Carl Van Vechten was an American writer and artistic photographer, a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein. He gained fame as a writer, notoriety as well, for his 1926 novel Nigger Heaven. In his years, he took up photography and took many portraits of notable people. Although he was married to women for most of his adult life, Van Vechten engaged in numerous homosexual affairs over his lifetime. Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he was the youngest child of Ada Van Vechten. Both of his parents were well educated, his father was a prominent banker. His mother had great musical talent; as a child, Van Vechten developed a passion for theatre. He graduated from Washington High School in 1898. After high school, Van Vechten was eager to take the next steps in his life, but found it difficult to pursue his passions in Iowa, he described his hometown as "that unloved town". In order to advance his education, he decided in 1899 to study at the University of Chicago where he studied a variety of topics including music and opera.

As a student, he became interested in writing and wrote for the college newspaper, the University of Chicago Weekly. After graduating from college in 1903, Van Vechten accepted a job as a columnist for the Chicago American. In his column "The Chaperone", Van Vechten covered many different topics through a style of semi-autobiographical gossip and criticism. During his time with the Chicago American, he was asked to include photographs with his column; this was the first time he was thought to have experimented with photography which became one of his greatest passions. Van Vechten was fired from his position with the Chicago American because of what was described as an elaborate and complicated style of writing; some described his contributions to the paper as "lowering the tone of the Hearst papers". In 1906, he moved to New York City, he was hired as the assistant music critic at The New York Times. His interest in opera had him take a leave of absence from the paper in 1907 to travel to Europe and explore opera.

While in England, he married his long-time friend from Cedar Rapids. He returned to his job at The New York Times in 1909, where he became the first American critic of modern dance. Under the leadership of Van Vechten's social mentor Mabel Dodge Luhan, he became engrossed in avant-garde art; this was an innovative type of art which explores new styles or subject matters and is thought to be well ahead of other art in terms of technique, subject matter, application. He began to attend groundbreaking musical premieres at the time when Isadora Duncan, Anna Pavlova, Loie Fuller were performing in New York City, he attended premieres in Paris where he met American author and poet Gertrude Stein in 1913. He became a devoted champion of Stein, he was considered to be one of Stein's most enthusiastic fans. They continued corresponding for the remainder of Stein's life, and, at her death, she appointed Van Vechten her literary executor. A collection of the letters between Van Vechten and Stein has been published.

Van Vechten wrote. In his piece, Van Vechten attempted to bring clarity to her works. Van Vechten came to the conclusion that Gertrude Stein is a difficult author to understand and she can be best understood when one has been guided through her work by an "expert insider", he writes that "special writers require special readers". The marriage to Anna Snyder ended in divorce in 1912, he wed actress Fania Marinoff in 1914. Van Vechten and Marinoff were known for ignoring the social separation of races during the times and for inviting blacks to their home for social gatherings, they were known to attend public gatherings for black people and to visit black friends in their homes. Although Van Vechten's marriage to his wife Fania Marinoff lasted for 50 years, they had arguments about Van Vechten's affairs with men. Van Vechten was known to have romantic and sexual relationships with men Mark Lutz. Mark Lutz grew up in Richmond and was introduced to Van Vechten by Hunter Stagg in New York in 1931. Lutz was a model for some of Van Vechten's earliest experiments with photography.

The friendship lasted until Van Vechten's death. At Lutz's death, as per his wishes, the correspondence with Van Vechten, amounting to 10,000 letters, was destroyed. Lutz donated his collection of Van Vechten's photographs to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Several books of Van Vechten's essays on various subjects, such as music and literature, were published between 1915 and 1920, Vechten served as an informal scout for the newly formed Alfred A. Knopf. Between 1922 and 1930 Knopf published seven novels by him, starting with Peter Whiffle: His Life and Works and ending with Parties, his sexuality is most reflected in his intensely homoerotic portraits of working-class men. As an appreciator of the arts, Van Vechten was intrigued by the explosion of creativity, occurring in Harlem, he was drawn towards the tolerance of Harlem society and the excitement it generated among black writers and artists. He felt most accepted there as a gay man. Van Vechten promoted many of the major figures of the Harlem Renaissance, including Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, Ethel Waters, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston and Wallace Thurman.

Van Vechten's controversial novel Nigger Heaven was published in 1926. His essay "Negro Blues Singers" was published in Vanity Fair in 1926. Biographer Edward White suggests Van V

Usami Station is a railway station in the northern part of the city of Itō, Shizuoka Prefecture, operated by East Japan Railway Company. Usami Station is served by the Itō Line, is located 13.0 kilometers from the starting point of the line at Atami Station and 117.6 kilometers from Tokyo Station. Usami Station has two opposed ground level side platforms connected by a footbridge; the station building has automated ticket machines and Suica automated turnstiles, is unattended. Usami Station opened on December 15, 1938, when the section of the Itō Line linking Ajiro with Itō was completed. Freight services were discontinued on November 1, 1958. On April 1, 1987 along with division and privatization of the Japan National Railway, East Japan Railway Company started operating this station. In fiscal 2013, the station was used by an average of 1254 passengers daily. Usami Onsen List of Railway Stations in Japan JR East Usami Station

Oakengates is a town in the borough of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial county of Shropshire and now forms part of the new town of Telford. The parish's population was recorded as 8,517 in the 2001 census; the name is not derived from "oak" or "gates" but is derived from the Ancient Brythonic name for the valley, Usc-con, meaning The Lake(Usc and the confluence of two streams, from the Old Norse gata, path. Meaning boundary or Road. So Usc-con gait is at the Road at the vale of Usc-con. A history of Oakengates was written by local historian Reverend J. E. G. Cartlidge whose name is commemorated in the name of the retirement home Cartlidge House; the Shrewsbury to Wolverhampton railway line runs through the town and there is a station and a tunnel. Oakengates was served by the Coalport Branch Line and had a second station called Oakengates Market Street railway station which closed in 1952, it is now Station Hill with only the goods shed still standing. In the late 18th century the Ketley Canal was constructed to carry coal and ironstone from Oakengates to Ketley works.

The canal has long since fallen into disuse and little trace of it can be found today. The first boat lift in Britain was an experimental one built at Oakengates in 1794 by Robert Weldon of Lichfield. A full-scale version was to be built on the Somerset Coal Canal at Rowley Bottom near Combe Hay, but the lift jammed and failed while being demonstrated and the construction was abandoned; the town had a considerable manufacturing sector well into the c20 and one of the products of this can still be seen at the Museum of Power in Langford, Essex. This has, still in working order, what is believed to be the last steam engine built and installed by the Lilleshall Company Ltd, it was commissioned on 13 January 1931. Shadrach Fox ran the Wombridge Iron Works in Oakengates and with Abraham Darby was involved in experiments on methods of producing pig iron in a blast furnace fuelled by coke rather than charcoal; this was a major step forward in the production of iron as a raw material for the Industrial Revolution.

In 1701 he placed his brother in charge of the blast furnace, at Wombridge to which Isaac Hawkins supplied a large quantity of coal and ironstone, which suggests that they smelted iron with coke there - a major technological breakthrough, now commemorated at nearby Coalbrookdale. Ferrous metallurgy Oakengates has Telford's main theatre. Nearby are the town council's headquarters and the United Reformed/Methodist church; the town has a growing reputation as offering an "all year real ale festival". It has three pubs in the CAMRA guide more than many towns much greater in size; these are the Crown Inn, The Old Fighting Cocks and The Station Inn which are all within a few feet of each other and collectively offer a wide range of real ales, principally from smaller breweries. Over 20 can be found at any one time and special beer festivals at the individual pubs can expand this range further at certain times of year. Before the formation of the District of The Wrekin and the Borough of Telford and The Wrekin, the Urban District of Oakengates comprised Oakengates, Wrockwardine Wood, St. George's, Snedshill, The Nabb and Trench, always had a Labour council.

Oakengates Athletic F. C. play in the Shropshire County Premier Football League. Listed buildings in Oakengates