Americans in Paris

Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Gertrude Stein, Edith Wharton, Isadora Duncan, Man Ray, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Aaron Copland, Josephine Baker, Sidney Bechet, Henry Miller, Lance Armstrong... These and many other famous Americans came to Paris, as Americans have been doing since 1776. This web site, which is under construction, will tell the stories of famous Americans who came to Paris to work and live, or simply to visit:

Franklin, Minister to France, negotiating the Treaty of Paris and Great Britain's recognition of U.S. independence;

Jefferson, Minister to France, browsing in the bookshops along the Seine, adding to his personal collection of books that would later form the basis of the U.S. Library of Congress;

Hemingway, writing "The Sun Also Rises" in his favorite café in the morning and boxing in the afternoon, followed by a visit to "Harry's Bar" near the Opera;

George Gershwin, inspired by the taxi horns on Paris streets and adding them to his "An American in Paris";

Art Buchwald, covering the Paris nightclub scene for the New York Herald Tribune and rubbing elbows in cafés with the likes of Henry Fonda, Paul Newman, Duke Ellington, Elizabeth Taylor, Helen Hayes, Humphrey Bogart, and Lauren Bacall;

Lance Armstrong, riding his bike on the Champs-Elysées to final victory in the Tour de France a record seven times.