Fitzgerald Museum

F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald are remembered for being emblems of the jazz age. F. Scott published four highly successful novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby, and Tender Is the Night. While he achieved limited success in his lifetime, he is now widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. As such, Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the 1920s. (... See below to read more).

Zelda was born in Montgomery, Alabama, and noted for her beauty and high spirits. She was dubbed by her husband as "the first American Flapper." The dynamics of their marriage have been highly debated -- plagued by wild drinking, infidelity and bitter accusations. One of these accusations and sources of strain was F. Scott's repeated use of her diaries as material for his works -- even drawing from her person letters, doctors visits, and psychiatric records. It was at this home that Zelda suffered a mental breakdown and was thereafter confined to various clinics, on and off, until her death.

The Fitzgerald Museum is the only dedicated museum to the lives and legacies of F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald in the world. It is the last of four extant homes that survived their travels across the world. Their gypsy lifestyle  placed them in a number of locations including New York, Paris, Italy, Minnesota and Montgomery, Alabama (to name a few). 

Zelda Sayre was a native of Montgomery and remained here until her marriage to Scott in 1920. Their courtship in Montgomery would mark the beginning of the 'Jazz Age'. They would return several times, including a tale of the 'Cruise of the Rolling Junk' and live here from 1931 until the spring of 1932. Her father's death would propel her from Montgomery to the Phipp's Clinic in Baltimore and Scott & Scottie would soon follow. This would be the last home that the Fitzgeralds lived in as a family.

She would eventually return after Scott's death in 1940 and live on Sayre Street, just a few blocks down from her childhood home on Pleasant Avenue, with her mother until 1946. Eventually, their daughter Scottie would return to Montgomery in 1975 and live here until her death in 1985. She has three surviving children; her two daughters continue to control the Fitzgerald Trust today.

The structure itself was originally built in 1909 as a single family home. It would be subsidized into apartments when the Fitzgeralds moved out in 1932. In 1986, it was set to be demolished and our founders, the McPhillips, personally purchased the home and donated it as the Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald Museum. Today, we run on the support and generosity of the Fitzgerald community locally and abroad! 

http://www.thefitzgeraldmuseum.org/