1.
Philadelphia
–
In 1682, William Penn, an English Quaker, founded the city to serve as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony. Philadelphia was one of the capitals in the Revolutionary War. In the 19th century, Philadelphia became an industrial center. It became a destination for African-Americans in the Great Migration. The areas many universities and colleges make Philadelphia a top international study destination, as the city has evolved into an educational, with a gross domestic product of $388 billion, Philadelphia ranks ninth among world cities and fourth in the nation. Philadelphia is the center of activity in Pennsylvania and is home to seven Fortune 1000 companies. The Philadelphia skyline is growing, with a market of almost 81,900 commercial properties in 2016 including several prominent skyscrapers. The city is known for its arts, culture, and rich history, Philadelphia has more outdoor sculptures and murals than any other American city. Fairmount Park, when combined with the adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park in the watershed, is one of the largest contiguous urban park areas in the United States. The 67 National Historic Landmarks in the city helped account for the $10 billion generated by tourism, Philadelphia is the only World Heritage City in the United States. Before Europeans arrived, the Philadelphia area was home to the Lenape Indians in the village of Shackamaxon, the Lenape are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government. They are also called Delaware Indians and their territory was along the Delaware River watershed, western Long Island. Most Lenape were pushed out of their Delaware homeland during the 18th century by expanding European colonies, Lenape communities were weakened by newly introduced diseases, mainly smallpox, and violent conflict with Europeans. Iroquois people occasionally fought the Lenape, surviving Lenape moved west into the upper Ohio River basin. The American Revolutionary War and United States independence pushed them further west, in the 1860s, the United States government sent most Lenape remaining in the eastern United States to the Indian Territory under the Indian removal policy. In the 21st century, most Lenape now reside in the US state of Oklahoma, with communities living also in Wisconsin, Ontario. The Dutch considered the entire Delaware River valley to be part of their New Netherland colony, in 1638, Swedish settlers led by renegade Dutch established the colony of New Sweden at Fort Christina and quickly spread out in the valley. In 1644, New Sweden supported the Susquehannocks in their defeat of the English colony of Maryland
2.
President of the United States
–
The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. The president is considered to be one of the worlds most powerful political figures, the role includes being the commander-in-chief of the worlds most expensive military with the second largest nuclear arsenal and leading the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP. The office of President holds significant hard and soft power both in the United States and abroad, Constitution vests the executive power of the United States in the president. The president is empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves. The president is responsible for dictating the legislative agenda of the party to which the president is a member. The president also directs the foreign and domestic policy of the United States, since the office of President was established in 1789, its power has grown substantially, as has the power of the federal government as a whole. However, nine vice presidents have assumed the presidency without having elected to the office. The Twenty-second Amendment prohibits anyone from being elected president for a third term, in all,44 individuals have served 45 presidencies spanning 57 full four-year terms. On January 20,2017, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th, in 1776, the Thirteen Colonies, acting through the Second Continental Congress, declared political independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution. The new states, though independent of each other as nation states, desiring to avoid anything that remotely resembled a monarchy, Congress negotiated the Articles of Confederation to establish a weak alliance between the states. Out from under any monarchy, the states assigned some formerly royal prerogatives to Congress, only after all the states agreed to a resolution settling competing western land claims did the Articles take effect on March 1,1781, when Maryland became the final state to ratify them. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former colonies, with peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. Prospects for the convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washingtons attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia. It was through the negotiations at Philadelphia that the presidency framed in the U. S. The first power the Constitution confers upon the president is the veto, the Presentment Clause requires any bill passed by Congress to be presented to the president before it can become law. Once the legislation has been presented, the president has three options, Sign the legislation, the bill becomes law. Veto the legislation and return it to Congress, expressing any objections, in this instance, the president neither signs nor vetoes the legislation
3.
Andrew Johnson
–
Andrew Johnson was the 17th President of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. Johnson became president as he was president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. A Democrat who ran with Lincoln on the National Union ticket, the new president favored quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union. His plans did not give protection to the slaves, and he came into conflict with the Republican-dominated Congress. The first American president to be impeached, he was acquitted in the Senate by one vote, Johnson was born in poverty in Raleigh, North Carolina. Apprenticed as a tailor, he worked in several towns before settling in Greeneville. He served as alderman and mayor there before being elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1835, after brief service in the Tennessee Senate, Johnson was elected to the federal House of Representatives in 1843, where he served five two-year terms. He became Governor of Tennessee for four years, and was elected by the legislature to the Senate in 1857, in his congressional service, he sought passage of the Homestead Bill, which was enacted soon after he left his Senate seat in 1862. As Southern slave states, including Tennessee, seceded to form the Confederate States of America and he was the only sitting senator from a Confederate state who did not resign his seat upon learning of his states secession. In 1862, Lincoln appointed him as governor of Tennessee after most of it had been retaken. When Johnson was sworn in as president in March 1865, he gave a rambling speech. Six weeks later, the assassination of Lincoln made him president, Johnson implemented his own form of Presidential Reconstruction – a series of proclamations directing the seceded states to hold conventions and elections to re-form their civil governments. Johnson vetoed their bills, and Congressional Republicans overrode him, setting a pattern for the remainder of his presidency, Johnson opposed the Fourteenth Amendment, which gave citizenship to former slaves. In 1866, Johnson went on a national tour promoting his executive policies. As the conflict between the branches of government grew, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act, restricting Johnsons ability to fire Cabinet officials. When he persisted in trying to dismiss Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, he was impeached by the House of Representatives, and narrowly avoided conviction in the Senate and removal from office. Returning to Tennessee after his presidency, Johnson sought political vindication, Johnson is regarded by many historians as one of the worst presidents in American history. While some admire his strict constitutionalism, his opposition to federally guaranteed rights for African Americans is widely criticized
4.
Radical Republican
–
The Radical Republicans were a faction of American politicians within the Republican Party of the United States from around 1854 until the end of Reconstruction in 1877. During the war, Radical Republicans often opposed Lincoln in terms of selection of generals, Radicals pushed for the uncompensated abolition of slavery, while Lincoln wanted to pay slave owners who were loyal to the Union. After the war, the Radicals demanded civil rights for freedmen and they initiated the various Reconstruction Acts, and limited political and voting rights for ex-Confederate civil officials, military officers and soldiers. They bitterly fought President Andrew Johnson, they weakened his powers and attempted to remove him from office through impeachment, the term radical was in common use in the anti-slavery movement before the Civil War, referring not to abolitionists but to Northern politicians strongly opposed to Slave Power. There was movement in both directions, some of the pre-war radicals became more conservative during the war, while some prewar moderates became Radicals, some wartime radicals had been conservative Democrats before the war, often taking proslavery positions. The Radicals were never organized, and there was movement in. Their most successful and systematic leader was Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens in the House of Representatives, the Democrats were strongly opposed to the Radicals, but they were generally a weak minority in politics until they took control of the House in the 1874 congressional elections. The moderate and conservative Republican factions usually opposed the radicals, Lincoln tried to build a multi-faction coalition, including radicals, conservatives, moderates, and War Democrats, while he was often opposed by the Radicals, he never ostracized them. Andrew Johnson was thought to be a Radical when he became president in 1865, Johnson, however, was so inept as a politician he was unable to form a cohesive support network. Finally in 1872, the Liberal Republicans, most of them ex-radicals, ran a presidential campaign and they argued that Grant and the Radicals were corrupt, and had imposed Reconstruction far too long on the South. They were overwhelmingly defeated and collapsed as a movement, on issues not concerned with the Slave Power, the destruction of the Confederacy, the eradication of slavery and the rights of the Freedmen, Radicals took positions all over the political map. For example, Radicals who had once been Whigs generally supported high tariffs, some men were for hard money and no inflation, and others were for soft money and inflation. On foreign policy issues, the Radicals and moderates generally did not take distinctive positions, after the 1860 elections, moderate Republicans dominated the Congress. Radical Republicans were often critical of Lincoln, who believed was too slow in freeing slaves. Lincoln put all factions in his cabinet, including Radicals like Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln appointed many Radical Republicans, such as journalist James Shepherd Pike, to key diplomatic positions. Angry with Lincoln, in 1864 some Radicals briefly formed a party called the Radical Democracy Party with John C. Frémont as their candidate for president, until Frémont withdrew, an important Republican opponent of the Radical Republicans was Henry Jarvis Raymond. Raymond was both editor of the New York Times and also a chairman of the Republican National Committee, in Congress the most influential Radical Republicans were U. S
5.
Reconstruction Era
–
Johnson followed a lenient policy toward ex-Confederates. Lincolns last speeches show that he was leaning toward supporting the enfranchisement of all freedmen, whereas Johnson was opposed to this. A Republican coalition came to power in all the southern states and set out to transform the society by setting up a free labor economy, using the U. S. Army. The Bureau protected the rights of freedmen, negotiated labor contracts. Thousands of Northerners came South as missionaries, teachers, businessmen, rebuilding the rundown railroad system was a major strategy, but it collapsed when a nationwide depression struck the economy. The Radicals in the House of Representatives, frustrated by Johnsons opposition to Congressional Reconstruction, filed impeachment charges, in early 1866, Congress passed the Freedmens Bureau and Civil Rights Bills and sent them to Johnson for his signature. Meanwhile, self-styled Conservatives strongly opposed reconstruction and they alleged widespread corruption by the Carpetbaggers, excessive state spending and ruinous taxes. Southern democrats and conservatives violently counterattacked and had regained power in each redeemed Southern state by 1877, meanwhile, public support for Reconstruction policies, requiring continued supervision of the South, faded in the North, as voters decided that the Civil War and years of conflict should stop. Reconstruction was a significant chapter in the history of civil rights in the United States, in the different states Reconstruction began and ended at different times, federal Reconstruction ended with the Compromise of 1877. In recent decades most historians follow Foner in dating the Reconstruction of the south as starting in 1863 rather than 1865, Reconstruction policies were debated in the North when the war began, and commenced in earnest after Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation, issued on January 1,1863. As Confederate states came back under control of the US Army, President Abraham Lincoln set up reconstructed governments in Tennessee, Arkansas and he experimented by giving land to blacks in South Carolina. By fall 1865, the new President Andrew Johnson declared the war goals of national unity, Republicans in Congress, refusing to accept Johnsons lenient terms, rejected new members of Congress, some of whom had been high-ranking Confederate officials a few months before. Johnson broke with the Republicans after vetoing two key bills that supported the Freedmens Bureau and provided federal civil rights to the freedmen and that same year, Congress removed civilian governments in the South, and placed the former Confederacy under the rule of the U. S. Army. In ten states, coalitions of freedmen, recent black and white arrivals from the North, Conservative opponents called the Republican regimes corrupt and instigated violence toward freedmen and whites who supported Reconstruction. Most of the violence was carried out by members of the Ku Klux Klan, Klan members attacked and intimidated blacks seeking to exercise their new civil rights, as well as Republican politicians in the south favoring those civil rights. One such politician murdered by the Klan on the eve of the 1868 presidential election was Republican Congressman James M. Hinds of Arkansas, widespread violence in the south led to federal intervention by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1871, which suppressed the Klan. Nevertheless, white Democrats, calling themselves Redeemers, regained control of the state by state, sometimes using fraud. The end of Reconstruction was a process, and the period of Republican control ended at different times in different states
6.
Girard Avenue
–
Girard Avenue is a major commercial and residential street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For most of its length it runs east-west, but at Frankford Avenue it makes a 45-degree turn north, at Frankford Avenue it makes a 45-degree turn to the north and becomes East Girard Avenue, running parallel to the Delaware River until it ends at Richmond Street. Girard Avenue was named for banker Stephen Girard – at his death, the first Girard Avenue was a 3-block street in North Philadelphia, between the 1800-block of Ridge Avenue and Corinthian Avenue, approaching the under-construction Girard College. By 1852, the avenue had been extended west to 33rd Street, and in 1855, the 12-block gap between 6th and 18th Streets was filled in before the Civil War. The West Philadelphia section of the avenue was extended to 64th Street in 1868, in 1844, the area surrounding 2nd Street and Franklin Street was the site of several days of anti-Catholic nativist riots. Beginning May 3, the anti-immigrant American Republican Party held rallies in the Irish Catholic neighborhood of Kensington, nativists responded by vandalizing houses and businesses owned by Catholics. Following several deaths, the Pennsylvania militia took control, but nativists returned in larger numbers. The rioting reached its peak on May 8, when St. Michaels Church and its rectory, a Catholic school, as the state militia struggled to regain control in Kensington, another nativist mob burned St. Augustines Church in the Old City neighborhood. In all, more than 14 people were killed, an estimated 50 were injured, the Kensington riots may have been more anti-Irish than anti-Catholic — the nativists did not attack the German Catholic church under construction at 5th Street and Girard Avenue. The major landmark of Girard Avenue in North Philadelphia is Girard College, the avenue merges with South College Avenue between 19th and 25th Streets to bypass the schools 43 acre campus. Girard Avenue Historic District – located between the school and Broad Street – features architecturally significant residential and religious buildings, Girard Avenue West Historic District – located between the school and 29th Street – features architecturally significant commercial and residential buildings. Brewerytown Historic District – located between 30th Street and East Fairmount Park – features architecturally significant residential and industrial buildings, Girard Avenue east of Broad Street was a major shopping and entertainment district for lower North Philadelphia. Most of the late-19th and early-20th century theaters have been demolished, St. Peter the Apostle Church, at 5th Street, houses the National Shrine of Saint John Neumann, the fourth Bishop of Philadelphia and the first American man to be canonized as a Roman Catholic saint. The Church of the Gesu, at 18th Street, built as a neighborhood Catholic church, the Green Hill Presbyterian Church, between 16th and 17th Streets, a Gothic Revival church that pre-dated development of the area, was demolished in 2009 following decades of neglect. Medical facilities include the Girard Medical Center, at 8th Street, hatfield House, at 33rd Street, is a colonial villa built in 1760, with Greek Revival additions from 1838. In 1930, it was relocated from Nicetown to East Fairmount Park, the current Girard Avenue Bridge is the third bridge over the Schuylkill River at that location. It incorporates some of the decorative ironwork from the second bridge, the Stephen Smith Home for the Aged, at 44th Street, a nursing home built by Quakers in 1871 to provide care for infirmed African Americans, was demolished in 2009. The Kensington Nation Bank, at Frankford Avenue, is still in use as a bank, the Green Tree Tavern, at Marlborough Street, is on the National Register of Historic Places
7.
Girard College
–
Girard College is an independent college preparatory 5-day boarding school located on a 43-acre campus in the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the eastern United States. Girard College enrolls academically capable students, grades one through twelve, the scholarship covers most of the costs of attending Girard, including tuition, room and board, books and school uniforms. The scholarship may be renewed yearly until the high school graduation. Applicants must be at least six years old, demonstrate good social skills and the potential for scholastic achievement, Girard accepts students on the basis of previous school records, admissions testing, a visit and interviews. The process is conducted without preference for race, gender, religion or national origin, born in the Atlantic merchant and naval seaport city of Bordeaux, in the Kingdom of France, Stephen Girard, was the eldest of nine children. His mother died when he was age 11, and he left home at the age of 14 to spend the next 12 years sailing the seas and learning the international mercantile and shipping business. During his 55 years in the City of Brotherly Love, he one of the richest Americans of his time. Girard was married to Mary Lum, from 1777 until her death in 1815 and his initial success in business and the source of his first fortune was international shipping and merchant activities. He sent his cargo sailing ships, crews and captains around the world, trading goods and amassing a fortune. The new First Bank of the U. S. had been established on behalf of private financiers, businessmen. When the First Bank of the U. S and this made him America’s first private banker. He then made his fortune in banking. By the time of his death, his fortune totaled approximately $7.5 million, one of the most interesting chapters of Girard’s life was his role in fighting Philadelphia’s devastating yellow-fever epidemic in the summer of 1793. With the assistance of noted attorney William J. Duane, in the 1820s, he wrote a long will and testament and he delighted in keeping the document secret, knowing that everyone wondered what would happen to his fortune. Immediately after his death in 1831, the provisions of his will were made public, in addition to extensive personal and institutional bequests, he left the bulk of his fortune to the city of Philadelphia to build and operate a residential school for impoverished orphans. In 1831, the bequest was the largest single act of philanthropy up to time in American history. Girard’s will eventually became famous for his restriction that students must be poor, white, male, the school remained for needy white boys for over a century. After an extended, bitter, 14-year civil-rights struggle, the first four black boys entered the school in September 1968, sixteen years later, the policy of an all-male student body was also changed, and the first girls, both black and white, were admitted in 1984
8.
Darius N. Couch
–
Darius Nash Couch was an American soldier, businessman, and naturalist. He served as a career U. S. Army officer during the Mexican-American War, the Second Seminole War, during the Civil War, Couch fought notably in the Peninsula and Fredericksburg campaigns of 1862, and the Chancellorsville and Gettysburg campaigns of 1863. He rose to command a corps in the Army of the Potomac and he has been described as personally courageous, very thin in build, and frail of health. Couch was born in 1822 on a farm in the village of Southeast in Putnam County, New York, in 1842 he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, graduating four years later 13th out of 59 cadets. On July 1,1846, Couch was commissioned a second lieutenant and was assigned to the 4th U. S. Artillery. Couch then saw action with the U. S. Army during the Mexican-American War, for his actions on the second day of this fight, he was brevetted a first lieutenant for gallant and meritorious conduct. After the war ended in 1848 Couch began serving in garrison duty at Fort Monroe in Hampton, the following year he was stationed at Fort Pickens, located near Pensacola, Florida, and then in Key West. Couch next participated in the Seminole Wars during 1849 and into 1850, Couch then took a one-year leave of absence from the army from 1853 to 1854 to conduct a scientific mission for the Smithsonian Institution in northern Mexico. There, he discovered the species that were known as Couchs kingbird, upon his return to the United States in 1854, Couch was ordered to Washington, D. C. on detached service. Later that year he resumed duty in Fort Independence at Castle Island along Boston Harbor. Also in 1854 he was stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on April 30,1855, Couch resigned his commission in the U. S. Army. From 1855 to 1857 he was a merchant in New York City and he then moved to Taunton, Massachusetts, and worked as a copper fabricator in the company owned by his wifes family. Couch was still working in Taunton when the American Civil War began in 1861, at the outbreak of the Civil War, Couch was appointed commander of the 7th Massachusetts Infantry on June 15,1861, with the rank of colonel in the Union Army. That August he was promoted to brigadier general with a date back to May 17. He was given command in the Military Division then Army of the Potomac that fall. From July 1861 to March 1862 he helped train and then maintain the defenses of Washington and he participated in the Peninsula Campaign, fighting in the Siege of Yorktown on April 5–May 4 and the Battle of Williamsburg the following day. Couch led his division during the Battle of Seven Pines on May 31, as the fighting continued throughout May 31 both Couch and Casey were slowly driven back, with their right flank units in the most peril. Couch continued to lead his division during the 1862 Seven Days Battles that followed, fighting in the Battle of Oak Grove on June 25, later in July Couchs health began to fail, prompting him to offer his resignation
9.
James Lawrence Orr
–
James Lawrence Orr was an American politician who served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives in the United States Congress. He later served in the Confederate Congress during the American Civil War and was the 73rd Governor of South Carolina, Orr was born at Craytonville, South Carolina located in Anderson County, South Carolina. He graduated from the University of Virginia in 1841 and became an attorney and he served as a Democratic Congressman from South Carolina from 1849 to 1859, serving as the Speaker of the House from 1857 to 1859. Orr was an advocate of states rights who used his position to assist those persons who promoted the continuation of slavery and he foresaw the consequences of the decision by South Carolina to attempt to secede from the Union, but he remained loyal to his State. He was one of the three commissioners sent to Washington, D. C, the regiment continued to bear his name throughout the war and fought in some of the most prominent battles of the Army of Northern Virginia. In the Confederate Senate, he remained a proponent of states rights. At the end of the war, Orr was elected governor, in 1872 President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Orr as Minister to Russia in a gesture of post-Civil War reconciliation. Orr died in St. Petersburg, Russia shortly after arriving to begin his service as Minister and he was interred in the First Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Anderson, South Carolina. James Lawrence Orr at Find a Grave
10.
Alexander Randall
–
Alexander Williams Randall was a lawyer, judge and politician from Wisconsin. He served as the sixth Governor of Wisconsin from 1858 until 1861 and he was instrumental in raising and organizing the first Wisconsin volunteer troops for the Union Army during the American Civil War. Randall was born in Ames, New York on October 31,1819 and his father, Phineas, was judge of the court of common pleas there from 1837 to 1841. Randall attended Cherry Valley Academy in New York then studied law with his father and he was admitted to the bar in New York at age 19. Shortly after that, he moved to Wisconsin Territory and he opened a law practice in Waukesha in 1840, where he became postmaster in 1845. Randall was a delegate to the states first constitutional convention in 1846, there he successfully advocated for a resolution that would put the question of Negro suffrage to a statewide referendum. He was elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1855, from 1855 to 1857, he was a circuit judge in Milwaukee. Randall was elected governor in 1857 as a Republican, and won re-election in 1859 and he was a dark horse candidate in 1857. The two principal candidates in the convention that year were Edward D. Holton of Milwaukee and Walter McIndoe of Wausau, as such, they split the vote, neither able to garner a majority for the nomination. Randall was the first in a line of Republican governors in Wisconsin. As governor, Randall conducted an investigation of fraud in the distribution of federal land grants in Wisconsin perpetrated by his predecessor. Prior to the beginning of the Civil War, he was an ardent abolitionist, once war began Randall raised 18 regiments,10 artillery batteries, and three cavalry units before leaving office, exceeding Wisconsins quota by 3,232 men. The Union Army created a camp from the former state fairgrounds in Madison, Wisconsin. Camp Randall Stadium is now located on the site of the military camp, in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Randall U. S. Minister to the Papal States and in 1863 Assistant Postmaster General, President Andrew Johnson appointed him U. S. Postmaster General in 1866 and he remained in position until 1869. When Johnson was impeached, Randall remained loyal, testifying on Johnsons behalf, after leaving the federal government, Randall moved to Elmira, New York, where he resumed practicing law. He died there July 26,1872 and he is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery
