History of Milwaukee Airport Bookstore Extends Back to Gertrude Stein

At Milwaukee Public Radio (WUWM), learn about the history of Renaissance Books, the bookstore inside General Mitchell International Airport, courtesy of reporter Maayan Silver. "Walk into the public area of Milwaukee’s General Mitchell International Airport, and you’ll see traditional airport sights: monitors for departures, places to grab coffee and food. But you’ll also see a 2,600-square-foot used bookstore, Renaissance Books," Silver begins. The bookstore's inspiration stretches far back to WWII, when one of its co-owners, George John, met Gertrude Stein. More: 

Milwaukeeans and travelers who use the airport can thank two men for the bookstore: current owner Bob John and his older brother and the founder of Renaissance Books, the late George John.

George's connection to the literary world goes beyond Milwaukee County — and even before the bookshop — back to World War II.

That’s when he encountered one of the most famous writers of that modernist period — Gertrude Stein. She was an American ex-pat in Europe who ran a salon for artists in Paris with her partner Alice B. Toklas. George had gone to Europe as an ambulance driver in the American Field Service during that time. But he didn't just drive an ambulance.

"He was in Paris at the end of WWII after liberation and was a poet," says Renaissance bookseller Jim Rosenbaum. "He had a whole portfolio of his efforts, and he walked over to Gertrude Stein’s apartment and knocked on the door and was totally surprised when Gertrude Stein actually opened the door. And he dropped all the poems on the sidewalk, and she helped him pick them up."

Stein, apparently, was no stranger to servicemen coming to her door. Toklas wrote that they’d come to Stein’s door to try and get a rise out of her. "And they’d copy poems out of John Donne or Chaucer or somebody, and they’d give her their poems. But she was not fooled, and she wasn’t happy by being the butt of a joke," says Jim. "But with George John, she really appreciated a true poet."

Learn more at Milwaukee Public Radio.