Author: The Foundation for a Better Life

Suzanne Simard grew up in the woods. Her family worked as loggers, and when she was old enough, she, too, could be found in the trees. She loved the work, which she describes as “extremely exciting because it was so dangerous” and because she was one of the first women in the industry. The wilderness…

Jesse Owens was the grandson of enslaved people and the son of Alabama sharecroppers. Luz Long studied law at the University of Leipzig and was the physical embodiment of Hitler’s nationalistic ideal. One would become a national hero. One would die in the upcoming war. Both would call out racism at a time when it…

Seeing the inner workings of a hand, or the nervous system surrounding the spleen, doesn’t seem appealing to most people. However, “Gray’s Anatomy,” the corpus of medical students and artists for over 100 years, has the staying power of the world’s greatest novels. It was created at a time when dissecting cadavers, or dead bodies,…

Phil Mortillaro is the son of immigrants. He has worked as a locksmith since he left school in the eighth grade. All five of his children grew up watching him work hard in his Greenwich Village shop, but only his youngest son followed in his footsteps and became a locksmith as well. As wave after…

Nome, Alaska, January 1925. Home to roughly 1,400 hearty people who live off what they can pull from the rugged landscape. The population in the U.S. territory of Alaska is a mix of Athabascan and Inuit people and intrepid adventurers from the United States and the colder parts of Europe. Looking back, we may see…