1.
Roxbury, Boston
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The city asserts that it serves as the heart of Black culture in Boston. Roxbury was one of the first towns founded in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, the original boundaries of the Town of Roxbury can be found in Drakes History of Roxbury and its noted Personages. OBryant School of Mathematics & Science, Y. M. C. A, harvard Medical School and many hospitals and schools in the area. This side of the Muddy River is Roxbury, the side is Brookline. Here, Walnut Avenue changes its name to Sigourney Street, indicating the area is now Jamaica Plain, one side of Columbia Road is Roxbury, the other Dorchester. Melnea Cass Boulevard is located approximately over the Roxbury Canal that brought boats into Roxbury, the neighborhood has recently added a new police station improving response time assisting its residents. This facility opened in 2011, and is energy efficient, also assisting the community are programs such as the Child Services of Roxbury, the youth build Boston programs, and many more. New initiatives by the city of Boston have propelled the neighborhood of Boston to become eco-friendly, there has been development of new E+ buildings. Along with the move into a community, each building is now mandated to provide accessibility to people with handicaps. The high density population leads to large amounts of crime, 1/4 of the population are immigrants and half of the population is under 25 years old. Many of the adults are young professionals, many jobs in Roxbury are office and retail oriented. There are also many emergency response facilities who help underprivileged people in the area, such as youth centers, the Massachusetts Bay Colony found the coastline largely empty, and quickly founded a group of six towns, among them Boston, Cambridge, and Roxbury. For more than 200 years, Roxbury also encompassed West Roxbury, three miles south the only land route to the capital led through Roxbury, which made the town important for both transportation and trade. Roxbury in the 1600s also held many of the resources English colonists prized, potentially arable land, timber, the settlers of Roxbury originally comprised the congregation of the First Church in Roxbury, established in 1632. During this time the church served not only as a place of worship, the congregation had no time to raise a meeting house the first winter and so met with the neighboring congregation in Dorchester. One of the leaders of this church was Amos Adams. The first meeting house was built in 1632, and the building pictured here is the meeting house. The town is located where Boston was previously connected to mainland Massachusetts by an isthmus called Boston Neck or alternately
2.
Massachusetts
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It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island to the south, New Hampshire and Vermont to the north, and New York to the west. The state is named for the Massachusett tribe, which inhabited the area. The capital of Massachusetts and the most populous city in New England is Boston, over 80% of Massachusetts population lives in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, a region influential upon American history, academia, and industry. Originally dependent on agriculture, fishing and trade, Massachusetts was transformed into a manufacturing center during the Industrial Revolution, during the 20th century, Massachusetts economy shifted from manufacturing to services. Modern Massachusetts is a leader in biotechnology, engineering, higher education, finance. Plymouth was the site of the first colony in New England, founded in 1620 by the Pilgrims, in 1692, the town of Salem and surrounding areas experienced one of Americas most infamous cases of mass hysteria, the Salem witch trials. In 1777, General Henry Knox founded the Springfield Armory, which during the Industrial Revolution catalyzed numerous important technological advances, in 1786, Shays Rebellion, a populist revolt led by disaffected American Revolutionary War veterans, influenced the United States Constitutional Convention. In the 18th century, the Protestant First Great Awakening, which swept the Atlantic World, in the late 18th century, Boston became known as the Cradle of Liberty for the agitation there that led to the American Revolution. The entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts has played a commercial and cultural role in the history of the United States. Before the American Civil War, Massachusetts was a center for the abolitionist, temperance, in the late 19th century, the sports of basketball and volleyball were invented in the western Massachusetts cities of Springfield and Holyoke, respectively. Many prominent American political dynasties have hailed from the state, including the Adams, both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also in Cambridge, have been ranked among the most highly regarded academic institutions in the world. Massachusetts public school students place among the top nations in the world in academic performance, the official name of the state is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. While this designation is part of the official name, it has no practical implications. Massachusetts has the position and powers within the United States as other states. Massachusetts was originally inhabited by tribes of the Algonquian language family such as the Wampanoag, Narragansett, Nipmuc, Pocomtuc, Mahican, and Massachusett. While cultivation of crops like squash and corn supplemented their diets, villages consisted of lodges called wigwams as well as longhouses, and tribes were led by male or female elders known as sachems. Between 1617 and 1619, smallpox killed approximately 90% of the Massachusetts Bay Native Americans, the first English settlers in Massachusetts, the Pilgrims, arrived via the Mayflower at Plymouth in 1620, and developed friendly relations with the native Wampanoag people. This was the second successful permanent English colony in the part of North America that later became the United States, the event known as the First Thanksgiving was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World which lasted for three days
3.
Hollywood
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Hollywood is an ethnically diverse, densely populated neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. It is notable as the home of the U. S. film industry, including several of its studios, and its name has come to be a shorthand reference for the industry. Hollywood was a community in 1870 and was incorporated as a municipality in 1903. It was consolidated with the city of Los Angeles in 1910, in 1853, one adobe hut stood in Nopalera, named for the Mexican Nopal cactus indigenous to the area. By 1870, an agricultural community flourished, the area was known as the Cahuenga Valley, after the pass in the Santa Monica Mountains immediately to the north. According to the diary of H. J. Whitley, known as the Father of Hollywood, along came a Chinese man in a wagon carrying wood. The man got out of the wagon and bowed, the Chinese man was asked what he was doing and replied, I holly-wood, meaning hauling wood. H. J. Whitley had an epiphany and decided to name his new town Hollywood, Holly would represent England and wood would represent his Scottish heritage. Whitley had already started over 100 towns across the western United States, Whitley arranged to buy the 500-acre E. C. Hurd ranch and disclosed to him his plans for the land. They agreed on a price and Hurd agreed to sell at a later date, before Whitley got off the ground with Hollywood, plans for the new town had spread to General Harrison Gray Otis, Hurds wife, eastern adjacent ranch co-owner Daeida Wilcox, and others. Daeida Wilcox may have learned of the name Hollywood from Ivar Weid, her neighbor in Holly Canyon and she recommended the same name to her husband, Harvey. In August 1887, Wilcox filed with the Los Angeles County Recorders office a deed and parcel map of property he had sold named Hollywood, Wilcox wanted to be the first to record it on a deed. The early real-estate boom busted that year, yet Hollywood began its slow growth. By 1900, the region had a post office, newspaper, hotel, Los Angeles, with a population of 102,479 lay 10 miles east through the vineyards, barley fields, and citrus groves. A single-track streetcar line ran down the middle of Prospect Avenue from it, but service was infrequent, the old citrus fruit-packing house was converted into a livery stable, improving transportation for the inhabitants of Hollywood. The Hollywood Hotel was opened in 1902 by H. J. Whitley who was a president of the Los Pacific Boulevard, having finally acquired the Hurd ranch and subdivided it, Whitley built the hotel to attract land buyers. Flanking the west side of Highland Avenue, the structure fronted on Prospect Avenue, the hotel was to become internationally known and was the center of the civic and social life and home of the stars for many years. Whitleys company developed and sold one of the residential areas
4.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
5.
D. W. Griffith
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David Wark D. W. Griffith was an American director, writer, and producer who pioneered modern filmmaking techniques. Griffith is best remembered for The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, the Birth of a Nation made use of advanced camera and narrative techniques, and its popularity set the stage for the dominance of the feature-length film in the United States. Today, it is noted for its radical technique and condemned for its inherently racist philosophy. The film was subject to boycotts by the NAACP and, after screenings of the film had caused riots at several theaters, Intolerance, his next film, was, in part, an answer to his critics. By the time of his feature, The Struggle, he had made roughly 500 films. Griffith is one of the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and he is credited with popularizing the use of the close-up shot. Griffith was born on a farm in Oldham County, Kentucky, Jacob was a Confederate Army colonel in the American Civil War and was elected as a Kentucky state legislator. He attended a one-room schoolhouse where he was taught by his older sister, after his father died when he was ten, the family struggled with poverty. When Griffith was 14, his mother abandoned the farm and moved the family to Louisville, Griffith then left high school to help support the family, taking a job in a dry goods store and later in a bookstore. Griffith began his career as an actor in touring companies. Meanwhile, he was learning how to become a playwright, but had little success—only one of his plays was accepted for a performance, Griffith then decided to become an actor, and appeared in many films as an extra. Griffith began making films in 1908, and released his first feature film, Judith of Bethulia. A few years earlier, in 1907, Griffith, still struggling as a playwright, Porter rejected Griffiths script, but gave him an acting part in Rescued from an Eagles Nest instead. Finding this attractive, Griffith began to explore a career as an actor in the picture business. At Biograph, Griffiths career in the industry would change forever. In 1908, Biographs main director Wallace McCutcheon grew ill, and his son, Wallace McCutcheon, McCutcheon, Jr. however, was not able to bring the studio any success. As a result, Biograph co-founder, Henry Harry Marvin, decided to give Griffith the position, Griffith would end up directing forty-eight shorts for the company that year. His short In Old California was the first film shot in Hollywood, four years later he produced and directed his first feature film Judith of Bethulia, one of the earliest to be produced in the United States
6.
Biograph Company
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The Biograph Company, also known as the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, was a motion picture company founded in 1895 and active until 1928. The company was distinguished with pioneering director D. W. Griffith and such actors as Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, an unrelated company, with the same name, was incorporated in California in 1991. As of 2012, its operations are suspended, the company was started by William Kennedy Dickson, an inventor at Thomas Edisons laboratory who helped pioneer the technology of capturing moving images on film. Dickson left Edison in April 1895, joining with inventors Herman Casler, Henry Marvin, in the summer of 1896 the Biograph projector was released, offering superior image quality to Edison’s Vitascope projector. The company soon became a leader in the industry, with distribution and production subsidiaries around the world including the British Mutoscope Company. In 1899 it changed its name to the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, the camera used friction feed, instead of Edison’s sprocket feed, to guide the film to the aperture. The camera itself punched a hole on each side of the frame as the film was exposed at 30 frames per second. Biograph offered prints in both formats to exhibitors until 1905, when it discontinued the larger format, the occasional narrative film, usually a comedy, was typically shot in one scene, with no editing. Spurred on by competition from Edison and British and European producers, as the stories became more complex, the films became longer, with multiple scenes to tell the story, although an individual scene was still usually presented in one shot without editing. Biographs production of actualities ended by 1908 in favor of the narrative film, the companys first studio was located on the roof of 841 Broadway at 13th Street in Manhattan, known then as the Hackett Carhart Building and today as the Roosevelt Building. The set-up was similar to Thomas Edisons Black Maria in West Orange, New Jersey, as of 1988, the foundations of this machinery were still extant. The company moved in 1906 to a brownstone mansion at 11 East 14th Street near Union Square. This was Biographs first indoor studio, and the first movie studio in the world to rely exclusively on artificial light, Biograph moved again in 1913, as it entered feature film production, to a new, state-of-the-art studio on 175th Street in the Bronx. In order to make the audience aware that they were watching an American Biograph movie the AB logo would be prominently placed in random parts of the movie. Director D. W. Griffith joined Biograph in 1908 as a writer and actor, but within months became their principal director. In 1908, the head director Wallace McCutcheon grew ill, and his son, Wallace McCutcheon Jr. took his place. As a result of failed productions, studio head Henry Marvin gave the position of head director to Griffith. Although Griffith did not invent these techniques, he made them a part of the film vocabulary
7.
Kinetoscope
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The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device. The Kinetoscope was designed for films to be viewed by one individual at a time through a peephole viewer window at the top of the device, a prototype for the Kinetoscope was shown to a convention of the National Federation of Womens Clubs on May 20,1891. The first public demonstration of the Kinetoscope was held at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts, in 1895, Edison introduced the Kinetophone, which joined the Kinetoscope with a cylinder phonograph. Film projection, which Edison initially disdained as financially nonviable, soon superseded the Kinetoscopes individual exhibition model, many of the projection systems developed by Edisons firm in later years would use the Kinetoscope name. An encounter with the work and ideas of photographic pioneer Eadweard Muybridge appears to have spurred Edison to pursue the development of a motion picture system. The Edison facility was very close by, and the lecture was attended by both Edison and his companys official photographer, William Dickson. No such collaboration was undertaken, but in October 1888, Edison filed a claim, known as a caveat. Patent Office announcing his plans to create a device that would do for the Eye what the phonograph does for the Ear. It is clear that it was intended as part of a complete audiovisual system, in March 1889, a second caveat was filed, in which the proposed motion picture device was given a name, Kinetoscope, derived from the Greek roots kineto- and scopos. Edison assigned Dickson, one of his most talented employees, to the job of making the Kinetoscope a reality, the Edison laboratory, though, worked as a collaborative organization. Laboratory assistants were assigned to work on many projects while Edison supervised and involved himself, Dickson and his then lead assistant, Charles Brown, made halting progress at first. An audio cylinder would provide synchronized sound, while the rotating images, when tests were made with images expanded to a mere 1/8 of an inch in width, the coarseness of the silver bromide emulsion used on the cylinder became unacceptably apparent. The first film made for the Kinetoscope, and apparently the first motion picture ever produced on film in the United States, may have been shot at this time, known as Monkeyshines. 1, it shows an employee of the lab in an apparently tongue-in-cheek display of physical dexterity, attempts at synchronizing sound were soon left behind, while Dickson would also experiment with disc-based exhibition designs. The project would soon head off in more directions, largely impelled by a trip of Edisons to Europe. The first motion system to employ a perforated image band was apparently the Théâtre Optique. Reynauds system did not use film, but images painted on gelatine frames. At the Exposition Universelle, Edison would have both the Théâtre Optique and the electrical tachyscope of German inventor Ottamar Anschütz
8.
Intolerance (film)
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Intolerance is a 1916 epic silent film directed by D. W. Griffith. Subtitles include Loves Struggle Throughout the Ages and A Sun-Play of the Ages, Bartholomews Day massacre of 1572, and a Babylonian story, the fall of the Babylonian Empire to Persia in 539 BC. Each story had its own distinctive color tint in the original print, the scenes are linked by shots of a figure representing Eternal Motherhood, rocking a cradle. It was not, as is implied, an apology for the racism of his earlier film. In numerous interviews, Griffith made clear that the films title, in the years following its release, Intolerance would strongly influence European film movements despite its lack of commercial success domestically. The film sets up moral and psychological connections among the different stories, the timeline covers approximately 2,500 years. The ancient Babylonian story depicts the conflict between Prince Belshazzar of Babylon and Cyrus the Great of Persia, the fall of Babylon is a result of intolerance arising from a conflict between devotees of two rival Babylonian gods—Bel-Marduk and Ishtar. The Biblical Judean story recounts how—after the Wedding at Cana and the Woman Taken in Adultery—intolerance led to the Crucifixion of Jesus and this sequence is the shortest of the four. The Renaissance French story tells of the religious intolerance led to the St. Bartholomews Day Massacre of Protestant Huguenots fomented by Catholic royals. The American Modern story demonstrates how crime, moral puritanism, to get more money for his spinster sisters charities, a mill owner orders a 10% pay cut to his workers wages. An ensuing workers strike is crushed and The Boy and The Dear One make their way to another city, she lives in poverty, after they marry he tries to break free of crime but is framed for theft by his ex-boss. While he is in prison, his wife must endure their child being taken away by the same moral uplift society that instigated the strike, upon his release from prison, he discovers his ex-boss attempting to rape his wife. A struggle begins and in the confusion the girlfriend of the boss shoots and she escapes and The Boy is convicted and sentenced to the gallows. A kindly policeman helps The Dear One find the killer and together they try to reach the Governor in time so her reformed husband will not be hanged. Breaks between the time periods are marked by the symbolic image of a mother rocking a cradle. The film simultaneously cross-cuts back and forth and interweaves the segments over great gaps of space and time, One of the unusual characteristics of the film is that many of the characters do not have names. Griffith wished them to be emblematic of human types, thus, the central female character in the modern story is called The Dear One. Her young husband is called The Boy, and the leader of the local Mafia is called The Musketeer of the Slums
9.
Lighting
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Lighting or illumination is the deliberate use of light to achieve a practical or aesthetic effect. Lighting includes the use of artificial light sources like lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing daylight. Daylighting is sometimes used as the source of light during daytime in buildings. This can save energy in place of using lighting, which represents a major component of energy consumption in buildings. Proper lighting can enhance performance, improve the appearance of an area. Indoor lighting is accomplished using light fixtures, and is a key part of interior design. Lighting can also be a component of landscape projects. With the discovery of fire, the earliest form of lighting used to illuminate an area were campfires or torches. As early as 400,000 BCE, fire was kindled in the caves of Peking Man, prehistoric people used primitive oil lamps to illuminate surroundings. These lamps were made from naturally occurring materials such as rocks, shells, horns and stones, were filled with grease, lamps typically used animal or vegetable fats as fuel. Hundreds of these lamps have been found in the Lascaux caves in modern-day France, oily animals were also used as lamps after being threaded with a wick. Fireflies have been used as lighting sources, candles and glass and pottery lamps were also invented. Chandeliers were a form of light fixture. A major reduction in the cost of lighting occurred with the discovery of whale oil, in 1849, Dr. Abraham Gesner, a Canadian geologist, devised a method where kerosene could be distilled from petroleum. Earlier coal-gas methods had been used for lighting since the 1820s, gesners kerosene was cheap, easy to produce, could be burned in existing lamps, and did not produce an offensive odor as did most whale oil. It could be stored indefinitely unlike whale oil, which would eventually spoil, the American petroleum boom began in the 1850s. By the end of the decade there were 30 kerosene plants operating in the United States, the cheaper, more efficient fuel began to drive whale oil out of the market. John D. Rockefeller was most responsible for the success of kerosene
10.
The Raven
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The Raven is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. First published in January 1845, the poem is noted for its musicality, stylized language. It tells of a talking ravens mysterious visit to a distraught lover, the lover, often identified as being a student, is lamenting the loss of his love, Lenore. Sitting on a bust of Pallas, the raven seems to further instigate his distress with its constant repetition of the word Nevermore, the poem makes use of a number of folk, mythological, religious, and classical references. The poem was inspired in part by a raven in the novel Barnaby Rudge. Poe borrows the complex rhythm and meter of Elizabeth Barretts poem Lady Geraldines Courtship, the Raven was first attributed to Poe in print in the New York Evening Mirror on January 29,1845. Its publication made Poe widely popular in his lifetime, although it did not bring him financial success. The poem was reprinted, parodied, and illustrated. Critical opinion is divided as to the literary status. The Raven follows an unnamed narrator on a night in December who sits reading forgotten lore by a dying fire as a way to forget the death of his beloved Lenore. A tapping at chamber door reveals nothing, but excites his soul to burning, the tapping is repeated, slightly louder, and he realizes it is coming from his window. When he goes to investigate, a raven flutters into his chamber, paying no attention to the man, the raven perches on a bust of Pallas above the door. Amused by the ravens comically serious disposition, the man asks that the bird tell him its name, the ravens only answer is Nevermore. The narrator is surprised that the raven can talk, though at this point it has nothing further. The narrator remarks to himself that his friend the raven will soon fly out of his life, as if answering, the raven responds again with Nevermore. The narrator reasons that the learned the word Nevermore from some unhappy master. Even so, the narrator pulls his chair directly in front of the raven and he thinks for a moment in silence, and his mind wanders back to his lost Lenore. He thinks the air grows denser and feels the presence of angels, the bird again replies in the negative, suggesting that he can never be free of his memories
11.
Way Down East
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Way Down East is a 1920 American silent romantic drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. It is one of four film adaptations of the melodramatic 19th century play Way Down East by Lottie Blair Parker, there were two earlier silent versions and one sound version in 1935 starring Henry Fonda. Griffiths version is remembered for its exciting climax in which Lillian Gishs character is rescued from doom on an icy river. Some sources, quoting newspaper ads of the time, say a sequence was filmed in a color process. The rich, typified by the handsome man-about-town Lennox, are exceptionally selfish, Anna is a poor country girl whom Lennox tricks into a fake wedding. When she becomes pregnant, he leaves her and she has the baby, named Trust Lennox, on her own. When the baby dies she wanders until she gets a job with Squire Bartlett, David, Squire Bartletts son, falls for her, but she rejects him due to her past. Then Lennox shows up lusting for another girl, Kate. Seeing Anna, he tries to get her to leave, but she refuses to go, finally, Squire Bartlett learns of Annas past from Martha, the town gossip. In his anger, he tosses Anna out into a snow storm, before she goes, she fingers the respected Lennox as her despoiler and the father of her dead baby. Anna becomes lost in the storm while David leads a search party. In the famous climax, the unconscious Anna floats on an ice floe down a river towards a waterfall, until rescued at the last moment by David, subplots relate the romances and eventual marriages of some of the picaresque characters inhabiting the village. Davies died in 1912 but had toured the play for well over ten years, the play was considered outdated by the time of its cinematic production in 1920. The play was a story that espoused nineteenth century Americana. Although it was Griffiths most expensive film to date, it was one of his most commercially successful. Way Down East is the fourth highest grossing silent film in cinema history, silentEra. com says that some sequences of Way Down East were filmed in an early Technicolor process. Clarine Seymour had appeared in four previous Griffith films, and was hired to play Kate, however, her role was given to Mary Hay, and Seymours footage reshot, when Seymour died after surgery. The famous ice floe sequence was filmed in White River Junction, an actual waterfall was used, though it was only a few feet high — the long shot where a large drop is shown was filmed at Niagara Falls
12.
The Birth of a Nation
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The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent epic drama film directed and co-produced by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. The screenplay is adapted from the novel and play The Clansman and it was released on February 8,1915. Three hours long, the film was presented in two parts separated by an intermission, it was the first 12-reel film in America. The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth is dramatized, there were widespread African-American protests against The Birth of a Nation, such as in Boston, while thousands of white Bostonians flocked to see the film. The NAACP spearheaded a campaign to ban the film. Griffiths indignation at efforts to censor or ban the film motivated him to produce Intolerance the following year. The films release is credited as being one of the events that inspired the formation of the second era Ku Klux Klan at Stone Mountain, Georgia. The Birth of a Nation, along with the trial and lynching of Leo Frank for the 1913 murder of Mary Phagan in Atlanta, was used as a tool for the KKK. Under President Woodrow Wilson, it was the first American motion picture to be screened at the White House, Griffiths innovative techniques and storytelling power have made The Birth of a Nation one of the landmarks of film history. In 1992, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, the film follows two juxtaposed families. One is the Northern Stonemans, abolitionist U. S, representative Austin Stoneman, his daughter, and two sons. The other is the Southern Camerons, Dr. Cameron is married to his wife, the couple also has three sons and two daughters. Phil, the elder Stoneman son, falls in love with Margaret Cameron, while the visit to the the Cameron estate in South Carolina. Meanwhile, young Ben Cameron idolizes a picture of Elsie Stoneman, during the Civil War, the young men from both families enlist in their respective armies for the war. The younger Stoneman and two of the Cameron brothers are killed in the war, meanwhile, the Cameron women are rescued by Confederate soldiers who rout a Black militia, after an attack on the Cameron home. Ben Cameron leads a charge at the Siege of Petersburg. But he is wounded and captured. He is then taken to a Union hospital in Washington, D. C, during his stay at the hospital, he is told that he will be hanged
