Entering Harvard University at age 12, as Fred Safier Jr. did in 1956, sounds like an automatic happy ending, but it’s really only a beginning. Child prodigies face heightened public scrutiny, unrealistic expectations, and emotional isolation that can wreak havoc on their growth into adulthood.
People once believed that child prodigies grew up to be addle-brained, socially awkward weaklings who failed at life, but ground-breaking studies in the 1940s and ’50s revealed that the above-average IQs of gifted children translated to above-average success as adults.
Dad wonders if his son will fall on his face when he is married, but decides that marriage is really just another kind of job — the skills he has gained from one can transfer to the other.
The search to understand where great ideas come from.
Pack up the car and fire up the grill, but before you leave to celebrate the dad or dads in your life out in this sticky summer weather, reminisce with these fictional fathers of a bygone decade by Norman Rockwell.
At the end of the 19th century, Florida egrets were slaughtered to near extinction in the name of women’s fashion. Efforts by the National Association of Audubon Societies help save those birds and changed the way we think of bird conservation today.
McEvoy starts his “Father Meets Son” series at the beginning of his son’s adult life: college graduation. As his son enters the real world, Dad doesn’t so much let him fly free as kick him out of the nest.
Birds are pretty, sure, but increasing scientific evidence reveals that life would be pretty tough without them.
In 1916, the science-fiction author predicted the outcome of World War I.
Sinclair Lewis was known for his cynicism, but he also had a romantic streak. Both are on display in “Honestly If Possible,” a short story published in the Post in 1916.
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How the Post empowered Norman Rockwell’s creative growth and expression.
The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library plans to quadruple its floor space and become even more active in the Indianapolis community, but it needs the help of Vonnegut fans everywhere.
When he took an all-girls typing class to get to know Sophie he had no idea that, years later, each keystroke would lead him back to the love he found in Mrs. Gilbert’s class.
Millions of Americans were exposed to Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves for the first time when this P.G. Wodehouse short story appeared in The Saturday Evening Post.
In 1954, Conrad Wirth, the director of the National Park Service, was responsible for 24 million acres of properties and the myriad troubles that came with them. Today, NPS sites cover an area larger than New Mexico, and the problems keep coming.
In 1956, Post editor Pete Martin wrote a surprisingly candid report on the Hollywood icon. He reveals things about the phenomenal blonde that even Marilyn herself didn’t know.