James thomas flexner

James Thomas Flexner was born in Manhattan on January 13, 1908 to Simon and Helen (Thomas) Flexner. Simon Flexner (1863–1946), a physician, scientist, and professor of experimental pathology at the University of Pennsylvania, served as first director of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.

Helen (Thomas) Flexner (1871–1956), a professor of English at Bryn Mawr College (where her sister served as president), was connected by family marriages to the philosopher Bertrand Russell and the art critic Bernard Berenson.

As a child James Thomas Flexner found reading and writing difficult.

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He overcame his dyslexia one day as he sat in Central Park staring at a page of Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Peter Rabbit, when the printed marks suddenly formed themselves into words. This achievement so inspired Flexner that from then on writing his own stories became the focus of his life.

Educated at the progressive Lincoln School of Columbia University's Teache