Norman Thomas was a Presbyterian minister by training, one of the country's most famous pacifists during the First World War, and the six-time presidential candidate of the Socialist Party of America, 1928-1948. According to the character named Dad in The Mansion, the members of Goodyhay's unorthodox congregation "like as not would have voted for Norman Thomas even ahead of [Franklin] Roosevelt" (300).
Thelma is a "new girl" at Miss Reba's brothel in The Mansion (89); Reba tells Mink that she "just came in last week" (84). Apparently she forgets to ask Strutterbuck for money before having sex with him.
Q'Milla sends Strutterbuck a money order for two dollars in The Mansion. Reba and Minnie discuss whether she is "his sister or his daughter" or "his wife" (90-91); according to Minnie, "nobody but his wife" would send him two dollars (91). She lives in Lonoke, Arkansas.
A patron at Reba's brothel in Memphis in The Mansion. Montgomery Ward Snopes says Strutterbuck "even got his name out a book" (86), but it's not clear what book Mink might be thinking of, and the money order he gives Miss Reba proves Strutterbuck's last name is real. Most of the rest of his story, however, rings false, including the military rank he claims and the stories he tells about his service in World War I. He is described as "about fifty," "tall, pretty big, with a kind of rousterbout's face" (83). He tries to cheat a prostitute named Thelma out of her money.
In The Mansion Stillwell is the "gambler who had cut the throat of a Vicksburg prostitute" who is an inmate in Parchman Penitentiary at the same time as Mink (107). He is the ringleader of the group of prisoners who try to break out, and the only one who escapes successfully. Subsequently he threatens to kill Mink when Mink is finally released.
Joseph Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 until 1953. "Hitler's and Stalin's pact" - mentioned in The Mansion - was the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and Russia that the two men signed in 1939 (two years before Germany invaded Russia in World War II).
This is the younger Spoade, who in The Mansion follows his father's footsteps from South Carolina to Harvard. He is a classmate of Charles Mallison; he invites Charles "to Charleston to see what a Saint Cecilia ball looked like" (229). (The Saint Cecilia Society in Charleston is an upper class social club that was originally organized in 1766; its annual balls have been around since 1820.)
During World War II a Marine Corporal, and afterwards the husband of Essie Meadowfill. His character in The Mansion is honest and hard-working. He and his wife are one of the most promising married couples in the fictions.
This is the "paw" in The Mansion who "ought" to have "burned" his son's "britches off" for being out in the early morning hours to witness the robbery of the Christian's Drugstore (61).
