1.
Daniel Chester French
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French was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, to Henry Flagg French, a lawyer, judge, Assistant US Treasury Secretary and author of a book that described the French drain, and his wife Anne Richardson. In 1867, French moved with his family to Concord, Massachusetts, where he was a neighbor and friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and his decision to pursue sculpting was influenced by Louisa May Alcotts sister May Alcott. Frenchs early education included training in anatomy with William Rimmer and in drawing with William Morris Hunt, French spent a year studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and also several years in Florence, Italy studying in the studio of Thomas Ball. French first earned acclaim for the Minute Man, commissioned by the town of Concord, Massachusetts and he soon established his own studio, first in Washington DC, moving later to Boston and then to New York City. Frenchs reputation grew with his Statue of the Republic for the Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893, in addition to the Lincoln Memorial, French collaborated with architect Henry Bacon on numerous memorials around the country and on the Dupont Circle fountain in Washington DC. In 1893, French was a member of the National Sculpture Society. French also became a member of the National Academy of Design, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Architectural League, and he was a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and a co-founder of the American Academy in Rome. He was a member of the U. S. Commission of Fine Arts, serving from 1910 to 1915, including as chairman from 1912 to 1915, in 1917, French and a colleague, H. Augustus Lukeman, designed the Pulitzer Prize gold medal presented to laureates. French was one of many sculptors who frequently employed Audrey Munson as a model, together with Walter Leighton Clark and others, he was also one of the founders of the Berkshire Playhouse, which later became the Berkshire Theatre Festival. French also taught, among his pupils was the sculptor Edith Howland, French died in Stockbridge, Massachusetts in 1931 at age 81 and was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Massachusetts. Chesterwood, Frenchs summer home and studio – designed by his architect friend, in 1940, French was selected as one of five artists to be honored in the 35-stamp Famous Americans series. Chester French was an American indie band named for the artist. C and his 24-foot gilt-bronze reduced version made in 1918 survives in Chicago. S. The Spirit of Life, memorial to Spencer Trask, in Saratoga Springs, New York at Congress Park,1915 Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial, samuel Francis du Pont Memorial Fountain, Dupont Circle, Washington, D. C. Alfred Tredway White Memorial, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Henry Bacon architect Russell Alger Memorial Fountain, Grand Circus Park, Detroit, gen. William Franklin Draper, Draper Memorial Park, Milford, Massachusetts. Peace and Vigilance US Customhouse & Post Office, St. Louis, Missouri, deWitt Clinton, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. Three statues prepared in 1902 for the New York Chamber of Commerce, the building was declared a landmark in 1977. Greek Epic, Lyric Poetry, and Religion, sculptures for the 1908 Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences building on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, New York
2.
Bronze
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These additions produce a range of alloys that may be harder than copper alone, or have other useful properties, such as stiffness, ductility, or machinability. The archeological period where bronze was the hardest metal in use is known as the Bronze Age. In the ancient Near East this began with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC, with India and China starting to use bronze around the same time, everywhere it gradually spread across regions. The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age starting from about 1300 BC and reaching most of Eurasia by about 500 BC, the discovery of bronze enabled people to create metal objects which were harder and more durable than previously possible. Bronze tools, weapons, armor, and building such as decorative tiles were harder and more durable than their stone. It was only later that tin was used, becoming the major ingredient of bronze in the late 3rd millennium BC. Tin bronze was superior to arsenic bronze in that the process could be more easily controlled. Also, unlike arsenic, metallic tin and fumes from tin refining are not toxic, the earliest tin-alloy bronze dates to 4500 BCE in a Vinča culture site in Pločnik. Other early examples date to the late 4th millennium BC in Africa, Susa and some ancient sites in China, Luristan, ores of copper and the far rarer tin are not often found together, so serious bronze work has always involved trade. Tin sources and trade in ancient times had a influence on the development of cultures. In Europe, a source of tin was the British deposits of ore in Cornwall. In many parts of the world, large hoards of bronze artefacts are found, suggesting that bronze also represented a store of value, in Europe, large hoards of bronze tools, typically socketed axes, are found, which mostly show no signs of wear. With Chinese ritual bronzes, which are documented in the inscriptions they carry and from other sources and these were made in enormous quantities for elite burials, and also used by the living for ritual offerings. Pure iron is soft, and the process of beating and folding sponge iron to wrought iron removes from the metal carbon. Careful control of the alloying and tempering eventually allowed for wrought iron with properties comparable to modern steel, Bronze was still used during the Iron Age, and has continued in use for many purposes to the modern day. Among other advantages, it does not rust, the weaker wrought iron was found to be sufficiently strong for many uses. Archaeologists suspect that a disruption of the tin trade precipitated the transition. The population migrations around 1200–1100 BC reduced the shipping of tin around the Mediterranean, limiting supplies, there are many different bronze alloys, but typically modern bronze is 88% copper and 12% tin
3.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
4.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
5.
Columbia University
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Columbia University is a private Ivy League research university in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It was established in 1754 as Kings College by royal charter of George II of Great Britain, after the American Revolutionary War, Kings College briefly became a state entity, and was renamed Columbia College in 1784. Columbia is one of the fourteen founding members of the Association of American Universities and was the first school in the United States to grant the M. D. degree. The university also has global research outposts in Amman, Beijing, Istanbul, Paris, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, Asunción, Columbia administers annually the Pulitzer Prize. Additionally,100 Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Columbia as students, researchers, faculty, Columbia is second only to Harvard University in the number of Nobel Prize-winning affiliates, with over 100 recipients of the award as of 2016. In 1746 an act was passed by the assembly of New York to raise funds for the foundation of a new college. Classes were initially held in July 1754 and were presided over by the colleges first president, Dr. Johnson was the only instructor of the colleges first class, which consisted of a mere eight students. Instruction was held in a new schoolhouse adjoining Trinity Church, located on what is now lower Broadway in Manhattan, in 1763, Dr. Johnson was succeeded in the presidency by Myles Cooper, a graduate of The Queens College, Oxford, and an ardent Tory. In the charged political climate of the American Revolution, his opponent in discussions at the college was an undergraduate of the class of 1777. The suspension continued through the occupation of New York City by British troops until their departure in 1783. The colleges library was looted and its sole building requisitioned for use as a hospital first by American. Loyalists were forced to abandon their Kings College in New York, the Loyalists, led by Bishop Charles Inglis fled to Windsor, Nova Scotia, where they founded Kings Collegiate School. After the Revolution, the college turned to the State of New York in order to restore its vitality, the Legislature agreed to assist the college, and on May 1,1784, it passed an Act for granting certain privileges to the College heretofore called Kings College. The Regents finally became aware of the colleges defective constitution in February 1787 and appointed a revision committee, in April of that same year, a new charter was adopted for the college, still in use today, granting power to a private board of 24 Trustees. On May 21,1787, William Samuel Johnson, the son of Dr. Samuel Johnson, was unanimously elected President of Columbia College, prior to serving at the university, Johnson had participated in the First Continental Congress and been chosen as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. The colleges enrollment, structure, and academics stagnated for the majority of the 19th century, with many of the college presidents doing little to change the way that the college functioned. In 1857, the college moved from the Kings College campus at Park Place to a primarily Gothic Revival campus on 49th Street and Madison Avenue, during the last half of the 19th century, under the leadership of President F. A. P. Barnard, the institution assumed the shape of a modern university
6.
Athena
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Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is the goddess of wisdom, craft, and war in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Minerva is the Roman goddess identified with Athena, Athena is known for her calm temperament, as she moves slowly to anger. She is noted to have fought for just reasons. Athena is portrayed as a companion of heroes and is the patron goddess of heroic endeavour. She is the patroness of Athens. The Athenians founded the Parthenon on the Acropolis of her city, Athens. Veneration of Athena was so persistent that archaic myths about her were recast to adapt to cultural changes, in her role as a protector of the city, many people throughout the Greek world worshipped Athena as Athena Polias. While the city of Athens and the goddess Athena essentially bear the same name, Athena is associated with Athens, a plural name, because it was the place where she presided over her sisterhood, the Athenai, in earliest times. Mycenae was the city where the Goddess was called Mykene, at Thebes she was called Thebe, and the city again a plural, Thebae. Similarly, at Athens she was called Athena, and the city Athenae, Athena had a special relationship with Athens, as is shown by the etymological connection of the names of the goddess and the city. According to mythical lore, she competed with Poseidon and she won by creating the olive tree, the Athenians would accept her gift and name the city after her. In history, the citizens of Athens built a statue of Athena as a temple to the goddess, which had piercing eyes, a helmet on her head, attired with an aegis or cuirass, and an extremely long spear. It also had a shield with the head of the Gorgon on it. A large snake accompanied her and she held Nike, the goddess of victory, therefore, Mylonas believes that Athena was a Mycenaean creation. On the other hand, Nilsson claims that she was the goddess of the palace who protected the king, a-ta-no-dju-wa-ja is also found in Linear A Minoan, the final part being regarded as the Linear A Minoan equivalent of the Linear B Mycenaean di-u-ja or di-wi-ja. Divine Athena also was a weaver and the deity of crafts, whether her name is attested in Eteocretan or not will have to wait for decipherment of Linear A. Perhaps, however, the name Theonoe may mean she who knows divine things better than others. Thus for Plato her name was to be derived from Greek Ἀθεονόα, Plato also noted that the citizens of Sais in Egypt worshipped a goddess whose Egyptian name was Neith, and which was identified with Athena. Neith was the war goddess and huntress deity of the Egyptians since the ancient Pre-Dynastic period, in addition, ancient Greek myths reported that Athena had visited many mythological places such as Libyas Triton River in North Africa and the Phlegraean plain
7.
Low Memorial Library
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The Low Memorial Library of Columbia University was built in 1895 by University President Seth Low as the Universitys central library. Financed with $1 million of Lows own money due to the recalcitrance of university alumni, he named it in memory of his father, Abiel Abbot Low. The steps leading to the librarys columned facade are a meeting place for Columbia students as well as home to Daniel Chester Frenchs sculpture, Alma Mater. Low Library was officially named a New York City landmark in 1967, with the interior being designated in 1981, then a National Historic Landmark twenty years later. Low Library was designed by Charles Follen McKim of the firm of McKim, Mead, and White. The library was designed in the style, incorporating many of the elements of Romes Pantheon. The building is in the shape of a Greek cross and features windows modeled on those of the Baths of Diocletian, the columns on the librarys front facade are in the Ionic order, suited to institutions of arts and letters. An inscription on the buildings attic describes the history of the university, at the entryway are bronze busts of Zeus and Apollo. She is surrounded there by the signs of the zodiac. The rest of the interior is finished with Italian and Istrian marble, the rest is mostly a copybook reproduction of classical and other detail. Successful architects have too much to do to be pre-eminently artists -- they must be men of business. After a period in which it housed the universitys archives. Confusingly, however, the facade is still etched with the words The Library of Columbia University. Within Low, the students barricaded themselves inside the office of University President Grayson L. Kirk, dramatic scenes ensued, including attempts to catapult food to the protesters and efforts by their adversaries to cordon them off. The protesters were removed after a controversially violent assault on the building by the New York Police Department. For the Universitys semiquincentennial in 2004, an image of the library was placed on a pre-stamped postcard, seventeen students originally joined the sit-in but students who left were not allowed reentry into the building. Six students remained to the last day, University administration locked down the building and had security guards continually monitoring the students. Over 100 students joined a sleep-out on the steps of the library to show solidarity for the participants who faced potential school sanctions or arrest
8.
Morningside Heights, Manhattan
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Morningside Heights is a neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, on the border of the Upper West Side and Manhattanville. The neighborhood is home to St. Lukes Hospital. Most of the neighborhood is part of New Yorks 10th congressional district since 2013, in the 17th century, the land that is now Morningside Heights was known as Vandewaters Heights, named for the landowner. On September 16,1776, the Battle of Harlem Heights was fought in Morningside Heights, a plaque by the Columbia University gate on 117th Street and Broadway commemorates this battle. Use of the name Morningside Heights for the neighborhood arose in the 1890s when development of the area commenced, however, other names such as Morningside Hill and Riverside Heights were used for the area. No single name was used for the neighborhood by the time Columbia University, Teachers College, the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. Two names eventually gained the most use, Morningside Heights was preferred by the two colleges, while Cathedral Heights was preferred by St. Johns and St. Lukes. After about 1898, Morningside Heights became the most generally accepted, by the mid-20th century the increasing prevalence of Single Room Occupancy hotels led to attendant socioeconomic problems and a decline in the neighborhood. Jane Jacobs The Death and Life of Great American Cities presented the neighborhood as a key example of the failure of the urban planning techniques of the era, in 1951 the organization developed Morningside Gardens, a six-building apartment complex to house middle-income families from all ethnic backgrounds. Morningside Gardens, an experimental project, opened in 1957 between 123rd and LaSalle Streets, Broadway, and Amsterdam Avenue. Social problems in the area prompted Columbia to purchase much of the real estate. This process reached its nadir in 1968, when protests erupted in both the neighborhood and on Columbias campus over the proposal to build a gym in Morningside Park. The university was forced to abandon the plan. However, Columbia University has still expanded its presence in the neighborhood markedly over the last few decades, in January 2008 the university received approval from the City Council to expand significantly in nearby Manhattanville. Based on data from the 2010 United States Census, the population of Morningside Heights was 55,929, covering an area of 465.11 acres, the neighborhood had a population density of 120.2 inhabitants per acre. The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 46. 0% White,13. 6% African American,0. 2% Native American,13. 3% Asian,0. 1% Pacific Islander,0. 4% from other races, and 2. 9% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 23. 5% of the population, the label Academic Acropolis has been used to describe the area, which sits on a high natural point in Manhattan and contains numerous academic institutions. Much of the neighborhood is the campus of Columbia University, nASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies is also located in the neighborhood, directly above Toms Restaurant in a building owned by Columbia University
9.
Manhattan
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Manhattan is the most densely populated borough of New York City, its economic and administrative center, and the citys historical birthplace. The borough is coextensive with New York County, founded on November 1,1683, Manhattan is often described as the cultural and financial capital of the world and hosts the United Nations Headquarters. Many multinational media conglomerates are based in the borough and it is historically documented to have been purchased by Dutch colonists from Native Americans in 1626 for 60 guilders which equals US$1062 today. New York County is the United States second-smallest county by land area, on business days, the influx of commuters increases that number to over 3.9 million, or more than 170,000 people per square mile. Manhattan has the third-largest population of New York Citys five boroughs, after Brooklyn and Queens, the City of New York was founded at the southern tip of Manhattan, and the borough houses New York City Hall, the seat of the citys government. The name Manhattan derives from the word Manna-hata, as written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, a 1610 map depicts the name as Manna-hata, twice, on both the west and east sides of the Mauritius River. The word Manhattan has been translated as island of hills from the Lenape language. The United States Postal Service prefers that mail addressed to Manhattan use New York, NY rather than Manhattan, the area that is now Manhattan was long inhabited by the Lenape Native Americans. In 1524, Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano – sailing in service of King Francis I of France – was the first European to visit the area that would become New York City. It was not until the voyage of Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the Dutch East India Company, a permanent European presence in New Netherland began in 1624 with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island. In 1625, construction was started on the citadel of Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, later called New Amsterdam, the 1625 establishment of Fort Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan Island is recognized as the birth of New York City. In 1846, New York historian John Romeyn Brodhead converted the figure of Fl 60 to US$23, variable-rate myth being a contradiction in terms, the purchase price remains forever frozen at twenty-four dollars, as Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace remarked in their history of New York. Sixty guilders in 1626 was valued at approximately $1,000 in 2006, based on the price of silver, Straight Dope author Cecil Adams calculated an equivalent of $72 in 1992. In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the last Dutch Director General of the colony, New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2,1653. In 1664, the English conquered New Netherland and renamed it New York after the English Duke of York and Albany, the Dutch Republic regained it in August 1673 with a fleet of 21 ships, renaming the city New Orange. Manhattan was at the heart of the New York Campaign, a series of battles in the early American Revolutionary War. The Continental Army was forced to abandon Manhattan after the Battle of Fort Washington on November 16,1776. The city, greatly damaged by the Great Fire of New York during the campaign, became the British political, British occupation lasted until November 25,1783, when George Washington returned to Manhattan, as the last British forces left the city
10.
Audrey Munson
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She was the model or inspiration for more than 12 statues in New York City and was the first American movie star to appear fully nude in film, in Inspiration, appearing in four silent films. Audrey Marie Munson was born in Rochester, New York, on June 8,1891 and her father was from Mexico, New York, and she later lived there. Her parents, Edgar Munson and Katherine Kittie Mahaney, divorced when she was eight, in 1909, when she was 17 years old, Audrey Munson moved to New York with her mother to become an actress and chorus girl. Her first role on Broadway was as a footman in The Boy and The Girl at the Aerial Garden and she also appeared in The Girl and the Wizard, Girlies and La Belle Paree. Herzog introduced her to his friends in the art world, and it was the sculptor Isidore Konti who first persuaded her to pose nude, using her as his model for the three figures in his Three Graces for the new Grand Ballroom at the Hotel Astor in Times Square. For the next decade, Munson became the model of choice for a host of sculptors and painters in New York. According to The Sun in 1913, Over a hundred artists agree that if the name of Miss Manhattan belongs to anyone in particular it is to young woman. By 1915, she was so established that she became Alexander Stirling Calders model of choice for the Panama–Pacific International Exposition held that year. She posed for three-fifths of the sculpture created for the event and her newfound celebrity helped launch her career in the nascent film industry and she starred in four silent films. In the first, Inspiration, the story of a model, she appeared fully nude. The censors were reluctant to ban the film, fearing they would also have to ban Renaissance art, Munsons films were a box office success, although the critics were divided. The studio hired a lookalike named Jane Thomas to do Munsons acting scenes, while Munson did the scenes where she posed nude. Her third film, The Girl o Dreams, also made in Santa Barbara, was completed by the fall of 1916 and was copyrighted on December 31,1918, but appears never to have been released. Munson returned to the East Coast by train via Syracuse in December 1916 and became involved with society in New York and Newport. Her mother insisted she marry Comstock Lode silver heir Hermann Oelrichs Jr. then the richest bachelor in America, but there is no record of Audrey Munsons making this claim herself. On January 27,1919, she wrote a letter to the US State Department denouncing Hermann Oelrichs Jr. as part of a pro-German network that had driven her out of the movie business. She said she planned to abandon the United States to restart her career in England. At the time, Audrey Munson was living with her mother in a house at 164 West 65th Street, Manhattan
Media related to Alma Mater by Daniel Chester French at Wikimedia Commons
