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, i
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 easil
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Yoruba bronze head sculpture, Ife, Nigeria c. 12th century AD
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A hoard of bronze socketed axes from the
Bronze Age found in modern Germany. This was the top tool of the period, and also seems to have been used as a store of value.
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
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Broadway follows the Native American Wickquasgeck Trail through Manhattan.
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 R
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Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
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
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The Library at Columbia University, ca. 1900
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Columbia University
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 calle
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Mattei Athena at
Louvre. Roman copy from the 1st century BC/AD after a Greek original of the 4th century BC, attributed to Cephisodotos or Euphranor.
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Athenian
tetradrachm representing the goddess Athena.
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 letter
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Low Memorial Library
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Low Library c. 1900
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Rotunda of Low Memorial Library,
Columbia University, c. 1900–10. The building was later converted to administrative use and the rotunda became a ceremonial space.
Morningside Heights
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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
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 gove
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The
Castello Plan showing the Dutch colonial city of
New Amsterdam in 1660 – then confined to the southern tip of Manhattan Island.
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
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Fountain of the Setting Sun (1915) by
Weinman
Valedictorian
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The chosen valedictorian is often the student with the highest ranking among their graduating class. So the valedictory address generally is considered a farewell to classmates. In Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, India, and the United Kingdom, in Australia, the title is sometimes awarded to a member of a graduating university class on the basis of contribution to the school rather than academic success. The highest-ranking student in a class is often referred to as dux. In France the term Major de promotion is used, although the term is not related to any ceremonial role, how an individual school confers the title is typically based upon the highest grade point average. Some institutions confer the title on the class chosen to deliver the final graduation address, regardless of the speakers academic credentials. Generally, the graduate deemed to be the highest academically ranked student in the class, historically and traditionally, however, schools confer the title upon
Barnard College
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Barnard College is a private womens liberal arts college in New York City. It has been affiliated with Columbia University since 1900, the school was founded by Annie Nathan Meyer and named after Frederick Barnard, tenth president of Columbia. When Columbia became coeducational in 1983 Barnard elected to remain legally and financially separate and this includes shared academic programs and other academic privileges, and a combined athletic program. Barnard students also receive Columbia University degrees and graduate at Columbia University graduation, Barnard confers the Bachelor of Arts degree in about 50 areas of study. Students may also pursue elements of their education at the Juilliard School, Barnards 4-acre campus is located in the Manhattan neighborhood of Morningside Heights, stretching along Broadway between 116th and 120th Streets. It is directly across from Columbias campus and near several academic institutions. The college is a member of the Seven Sisters, an association
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The entrance to Barnard Hall
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Hewitt Hall, a dormitory
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Lehman Hall, where the college's library is located
Alma mater
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Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university or college. In modern usage, it is a school or university which an individual has attended, the phrase is variously translated as nourishing mother, nursing mother, or fostering mother, suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to its students. Before its modern usage, Alma mater was a title in Latin for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele. The source of its current use is the motto, Alma Mater Studiorum, of the oldest university in continuous operation in the Western world and it is related to the term alumnus, denoting a university graduate, which literally means a nursling or one who is nourished. The phrase can also denote a song or hymn associated with a school, although alma was a common epithet for Ceres, Cybele, Venus, and other mother goddesses, it was not frequently used in conjunction with mater in classical Latin. Alma Redemptoris Mater is a well-known 11th century antiphon devoted
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John Legate's Alma Mater for Cambridge in 1600
Norval White
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Norval Crawford White was an American architect, architectural historian and professor. He designed buildings throughout the U. S. but he is best known for his writing, White was widely considered to be one of the great figures of New York architecture. White was born in 1926 to surgeon William Crawford White and social worker Caroline White and he grew up on the Upper East Side and went to the Allen-Stevenson School and Exeter. In 1958 he married Joyce L. Lee, and they had four sons, William, Thomas, Gordon and Alastair. Following two years on duty with the United States Naval Reserve during World War II, White received a B. S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1949. He attended École des Beaux-Arts and earned a Master of Fine Arts from Princeton University in 1955, White resided in the neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights before moving to northwestern Connecticut in the early 1990s. He then retired and lived in the commune of Roques in the French department of le Gers wit
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Norval White on June 12, 2006
Oxford University Press
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Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world, and the second oldest after Cambridge University Press. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the known as the delegates of the press. They are headed by the secretary to the delegates, who serves as OUPs chief executive, Oxford University has used a similar system to oversee OUP since the 17th century. The university became involved in the print trade around 1480, and grew into a printer of Bibles, prayer books. OUP took on the project became the Oxford English Dictionary in the late 19th century. Moves into international markets led to OUP opening its own offices outside the United Kingdom, by contracting out its printing and binding operations, the modern OUP publishes some 6,000 new titles around the world each year. OUP was first exempted from United States corporation tax in 1972, as a department of a charity, OUP is exempt from income tax and cor
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial
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A 13-digit ISBN, 978-3-16-148410-0, as represented by an
EAN-13 bar code
Media related to Alma Mater by Daniel Chester French at Wikimedia Commons
