Ayn Rand
Russian-born American writer and public philosopher (1905–1982)
Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum; February 2 [O.S. January 20], 1905 – March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand ( ), was a Russian-American writer and philosopher. She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system which she named Objectivism.
Born and educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926. After two early novels that were initially unsuccessful and two Broadway plays, Rand achieved fame with her 1943 novel The Fountainhead. In 1957, she published her best-selling work, the novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward, until her death in 1982, she turned to non-fiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own periodicals and releasing several collections of essays.
Rand advocated reason and rejected faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism as opposed to altruism and hedonism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and supported laissez-faire capitalism, which she defined as the system based on recognizing individual rights, including private property rights. Although she opposed libertarianism, which she viewed as anarchism, Rand is often associated with the modern libertarian movement in the United States.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ayn Rand” is russian-born American writer and public philosopher (1905–1982). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Rand, Russian-born and American, not as a finished interpretation.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q132524. VIAF identifies the subject as 98139134. The Library of Congress control number is n50054463. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1905, 1982, 1926 and 1943.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ayn Rand” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.