ivrit?

("How do you say 'Context-Free Grammar' in Hebrew?")

Although he was born in Philadelphia, Noam Chomsky's first two languages were Yiddish and Hebrew.

Source: "Noam Chomsky," Wikipedia.

Hillary Clinton, Belle of the BOD

Hillary Rodham Clinton sat on Wal-Mart's board of directors between 1986 and 1992.

Source: "Wal-Mart's First Lady," Ward Harkavy, Village Voice.

Nellie McClung, a Feminist Who Acted (Up)

In 1914, Canadian women's suffrage pioneer Nellie McClung wrote and acted the lead part in a play called "The Women's Parliament," which postulated a society where men were not permitted to vote, and subjected a "delegation of men" to the kind of treatment women's suffrage activists had received at the hands of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba. She later turned the play into a short story "The Play," and a chapter of her novel, Purple Springs (1921).

Source: Columbo's Book of Canada, Edited by John Robert Columbo. Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers, 1978.

Fidel Castro, The New York Giant Who Wasn't

In the 1940s, the baseball team the New York Giants scouted a young Cuban law student named Fidel Castro, and even offered him a $5000 signing bonus. He turned them down, thereby, as historian Lois Browne put it, "leaving North Americans to ponder one of the more intruiguing 'what ifs' of modern history."

Source: Lois Browne. The Girls of Summer: The Real Story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, Toronto: Harper-Collins, 1992, page 127.

Abel Meeropol, Who Didn't Write "It's A Small World After All"

Abel Meeropol, who wrote the now-classic jazz song "Strange Fruit" [video link] adopted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg's children after the Rosenbergs were convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and executed.