H. L. Mencken

As a child, Henry Louis “H.L.” Mencken was a voracious reader who also loved science. Mencken graduated valedictorian of his high school and started working as a journalist at the Baltimore Morning Herald in 1899. He later moved on to The Baltimore Sun and began making his name with editorials, in which he criticized ideas like bigotry and organized religion. In 1919, Mencken published The American Language, a highly praised book about the English language as it is spoken in the U.S. Mencken covered the Scopes Trial in 1925, famously dubbing it the “Monkey Trial.” In 1948, Mencken had a stroke that left him unable to write again; he died in his sleep in 1956.