Ernest Hemingway is Introduced to Gertrude Stein

In the 1920s, her salon at 27 Rue de Fleurus, with walls covered by avant-garde paintings, attracted many of the great writers of the time, including Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Thornton Wilder, and Sherwood Anderson.

While she has been credited with coining the term "Lost Generation" for some of these expatriate American writers, at least three versions of the story that led to the phrase are on record, two by Ernest Hemingway and one by Gertrude Stein (Mellow, 1974, pp. 273–74). During the 20s, she became friends with writer Mina Loy, and the two would remain lifelong friends. Extremely charming, eloquent, and cheerful, she had a large circle of friends and tirelessly promoted herself. Her judgments in literature and art were highly influential. She was Ernest Hemingway's mentor, and upon the birth of his son he asked her to be the godmother of his child. In the summer of 1931, Stein advised the young composer and writer Paul Bowles to go to Tangier, where she and Alice had vacationed.

Though a number of her old friends had been scattered by the war, she received a constant stream of new visitors -- more writers than painters now, including Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson, Robert McAlmon, Djuna Barnes, and photographer Man Ray. It was Anderson who arranged her first meeting with Ernest Hemingway in 1922. Then 23, Hemingway was impressed by Stein's charm and admired her writing; he arranged for the publication of her novel in the transatlantic review, listened to her advice on his writing, and even asked her to be a godmother to his first child.