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.
Pittsburgh
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Pittsburgh is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States, and is the county seat of Allegheny County. The city proper has a population of 304,391. The metropolitan population of 2,353,045 is the largest in both the Ohio Valley and Appalachia, the second-largest in Pennsylvania, and the 26th-largest in the U. S. The city features 30 skyscrapers, two inclines, a fortification and the Point State Park at the confluence of the rivers. Aside from steel, Pittsburgh has led in manufacturing of aluminum, glass, shipbuilding, petroleum, foods, sports, transportation, computing, autos, and electronics. For part of the 20th century, Pittsburgh was behind only New York and Chicago in corporate headquarters employment, Americas 1980s deindustrialization laid off area blue-collar workers and thousands of downtown white-collar workers when the longtime Pittsburgh-based world headquarters moved out. The area has served also as the federal agency headquarters for cyber defense, software engineering, robotics, energy research. The area is home to 68 colleges and universities, including research and development leaders Carnegie Mellon University, the region is a hub for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, sustainable energy, and energy extraction. Pittsburgh was named in 1758 by General John Forbes, in honor of British statesman William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham. The current pronunciation, which is unusual in English speaking countries, is almost certainly a result of a printing error in some copies of the City Charter of March 18,1816. The error was repeated commonly enough throughout the rest of the 19th century that the pronunciation was lost. After a public campaign the original spelling was restored by the United States Board on Geographic Names in 1911. The area of the Ohio headwaters was long inhabited by the Shawnee, the first known European to enter the region was the French explorer/trader Robert de La Salle from Quebec during his 1669 expedition down the Ohio River. European pioneers, primarily Dutch, followed in the early 18th century, Michael Bezallion was the first to describe the forks of the Ohio in a 1717 manuscript, and later that year European fur traders established area posts and settlements. In 1749, French soldiers from Quebec launched an expedition to the forks to unite Canada with French Louisiana via the rivers, during 1753–54, the British hastily built Fort Prince George before a larger French force drove them off. The French built Fort Duquesne based on LaSalles 1669 claims, the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years War, began with the future Pittsburgh as its center. British General Edward Braddock was dispatched with Major George Washington as his aide to take Fort Duquesne, the British and colonial force were defeated at Braddocks Field. General John Forbes finally took the forks in 1758, Forbes began construction on Fort Pitt, named after William Pitt the Elder while the settlement was named Pittsborough
3.
Paul J. Pelz
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Paul Johannes Pelz was a German-American architect, best known as the main architect of the Library of Congress in Washington DC. Paul J. Pelz was born November 18,1841 in Seitendorf, Waldenburg, Silesia and his father, Eduard Pelz, was elected as a representative of Silesia to the Frankfurt Parliament in 1848. Subsequent political repression led him to emigrate to the U. S. in 1851 while the rest of the family stayed in Breslau. In 1858, Paul Pelz joined his father in New York City, in 1864, he was employed as chief draftsman by Jewish architect Henry Fernbach, best known for his later design of New Yorks Central Synagogue. In 1866, Pelz became a member of the American Institute of Architects, in 1867 he moved to Washington DC and was engaged as a civil engineer for the United States Lighthouse Board, where from 1872 to 1877 he served as chief draftsman. His work won a prize for the Lighthouse Board at the 1873 Universal Exhibition in Vienna, in 1873, Pelz and John L. Smithmeyer, another Washington-based architect, together won the competition for the architectural plans for the Library of Congress. Their winning design proposal was based on notes Pelz had taken on prominent public libraries when he traveled to Europe to collect the prize in Vienna. In the ensuing years Pelz also partnered with Smithmeyer on other projects, however, the difficulties experienced on the Library of Congress project, with many delays from congressional dithering, eventually strained their collaboration. In 1888 Pelz became the architect for the Library of Congress as Smithmeyer was dismissed, Pelz in turn was dismissed in 1892. Pelzs offices were in the Corcoran Building on 15th and F Street NW and he designed churches, public buildings, private houses and commercial buildings, and also participated in key debates of the time on Washingtons urban design. In 1898, at the request of socialite Mary Foote Henderson, pelzs first wife, Louise Dorothea Kipp, died in 1894. In 1895, he remarried with Mary Eastbourne Meem, on 30 March 1918, he died in Washington, D. C. He is buried together with his wife in Oak Hill Cemetery. Like other architects of his time, Pelz mastered a range of styles and was willing to switch across them depending on program. St. Augustine Lighthouse, St. Smithmeyer, Washington D. C,1873, 1886-92 Beautification of the Wisconsin Avenue Reservoir built in 1859 by Montgomery C. Meigs, Washington D. C.1875 Healy Hall and Riggs Memorial Library, Georgetown University, with John L. Smithmeyer, elkins,1626 K Street NW, Washington D. C. 1894–96 House on 3440 34th Place, Washington D. C. with Frederick W. C.1896 Mansion for Senator Joseph B. C, 1900–01 Townhouse on 2238 Q Street NW, Washington DC,1901 Grace Reformed Church, Washington DC, with A. A. 1907-08 Grace Reformed Church Sunday School, Washington D. C, 1911-1912 Works by or about Paul J. Pelz at Internet Archive Paul J. Pelz at Find a Grave
4.
Romanesque Revival architecture
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Romanesque Revival is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, however, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to feature more simplified arches, an early variety of Romanesque Revival style known as Rundbogenstil was popular in German lands and in the German diaspora beginning in the 1830s. By far the most prominent and influential American architect working in a free Romanesque manner was Henry Hobson Richardson, in the United States, the style derived from examples set by him are termed Richardsonian Romanesque, of which not all are Romanesque Revival. In Scotland the style started to emerge with the Duke of Argyl’s castle at Inverary, started in 1744, and castles by Robert Adam at Culzean, Oxenfoord, Dalquharran and it was at this point that the Norman Revival became a recognisable architectural style. In 1817 Thomas Rickman published his An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of English Architecture from the Conquest To the Reformation and it was now realised that ‘round-arch architecture’ was largely Romanesque in the British Isles and came to be described as Norman rather than Saxon. The start of an archaeologically correct Norman Revival can be recognised in the architecture of Thomas Hopper and his first attempt at this style was at Gosford Castle in Armagh in Ireland, but far more successful was his Penrhyn Castle near Bangor in North Wales. This was built for the Pennant family, between 1820 and 1837, however, the Norman Revival did catch on for church architecture. It was Thomas Penson, a Welsh architect, who would have been familiar with Hopper’s work at Penrhyn, Penson was influenced by French and Belgian Romanesque architecture, and particularly the earlier Romanesque phase of German Brick Gothic. At St David’s Newtown, 1843–47 and St Agatha’s Llanymynech,1845, he copies the tower of St. Salvators Cathedral, other examples of Romanesque revival by Penson are Christ Church, Welshpool, 1839–1844, and the porch to Langedwyn Church. He was an innovator in his use of Terracotta to produce decorative Romanesque mouldings, during the 19th century the architecture selected for Anglican churches depended on the churchmanship of particular congregations. Some of the examples of this Romanesque architecture is seen in Non-conformist or Dissenting churches. A good example of this is by the Lincoln architects Drury and Mortimer, after about 1870 this style of Church architecture in Britain disappears, but in the early 20th century, the style is succeeded by Byzantine Revival architecture. Two of Canadas provincial legislatures, the Ontario Legislative Building in Toronto, University College, one of seven colleges at the University of Toronto, is a chief example of the Romanesque Revival style. The building, designed by Frederic Cumberland and William G. Storm, was intended to be Gothic in style but was rejected by the governor general. Construction of the design began on 4 October 1856. The facade of University College has thick walls, incorporating layers of both stone and brick. The building possesses a number of round arches characteristic of the Roman Revival style, the arches are configured in arcades, most notably on the south side of the building. There is a deal of ornamentation on both the interior and exterior of University College
5.
Richardsonian Romanesque
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Richardson first used elements of the style in his Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane in Buffalo, New York, designed in 1870. This very free revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, the style includes work by the generation of architects practicing in the 1880s before the influence of the Beaux-Arts styles. It is epitomised by the American Museum of Natural Historys original 77th Street building by J. Cleaveland Cady of Cady, Berg and See in New York City. It was seen in communities in this time period such as in St. Thomas, Ontarios city hall and Menomonie. Some of the practitioners who most faithfully followed Richardsons proportion, massing and detailing had worked in his office and these include, Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow and Frank Alden, George Shepley and Charles Coolidge, Herbert Burdett. Bate designed the Grays Armory in this style in Cleveland, Ohio, the style also influenced the Chicago school of architecture and architects Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. In Finland, Eliel Saarinen was influenced by Richardson, research is underway to try to document the westward movement of the artisans and craftsmen, many of whom were immigrant Italians and Irish, who built in the Richardsonian Romanesque tradition. The style began in the East, in and around Boston, as the style was losing favor in the East, it was gaining popularity further west. Stone carvers and masons trained in the Richardsonian manner appear to have taken the style west, as an example, four small bank buildings were built in Richardsonian Romanesque style in Osage County, Oklahoma, during 1904–1911. For pictures of H. H. Richardson’s own designs and some of the details, with the exception of the Richardson Olmsted Complex, none of the following structures were designed by Richardson. They illustrate the strength of his personality on progressive North American architecture from 1885 to 1905. They are divided into categories denoting the various different uses of the buildings, civic Buildings Educational Institutions and Libraries Service-related buildings Churches and chapels Residences Henry Hobson Richardson H
6.
Allegheny Center (Pittsburgh)
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Allegheny Center is a neighborhood on Pittsburghs North Side. Its zip code is 15212, and it has representation on Pittsburgh City Council by both council members for District 6 and District 1, in 1783, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania established a 3000-acre tract of land north of where the Allegheny River merged with the Ohio River. John Redick created a town plan for Allegheny City- which featured 36 city blocks surrounded by a common grazing area - the following year. That initial 36-block area is todays Allegheny Center and it is still surrounded on three sides by the former grazing area, now a public park called Allegheny Commons. On either side of park are the neighborhoods of Allegheny West and East Allegheny. The main thoroughfare was East Ohio Street, which stretched from Allegheny West through Allegheny Center and then to Allegheny East, from the 19th century to 1907, Allegheny Center was thus the hub of downtown Allegheny City. The Childrens Museum of Pittsburgh is located within it, as is the old Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny, Allegheny Center is also home to the National Aviary, situated within West Park. After 1907, this continued to be a hub for those residents of what was now Pittsburghs North Side. In the 1950s, community leaders discussed how to revitalize the historic hub of Allegheny City, designed by architects Deeter & Ritchey, it involved a $65 million project by Alcoa Properties, Inc. The public square was the object of a design competition sponsored by the Pittsburgh Urban Redevelopment Authority. The entire Allegheny Redevelopment Area encompasses approximately 79 acres on the North Side, the central portion of East Ohio Street was closed, and drivers were forced to take a new ring road around the mall and the other blocks of Redicks initial plan to proceed east or west. The mall, opened in 1965 and anchored by Sears, F. W, the malls stores began closing in the 1990s, and the mall gradually became a successful office complex. While there are businesses that serve the office workers in the former mall. A former business district along North Avenue in Central Northside, which deteriorated along with Allegheny Center, Allegheny West Central Northside East Allegheny North Shore List of Pittsburgh neighborhoods Toker, Franklin. Allegheny Center Childrens Museum of Pittsburgh history History of the Buhl Planetarium
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Andrew Carnegie
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He built a leadership role as a philanthropist for the United States and the British Empire. During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away to charities, foundations and his 1889 article proclaiming The Gospel of Wealth called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, and it stimulated a wave of philanthropy. Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and emigrated in 1848 to the United States with his parents, Carnegie started work as a telegrapher and by the 1860s had investments in railroads, railroad sleeping cars, bridges and oil derricks. He accumulated further wealth as a bond salesman raising money for American enterprise in Europe and he built Pittsburghs Carnegie Steel Company, which he sold to J. P. Morgan in 1901 for $480 million. It became the U. S. Steel Corporation, after selling Carnegie Steel, he surpassed John D. Rockefeller as the richest American for the next couple of years. Carnegie devoted the remainder of his life to philanthropy, with special emphasis on local libraries, world peace, education. Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, in a typical weavers cottage with only one main room, the main room served as a living room, dining room and bedroom. He was named after his legal grandfather, in 1836, the family moved to a larger house in Edgar Street, following the demand for more heavy damask from which his father, William Carnegie, benefited. He was educated at the Free School in Dunfermline, which had been a gift to the town by the philanthropist Adam Rolland of Gask, Lauders son, also named George Lauder, grew up with Andrew and would become his business partner. When Carnegie was thirteen, his father had fallen on hard times as a handloom weaver. His mother helped support the family by assisting her brother who was a cobbler and she eventually became the primary breadwinner by the 1840s. Struggling to make ends meet, the Carnegies then decided to move with his family to Allegheny, Pennsylvania, Andrews family had to borrow money from the Lauders in order to migrate. Allegheny was an industrial area that produced many products including wool. The Made in Allegheny label used on these and other diversified products was becoming more and more popular. His first job at age 13 in 1848 was as a bobbin boy and his starting wage was $1.20 per week. Andrews father, William Carnegie, started off working in a cotton mill and his mother, Margaret Morrison Carnegie, earned money by binding shoes. In 1849, Carnegie became a messenger boy in the Pittsburgh Office of the Ohio Telegraph Company, at $2.50 per week. He was a hard worker and would memorize all of the locations of Pittsburghs businesses
8.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
9.
Carnegie Free Library of Braddock
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The Braddock Carnegie Library in Braddock, Pennsylvania, is the first Carnegie Library in the United States. The building was dedicated by Carnegie in person at ceremonies on March 30,1889, circulation of books also began that month. An addition in more Richardson Romanesque style by Longfellow, Alden & Harlow followed in 1893, the Carnegie foundation provided a grant of $357,782 for its construction. Like some of the other early Carnegie libraries, the building housed various recreational facilities for its users, a bathhouse in the basement, originally accessed by a tunnel under the front entrance, provided Carnegies millworkers with a place to shower before using the facilities. Now re-purposed as a studio, the tiled walls and floor remain. At least in the years, the athletic/recreational facilities were available to members of the Carnegie Club who paid a modest quarterly fee. Employees of any Carnegie-owned company received a 50% discount, which in 1903 amounted to $1/quarter, three sets of decorative cast-iron panels with elements that include a shield and oak leaves are located below the first-floor bay-front windows of the Halsey Wood façade. Two specimens of Q robur now flank the entryway steps, the Library remained in continuous use from 1889 to 1974, when neglect of the structure and lack of funds for repair, particularly of the roof, forced its closure. It was slated for demolition in the late 1970s when a group of residents for whom the Library had represented a positive influence in their youth. Initially re-opening a single room as a library in 1983, with kerosene heat. Currently, library services for adults have largely moved to the first floor, in the basement space originally occupied by a bathhouse, the Bathhouse Ceramics Studio offers pottery lessons to the community. Work on the Music Hall continues, with restoration of the floor, kane Co. seats the current focus. The building has been used in several cinematic productions, the earliest known, Tony Bubas music video from ~1982 of Frenchy Burritos cover of the Robert Johnson classic, Terraplane Blues, was filmed in the gymnasium. In early Dec 2014, the Library was the location for filming sequences of Dr. Bennet Omalus office in Concussion, with Will Smith,3, Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh, Digital Resource Library, pp. 737–740
10.
National Park Service
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It was created on August 25,1916, by Congress through the National Park Service Organic Act and is an agency of the United States Department of the Interior. As of 2014, the NPS employs 21,651 employees who oversee 417 units, the National Park Service celebrated its centennial in 2016. National parks and national monuments in the United States were originally individually managed under the auspices of the Department of the Interior, the movement for an independent agency to oversee these federal lands was spearheaded by business magnate and conservationist Stephen Mather, as well as J. Horace McFarland. With the help of journalist Robert Sterling Yard, Mather ran a publicity campaign for the Department of the Interior and they wrote numerous articles that praised the scenic and historic qualities of the parks and their possibilities for educational, inspirational, and recreational benefits. This campaign resulted in the creation of a National Park Service, Mather became the first director of the newly formed NPS. On March 3,1933, President Herbert Hoover signed the Reorganization Act of 1933, the act would allow the President to reorganize the executive branch of the United States government. It wasnt until later that summer when the new President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Roosevelt agreed and issued two Executive orders to make it happen. In 1951, Conrad Wirth became director of the National Park Service, the demand for parks after the end of the World War II had left the parks overburdened with demands that could not be met. In 1952, with the support of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, he began Mission 66, New parks were added to preserve unique resources and existing park facilities were upgraded and expanded. In 1966, as the Park Service turned 50 years old, emphasis began to turn from just saving great and wonderful scenery, Director George Hartzog began the process with the creation of the National Lakeshores and then National Recreation Areas. Since its inception in 1916, the National Park Service has managed each of the United States national parks, Yellowstone National Park was the first national park in the United States. In 1872, there was no government to manage it. Yosemite National Park began as a park, the land for the park was donated by the federal government to the state of California in 1864 for perpetual conservation. Yosemite was later returned to federal ownership, at first, each national park was managed independently, with varying degrees of success. In Yellowstone, the staff was replaced by the U. S. Army in 1886. Due to the irregularities in managing these national treasures, Stephen Mather petitioned the government to improve the situation. In response, Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane challenged him to lobby for creating a new agency, Mather was successful with the ratification of the National Park Service Organic Act in 1916. Later, the agency was given authority over other protected areas, the National Park System includes all properties managed by the National Park Service
