receptions throughout her husband's eight-year presidency (1789–1797). At these gatherings, members of Congress, visiting foreign dignitaries, and ordinary citizens alike were received at the executive mansion. More recently, "society hostesses" such as Perle Mesta have done so as well. The Stettheimer sisters, including the artist Florine Stettheimer, hosted gatherings at their New York City home in the 1920s and '30s. During the Harlem Renaissance, Ruth Logan Roberts, Georgia Douglas Johnson and Zora Neale Hurston hosted salons that brought together leading figures in African-American literature, and in the culture and politics of Harlem at the time. Arab world Modern-day salons Modern-day versions of the traditional salon (some with a literary focus, and others exploring other disciplines in the arts and sciences) are held throughout the world, in private homes and public venues. Sally Quinn and her husband Ben Bradlee hosted influential salons in Washington DC from the 1970s until the 2000s. "An invitation to the couple’s historic Georgetown home was one of the most coveted status symbols in the nation’s capital, an entry to an elite salon of the powerful, talented and witty." In 2014, in response to the isolation of the digital life, in person events and salons grew in popularity. In 2021 response to the isolation of the pandemic, Susan MacTavish Best, who was part of the movement, launched a how-to host a salon website (TheSalonHost.com) Other uses of the word The word salon also refers to art exhibitions. The Paris Salon was originally an officially sanctioned exhibit of recent works of painting and sculpture by members of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, starting in 1673 and soon moving from the Salon Carré of the Palace of the Louvre. The name salon remained, even when other quarters were found and the exhibits' irregular intervals became biennial. A jury system of selection was introduced in 1748, and the salon remained a major annual event even after the government withdrew official sponsorship in 1881. The related terms salon-style exhibition or salon-style hang describe the practice of displaying large numbers of paintings, thus requiring placing them close together at multiple heights, often on a high wall. See also References Bibliography Craveri, Benedetta, The Age of Conversation (New York: New York Review Books, 2005) Dollinger, Petra, Salon, EGO - European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2019, retrieved: March 8, 2021 (pdf). Davetian, Benet, Civility: A Cultural History (University