Breaking down the salons into historical periods is complicated due to the various historiographical debates that surround them. Most studies stretch from the early 16th century up until around the end of the 18th century. Goodman is typical in ending her study at the French Revolution where, she writes: 'the literary public sphere was transformed into the political public'. Steven Kale is relatively alone in his recent attempts to extend the period of the salon up until Revolution of 1848:A whole world of social arrangements and attitude supported the existence of French salons: an idle aristocracy, an ambitious middle class, an active intellectual life, the social density of a major urban center, sociable traditions, and a certain aristocratic feminism. This world did not disappear in 1789.In the 1920s, Gertrude Stein's Saturday evening salons (described in Ernest Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast" and depicted fictionally in Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris") gained notoriety for including Pablo Picasso and other twentieth-century luminaries like Alice B. Toklas.