1.
National Register of Historic Places
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The National Register of Historic Places is the United States federal governments official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation. The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 established the National Register, of the more than one million properties on the National Register,80,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts, each year approximately 30,000 properties are added to the National Register as part of districts or by individual listings. For most of its history the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service and its goals are to help property owners and interest groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, coordinate, identify, and protect historic sites in the United States. While National Register listings are mostly symbolic, their recognition of significance provides some financial incentive to owners of listed properties, protection of the property is not guaranteed. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, the application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics of history and preservation, as well as the public and politicians. Occasionally, historic sites outside the proper, but associated with the United States are also listed. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts, the Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties, district, site, structure, building, or object. National Register Historic Districts are defined geographical areas consisting of contributing and non-contributing properties, some properties are added automatically to the National Register when they become administered by the National Park Service. These include National Historic Landmarks, National Historic Sites, National Historical Parks, National Military Parks/Battlefields, National Memorials, on October 15,1966, the Historic Preservation Act created the National Register of Historic Places and the corresponding State Historic Preservation Offices. Initially, the National Register consisted of the National Historic Landmarks designated before the Registers creation, approval of the act, which was amended in 1980 and 1992, represented the first time the United States had a broad-based historic preservation policy. To administer the newly created National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service of the U. S. Department of the Interior, hartzog, Jr. established an administrative division named the Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation. Hartzog charged OAHP with creating the National Register program mandated by the 1966 law, ernest Connally was the Offices first director. Within OAHP new divisions were created to deal with the National Register, the first official Keeper of the Register was William J. Murtagh, an architectural historian. During the Registers earliest years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, organization was lax and SHPOs were small, understaffed, and underfunded. A few years later in 1979, the NPS history programs affiliated with both the U. S. National Parks system and the National Register were categorized formally into two Assistant Directorates. Established were the Assistant Directorate for Archeology and Historic Preservation and the Assistant Directorate for Park Historic Preservation, from 1978 until 1981, the main agency for the National Register was the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service of the United States Department of the Interior. In February 1983, the two assistant directorates were merged to promote efficiency and recognize the interdependency of their programs, jerry L. Rogers was selected to direct this newly merged associate directorate
2.
Tennessee
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Tennessee is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th largest and the 17th most populous of the 50 United States, Tennessee is bordered by Kentucky and Virginia to the north, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, and Arkansas and Missouri to the west. The Appalachian Mountains dominate the eastern part of the state, Tennessees capital and second largest city is Nashville, which has a population of 654,610. Memphis is the states largest city, with a population of 655,770, the state of Tennessee is rooted in the Watauga Association, a 1772 frontier pact generally regarded as the first constitutional government west of the Appalachians. What is now Tennessee was initially part of North Carolina, Tennessee was admitted to the Union as the 16th state on June 1,1796. Tennessee was the last state to leave the Union and join the Confederacy at the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, occupied by Union forces from 1862, it was the first state to be readmitted to the Union at the end of the war. Tennessee furnished more soldiers for the Confederate Army than any other state besides Virginia and this sharply reduced competition in politics in the state until after passage of civil rights legislation in the mid-20th century. This city was established to house the Manhattan Projects uranium enrichment facilities, helping to build the worlds first atomic bomb, Tennessees major industries include agriculture, manufacturing, and tourism. Poultry, soybeans, and cattle are the primary agricultural products, and major manufacturing exports include chemicals, transportation equipment. In the early 18th century, British traders encountered a Cherokee town named Tanasi in present-day Monroe County, the town was located on a river of the same name, and appears on maps as early as 1725. The meaning and origin of the word are uncertain, some accounts suggest it is a Cherokee modification of an earlier Yuchi word. It has been said to mean meeting place, winding river, according to ethnographer James Mooney, the name can not be analyzed and its meaning is lost. The modern spelling, Tennessee, is attributed to James Glen, the governor of South Carolina, the spelling was popularized by the publication of Henry Timberlakes Draught of the Cherokee Country in 1765. In 1788, North Carolina created Tennessee County, the county to be established in what is now Middle Tennessee. When a constitutional convention met in 1796 to organize a new out of the Southwest Territory. Other sources differ on the origin of the nickname, according to the Columbia Encyclopedia. Tennessee ties Missouri as the state bordering the most other states, the state is trisected by the Tennessee River. The highest point in the state is Clingmans Dome at 6,643 feet, Clingmans Dome, which lies on Tennessees eastern border, is the highest point on the Appalachian Trail, and is the third highest peak in the United States east of the Mississippi River
3.
Downtown Memphis, Tennessee
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It is home to the Memphis Redbirds, the AAA affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals, and the Memphis Grizzlies NBA team. Downtown is the oldest part of the city and includes the riverfront, the founders of Memphis dedicated the riverfront to the public now and forever as long as the public use continued. The land overlooking the riverfront was originally planned to become a public promenade to be called Mississippi Row, the upper riverfront became the site of the river landing where steamboats were loaded with cotton and other goods in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Between 1844 and 1886 the river landing was paved with limestone and this created what is today the largest intact Mississippi River landing still in existence, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The explosion of the steamboat Sultana in 1865 near Memphis was one of the worst marine disasters in history, there are several historic residences downtown, particularly in the Victorian Village neighborhood. Other historic homes include the Hunt-Phelan House, the Magevney House, the Burkle home and the Hunt Phelan House were reputed to have been part of the underground railroad by which escaped slaves made their way to freedom prior to the Civil War. In 1959, the Memphis Downtown Airport was opened on Mud Island, the one-runway airport could be reached by a pontoon-boat ferry and was used mostly by businessmen and shoppers. The Downtown Airport was closed in 1970 and it was replaced in the 1990s by the new urbanist Harbor Town development. The Downtown Memphis skyline contains the tallest buildings in the city, the administrative core of Memphis and Shelby County is also located in Downtown Memphis. These include the Memphis City Hall, and the Federal Building, located on North Main Street, Downtown Memphis also contains the Memphis branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Downtown Core is the heart of the business district and includes the majority of office space, retail, entertainment. It is a regional destination for entertainment, dining, and tourism and includes attractions such as Beale Street, FedExForum, AutoZone Park. The Memphis Riverfront stretches from the Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park in the north, the River Walk is a park system along the Mississippi River that connects the Mississippi River Greenbelt Park in the north, to Tom Lee Park in the south. Interstates I-40, I-55, I-69 and I-240 all run directly through downtown, the new Interstate 22 is about 10 miles away from Downtown. MATA operates the North End Terminal, its hub for Memphis public bus service, at the corner of Main Street. The majority of fixed bus routes operates by MATA terminate at the North End Terminal, the MATA Trolley is a heritage streetcar system that operates three lines in downtown along Main Street, Riverside Drive, and Madison Avenue. It consists of twenty four stations and has a ridership of approximately 2,500. Connections between MATA public bus and Main Street trolley line can be made at the North End Terminal, amtraks City of New Orleans passenger train runs through Downtown Memphis twice a day, stopping at Central Station
4.
Mississippi River
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The Mississippi River is the chief river of the largest drainage system on the North American continent. Flowing entirely in the United States, it rises in northern Minnesota, with its many tributaries, the Mississippis watershed drains all or parts of 31 U. S. states and 2 Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains. The Mississippi ranks as the fourth longest and fifteenth largest river in the world by discharge, the river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Native Americans long lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries, most were hunter-gatherers, but some, such as the Mound Builders, formed prolific agricultural societies. The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed the way of life as first explorers, then settlers. The river served first as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain, New France, and the early United States, and then as a vital transportation artery and communications link. Formed from thick layers of the silt deposits, the Mississippi embayment is one of the most fertile agricultural regions of the country. In recent years, the river has shown a shift towards the Atchafalaya River channel in the Delta. The word itself comes from Messipi, the French rendering of the Anishinaabe name for the river, see below in the History section for additional information. In addition to historical traditions shown by names, there are at least two measures of a rivers identity, one being the largest branch, and the other being the longest branch. Using the largest-branch criterion, the Ohio would be the branch of the Lower Mississippi. Using the longest-branch criterion, the Middle Mississippi-Missouri-Jefferson-Beaverhead-Red Rock-Hellroaring Creek River would be the main branch and its length of at least 3,745 mi is exceeded only by the Nile, the Amazon, and perhaps the Yangtze River among the longest rivers in the world. The source of this waterway is at Browers Spring,8,800 feet above sea level in southwestern Montana and this is exemplified by the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the phrase Trans-Mississippi as used in the name of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. It is common to qualify a regionally superlative landmark in relation to it, the New Madrid Seismic Zone along the river is also noteworthy. These various basic geographical aspects of the river in turn underlie its human history and present uses of the waterway, the Upper Mississippi runs from its headwaters to its confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri. The source of the Upper Mississippi branch is traditionally accepted as Lake Itasca,1,475 feet above sea level in Itasca State Park in Clearwater County, however, the lake is in turn fed by a number of smaller streams. From its origin at Lake Itasca to St. Louis, Missouri, fourteen of these dams are located above Minneapolis in the headwaters region and serve multiple purposes, including power generation and recreation. The remaining 29 dams, beginning in downtown Minneapolis, all locks and were constructed to improve commercial navigation of the upper river
5.
Blues
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Blues is a genre and musical form originated by African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the end of the 19th century. The genre developed from roots in African musical traditions, African-American work songs, spirituals, Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. Blue notes, usually thirds or fifths flattened in pitch, are also a part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove, Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times, Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the troubles experienced in African-American society. Many elements, such as the format and the use of blue notes. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community. The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery and, later and it is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century, the first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues, such as Delta blues and Piedmont blues, as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues, World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a form called blues rock evolved. The term blues may have come from blue devils, meaning melancholy and sadness, the phrase blue devils may also have been derived from Britain in the 1600s, when the term referred to the intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal. As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils, by the 1800s in the United States, the term blues was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase blue law, which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, in lyrics the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood. The lyrics of traditional blues verses probably often consisted of a single line repeated four times. Two of the first published songs, Dallas Blues and Saint Louis Blues, were 12-bar blues with the AAB lyric structure. Handy wrote that he adopted this convention to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times, the lines are often sung following a pattern closer to rhythmic talk than to a melody
6.
Marion Post Wolcott
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Marion Post, later Marion Post Wolcott, was a noted American photographer who worked for the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression documenting poverty and deprivation. Marion Post was born in New Jersey on June 7,1910 and her parents split up and she was sent to boarding school, spending time at home with her mother in Greenwich Village when not at school. Here she met artists and musicians and became interested in dance. She studied at The New School, Post trained as a teacher, and went to work in a small town in Massachusetts. Here she saw the reality of the Depression and the problems of the poor, when the school closed she went to Europe to study with her sister Helen. Helen was studying with Trude Fleischmann, a Viennese photographer, Marion Post showed Fleischmann some of her photographs and was told to stick to photography. While in Vienna she saw some of the Nazi attacks on the Jewish population and was horrified, soon she and her sister had to return to America for safety. She went back to teaching but also continued her photography and became involved in the anti-fascist movement, at the New York Photo League she met Ralph Steiner and Paul Strand who encouraged her. Stryker was impressed by her work and hired her immediately, posts photographs for the FSA often explore the political aspects of poverty and deprivation. They also often find humour in the situations she encountered, in 1941 she met Leon Oliver Wolcott, deputy director of war relations for the U. S. Department of Agriculture under Franklin Roosevelt. They married, and she continued her assignments for the FSA and she found it difficult to fit in her photography around raising a family and a great deal of traveling and living overseas. In the 1970s, a renewed interest in Wolcotts images among scholars rekindled her own interest in photography, in 1978, Wolcott mounted her first solo exhibition in California, and by the 1980s the Smithsonian and the Metropolitan Museum of Art began to collect her photographs. The first monograph on her work was published in 1983 and she was an advocate for womens rights, in 1986, Wolcott said, Women have come a long way, but not far enough. Speak with your images from your heart and soul, looking for the Light, The Hidden Life and Art of Marion Post Wolcott. Marion Post Wolcott, A Photographic Journey, albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press,1989. The Photography of Marion Post Wolcott Website created by Wolcotts daughter, hosted on J. David Sapirs site Fixing Shadows, available online, http, carmel, CA, Friends of Photography,1983. Prose, Francine, The Photographs of Marion Post Wolcott, an extensive anthology of Marion Post Wolcotts photography edited by her daughter, Linda Wolcott-Moore. FSA Photos, including many by Wolcott, posted by Library of Congress on Flickr Commons Website, oral history interview with Marion Post Wolcott,1965 Jan
7.
Orpheum Theatre (Memphis)
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These performances, along with the theater’s numerous educational offerings, are an integral component of the continued revitalization of downtown Memphis. Since it first opened in 1928, the Orpheum has dazzled patrons with its artisan millwork, gilding, original fixtures, a Mighty Wurlitzer organ, and architectural beauty. Saved by the Memphis Development Foundation in 1977, the Orpheum was one of the first buildings in Memphis placed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Orpheum Theatre, located at 203 S. Main St. opened its doors on November 19,1928, designed by architects C. W. and George Rapp of Chicago, the Orpheum seats just over 2,300 people and features glittering gold and silver leaf, marble, lush carpets, and antique crystal chandeliers. The theater boasts a Wurlitzer organ, the Halloran Centre for Performing Arts & Education, located next door to the Orpheum Theatre at 225 S. Main St. is the new home for the Orpheum’s community and it opened on September 23,2015. Totaling over 39,000 square feet, the Halloran Centre provides space for classes and workshops, a large rehearsal hall, a stage. In 1890 the Grand Opera House was built on the corner of Main, the Grand was billed as the most classy theater outside New York City. Vaudeville was the source of entertainment at the time, featuring singers, musicians. The Grand became part of the Orpheum Circuit in 1907, vaudeville at the Orpheum was successful for almost two decades. Then in 1923, after a show that featured singer Blossom Seeley, a fire started, in 1928, at a cost of $1.6 million, a new Orpheum was built on the original site of the Grand, but it was a different theater. The new Orpheum was twice as large as her predecessor and opulently decorated, lavish tasseled brocade draperies, enormous crystal chandeliers, gilded moldings, and the Mighty Wurlitzer pipe organ were just a few of its new amenities. As vaudeville’s popularity waned, the Orpheum was purchased by Michael A. Lightman’s movie theater chain in 1940, in 1976, Lightman decided to sell the building, as intimate multiplex theaters were proving more lucrative than large single-screen venues. There was talk of demolishing the old theater, however, in 1977 the Memphis Development Foundation bought the theater, restored its former name of Orpheum, and began bringing Broadway productions and concerts back to the theater. In 1980, Pat Halloran was hired as the President and CEO of the Foundation, fifty-four years had taken a toll on the “South’s Finest Theatre”. The Orpheum was closed on Christmas in 1982 to begin a $5 million renovation to restore its 1928 opulence, restoration crews also cleaned the exterior of the building, repairing and repainting the Orpheum upright sign and the famous theater marquee. To meet audiences’ growing needs, a parlor with restrooms, a concessions area. Later, a “green room” — now the Broadway Club — was formed in the northeast corner of the lobby, in the end, the Orpheum had a seating capacity of 2,491, including 28 new private suites
8.
Woodrow Wilson
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Thomas Woodrow Wilson was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th President of the United States from 1913 to 1921. Born in Staunton, Virginia, he spent his years in Augusta, Georgia and Columbia. In 1910, he was the New Jersey Democratic Partys gubernatorial candidate and was elected the 34th Governor of New Jersey, while in office, Wilson reintroduced the spoken State of the Union, which had been out of use since 1801. Leading the Congress that was now in Democratic hands, he oversaw the passage of progressive legislative policies unparalleled until the New Deal in 1933. The Federal Reserve Act, Federal Trade Commission Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, through passage of the Adamson Act that imposed an 8-hour workday for railroads, he averted a railroad strike and an ensuing economic crisis. Upon the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Wilson maintained a policy of neutrality, Wilson faced former New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes in the presidential election of 1916. By a narrow margin, he became the first Democrat since Andrew Jackson elected to two consecutive terms, Wilsons second term was dominated by American entry into World War I. In April 1917, when Germany had resumed unrestricted submarine warfare and sent the Zimmermann Telegram, the United States conducted military operations alongside the Allies, although without a formal alliance. During the war, Wilson focused on diplomacy and financial considerations, leaving military strategy to the generals, loaning billions of dollars to Britain, France, and other Allies, the United States aided their finance of the war effort. On the home front, he raised taxes, borrowing billions of dollars through the publics purchase of Liberty Bonds. In his 1915 State of the Union Address, Wilson asked Congress for what became the Espionage Act of 1917, the crackdown was intensified by his Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer to include expulsion of non-citizen radicals during the First Red Scare of 1919–1920. Wilson staffed his government with Southern Democrats who implemented racial segregation at the Treasury, Navy and he gave department heads greater autonomy in their management. Following his return from Europe, Wilson embarked on a tour in 1919 to campaign for the treaty. The treaty was met with concern by Senate Republicans, and Wilson rejected a compromise effort led by Henry Cabot Lodge. Due to his stroke, Wilson secluded himself in the White House, disability having diminished his power, forming a strategy for re-election, Wilson deadlocked the 1920 Democratic National Convention, but his bid for a third-term nomination was overlooked. Wilson was a devoted Presbyterian and Georgist, and he infused his views of morality into his domestic and he appointed several well known radically progressive single taxers to prominent positions in his administration. His ideology of internationalism is now referred to as Wilsonian, an activist foreign policy calling on the nation to promote global democracy and he was the third of four children of Joseph Ruggles Wilson and Jessie Janet Woodrow. Wilsons paternal grandparents immigrated to the United States from Strabane, County Tyrone, Ireland and his mother was born in Carlisle, England, the daughter of Rev. Dr. Thomas Woodrow from Paisley, Scotland, and Marion Williamson from Glasgow
9.
Booker T. Washington
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Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and advisor to presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American community, Washington was from the last generation of black American leaders born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants. They were newly oppressed in the South by disenfranchisement and the Jim Crow discriminatory laws enacted in the post-Reconstruction Southern states in the late 19th, Washington was a key proponent of African-American businesses and one of the founders of the National Negro Business League. His base was the Tuskegee Institute, a black college in Alabama. As lynchings in the South reached a peak in 1895, Washington gave a speech, known as the Atlanta compromise and he called for black progress through education and entrepreneurship, rather than trying to challenge directly the Jim Crow segregation and the disenfranchisement of black voters in the South. But, secretly, he also supported court challenges to segregation and restrictions on voter registration, black militants in the North, led by W. E. B. Du Bois, at first supported the Atlanta compromise but after 1909 and they tried with limited success to challenge Washingtons political machine for leadership in the black community but also built wider networks among white allies in the North. His long-term goal was to end the disenfranchisement of the vast majority of African Americans, in 1856, Washington was born into slavery in Virginia as the son of Jane, an African-American slave. After emancipation, she moved the family to West Virginia to join her husband Washington Ferguson, as a young man, Washington worked his way through Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute and attended college at Wayland Seminary. In 1881, Washington was named as the first leader of the new Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, Washington attained national prominence for his Atlanta Address of 1895, which attracted the attention of politicians and the public. He became a spokesperson for African-American citizens. He built a network of supporters in many black communities, with black ministers, educators. Washington played a dominant role in politics, winning wide support in the black community of the South. He gained access to top leaders in politics, philanthropy. Washingtons efforts included cooperating with people and enlisting the support of wealthy philanthropists. This work continued for years after his death. Washington argued that the surest way for blacks to gain equal rights was to demonstrate industry, thrift, intelligence. Northern critics called Washingtons widespread organization the Tuskegee Machine, after 1909, Washington was criticized by the leaders of the new NAACP, especially W. E. B
10.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt, commonly known as FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd President of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. A Democrat, he won a record four presidential elections and emerged as a figure in world events during the mid-20th century. He directed the United States government during most of the Great Depression and he is often rated by scholars as one of the three greatest U. S. Presidents, along with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Roosevelt was born in 1882 to an old, prominent Dutch family from Dutchess County and he attended the elite educational institutions of Groton School, Harvard College, and Columbia Law School. At age 23 in 1905, he married Eleanor Roosevelt, and he entered politics in 1910, serving in the New York State Senate, and then as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson. In 1920, Roosevelt was presidential candidate James M. Coxs running mate and he was in office from 1929 to 1933 and served as a reform governor, promoting the enactment of programs to combat the depression besetting the United States at the time. In the 1932 presidential election, Roosevelt defeated incumbent Republican president Herbert Hoover in a landslide to win the presidency, Roosevelt took office while in the United States was in the midst of the worst economic crisis in its history. Energized by his victory over polio, FDR relied on his persistent optimism and activism to renew the national spirit. He created numerous programs to support the unemployed and farmers, and to labor union growth while more closely regulating business. His support for the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 added to his popularity, the economy improved rapidly from 1933–37, but then relapsed into a deep recession in 1937–38. The bipartisan Conservative Coalition that formed in 1937 prevented his packing the Supreme Court, when the war began and unemployment ended, conservatives in Congress repealed the two major relief programs, the WPA and CCC. However, they kept most of the regulations on business, along with several smaller programs, major surviving programs include the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Wagner Act, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Social Security. His goal was to make America the Arsenal of Democracy, which would supply munitions to the Allies, in March 1941, Roosevelt, with Congressional approval, provided Lend-Lease aid to Britain and China. He supervised the mobilization of the U. S. economy to support the war effort, as an active military leader, Roosevelt implemented a war strategy on two fronts that ended in the defeat of the Axis Powers and initiate the development of the worlds first atomic bomb. His work also influenced the creation of the United Nations. Roosevelts physical health declined during the war years, and he died 11 weeks into his fourth term. One of the oldest Dutch families in New York State, the Roosevelts distinguished themselves in other than politics. One ancestor, Isaac Roosevelt, had served with the New York militia during the American Revolution, Roosevelt attended events of the New York society Sons of the American Revolution, and joined the organization while he was president
11.
NAACP
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Du Bois, Mary White Ovington and Moorfield Storey. Its mission in the 21st century is to ensure the political, educational, social and their national initiatives included political lobbying, publicity efforts, and litigation strategies developed by their legal team. The group enlarged its mission in the late 20th century by considering issues such as police misconduct, the status of foreign refugees. Its name, retained in accordance with tradition, uses the common term colored people. The NAACP bestows annual awards to people of color in two categories, Image Awards are for achievement in the arts and entertainment, and Spingarn Medals are for outstanding achievement of any kind and its headquarters is in Baltimore, Maryland. The NAACP is headquartered in Baltimore, with regional offices in New York, Michigan, Georgia, Maryland, Texas, Colorado. Each regional office is responsible for coordinating the efforts of state conferences in that region, local, youth, and college chapters organize activities for individual members. In the U. S. the NAACP is administered by a 64-member board, julian Bond, Civil Rights Movement activist and former Georgia State Senator, was chairman until replaced in February 2010 by health-care administrator Roslyn Brock. For decades in the first half of the 20th century, the organization was led by its executive secretary. James Weldon Johnson and Walter F. White, who served in that role successively from 1920 to 1958, were more widely known as NAACP leaders than were presidents during those years. Departments within the NAACP govern areas of action, local chapters are supported by the Branch and Field Services department and the Youth and College department. The Legal department focuses on cases of broad application to minorities, such as systematic discrimination in employment, government. The Washington, D. C. bureau is responsible for lobbying the U. S. government, the goal of the Health Division is to advance health care for minorities through public policy initiatives and education. As of 2007, the NAACP had approximately 425,000 paying and non-paying members, the NAACPs non-current records are housed at the Library of Congress, which has served as the organizations official repository since 1964. The records held there comprise approximately five million items spanning the NAACPs history from the time of its founding until 2003, in 1905, a group of thirty-two prominent African-American leaders met to discuss the challenges facing people of color and possible strategies and solutions. They were particularly concerned by the Southern states disenfranchisement of blacks starting with Mississippis passage of a new constitution in 1890, through 1908, southern legislatures dominated by white Democrats ratified new constitutions and laws creating barriers to voter registration and more complex election rules. In practice, this caused the exclusion of most blacks and many whites from the political system in southern states. Black voter registration and turnout dropped markedly in the South as a result of such legislation, men who had been voting for thirty years in the South were told they did not qualify to register
