![Gertrude Stein birthplace](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/22/850_Beech_Avenue%2C_Allegheny_West%2C_2024-04-09%2C_02.jpg/449px-850_Beech_Avenue%2C_Allegheny_West%2C_2024-04-09%2C_02.jpg)
“Gertrude Stein was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania,” says Alice in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. “As I am an ardent californian and as she spent her youth there I have often begged her to be born in California but she has always remained firmly born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. She left it when she was six months old and has never seen it again and now it no longer exists being all of it Pittsburgh. She used however to delight in being born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania when during the war, in connection with war work, we used to have papers made out and they always immediately wanted to know one’s birth-place. She used to say if she had been really born in California as I wanted her to have been she would never have had the pleasure of seeing the various french officials try to write, Allegheny, Pennsylvania.”