Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 45th-most populous city in the United States. As of July 2016, the population was 413,505, an increase of 12,591 over that reported in the 2010 Census, it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with 991,005 residents in the MSA and 1,251,172 in the CSA. The city serves as the county seat of Tulsa County, the most densely populated county in Oklahoma, with urban development extending into Osage and Wagoner counties. Tulsa was settled between 1836 by the Lochapoka Band of Creek Native American tribe. For most of the 20th century, the city held the nickname "Oil Capital of the World" and played a major role as one of the most important hubs for the American oil industry. A robust energy sector fueled Tulsa's economy. Two institutions of higher education within the city have sports teams at the NCAA Division I level, Oral Roberts University and the University of Tulsa, it is situated on the Arkansas River between the Osage Hills and the foothills of the Ozark Mountains in northeast Oklahoma, a region of the state known as "Green Country".
Considered the cultural and arts center of Oklahoma, Tulsa houses two art museums, full-time professional opera and ballet companies, one of the nation's largest concentrations of art deco architecture. The city has been called one of America's most livable large cities by Partners for Livable Communities and Relocate America. FDi Magazine in 2009 ranked the city no. 8 in the U. S. for cities of the future. In 2012, Tulsa was ranked among the top 50 best cities in the United States by BusinessWeek. People from Tulsa are called "Tulsans"; the area where Tulsa now exists was considered Indian Territory when it was first formally settled by the Lochapoka and Creek tribes in 1836. They established a small settlement under the Creek Council Oak Tree at the present day intersection of Cheyenne Avenue and 18th Street; this area and this tree reminded Chief Tukabahchi and his small group of the Trail of Tears survivors of the bend in the river and their previous Creek Council Oak Tree back in the Talisi, Alabama area.
They named their new settlement Tallasi, meaning "old town" in the Creek language, which became "Tulsa". The area around Tulsa was settled by members of the other so-called "Five Civilized Tribes", relocated to Oklahoma from the Southern United States. Most of modern Tulsa is located in the Creek Nation, with parts located in the Cherokee and Osage Nations. Although Oklahoma was not yet a state during the Civil War, the Tulsa area saw its share of fighting; the Battle of Chusto-Talasah took place on the north side of Tulsa and a number of battles and skirmishes took place in nearby counties. After the War, the tribes signed Reconstruction treaties with the federal government that in some cases required substantial land concessions. In the years after the Civil War and around the turn of the century, the area along the Arkansas River, now Tulsa was periodically home to or visited by a series of colorful outlaws, including the legendary Wild Bunch, the Dalton Gang, Little Britches. On January 18, 1898, Tulsa was incorporated and elected its first mayor, Edward Calkins.
Tulsa was still a small town near the banks of the Arkansas River in 1901 when its first oil well, named Sue Bland No. 1, was established. Much of the oil was discovered on land whose mineral rights were owned by members of the Osage Nation under a system of headrights. By 1905, the discovery of the large Glenn Pool prompted a rush of entrepreneurs to the area's growing number of oil fields. Unlike the early settlers of Northeastern Oklahoma, who most migrated from the South and Texas, many of these new oil-driven settlers came to Tulsa from the commercial centers of the East Coast and lower Midwest; this migration distinguished the city's demographics from neighboring communities and is reflected in the designs of early Tulsa's upscale neighborhoods. Known as the "Oil Capital of the World" for most of the 20th century, the city's success in the energy industry prompted construction booms in the popular Art Deco style of the time. Profits from the oil industry continued through the Great Depression, helping the city's economy fare better than most in the United States during the 1930s.
In the early 20th century, Tulsa was home to the "Black Wall Street", one of the most prosperous black communities in the United States at the time. Located in the Greenwood neighborhood, it was the site of the Tulsa Race Riot, one of the nation's worst acts of racial violence and civil disorder, with whites attacking blacks. Sixteen hours of rioting on May 31 and June 1, 1921, was ended only when National Guardsmen were brought in by the Governor. An official report claimed that 23 black and 16 white citizens were killed, but other estimates suggest as many as 300 people died, most of them black. Over 800 people were admitted to local hospitals with injuries, an estimated 10,000 black people were left homeless as 35 city blocks, composed of 1,256 residences, were destroyed by fire. Property damage was estimated at $1.8 million. Efforts to obtain reparations for survivors of the violence have been unsuccessful, but the events were re-examined by the city and state in the early 21st century, acknowledging the terrible actions that had taken place.
In 1925, Tulsa businessman Cyrus Avery, known as the "Father of Route 66," began his
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is the United States National Cultural Center, located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D. C. named in 1964 as a memorial to President John F. Kennedy. Opened on September 8, 1971, the performing arts center is a multi-dimensional facility: it produces a wide array of performances encompassing the genres of theater, dance and orchestral, jazz and folk music. In addition to the 3,500 performances held annually for audiences totaling nearly two million, the center hosts touring productions and television and radio broadcasts that, are seen by 20 million more. Now in its 45th season, the center presents music and theater and supports artists in the creation of new work. With its artistic affiliate, the National Symphony Orchestra, the center's achievements as a commissioner and nurturer of developing artists have resulted in over 200 theatrical productions, dozens of new ballets and musical works. Authorized by the 1958 National Cultural Center Act of Congress, which requires that its programming be sustained through private funds, the center represents a public–private partnership.
Its activities include educational and outreach initiatives entirely funded through ticket sales and gifts from individuals and private foundations. The building, designed by architect Edward Durell Stone, was constructed by Philadelphia contractor John McShain, is administered as a bureau of the Smithsonian Institution. An earlier design proposal called for a more curvy, spaceship-inspired building similar to how the Watergate complex appears today, it receives annual federal funding to pay for its operation. The idea for a national cultural center dates to 1933 when First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt discussed ideas for the Emergency Relief and Civil Works Administration to create employment for unemployed actors during the Great Depression. Congress held hearings in 1935 on plans to establish a Cabinet level Department of Science and Literature, to build a monumental theater and arts building on Capitol Hill near the Supreme Court building. A 1938 congressional resolution called for construction of a "public building which shall be known as the National Cultural Center" near Judiciary Square, but nothing materialized.
The idea for a national theater resurfaced in 1950, when U. S. Representative Arthur George Klein of New York introduced a bill to authorize funds to plan and build a cultural center; the bill included provisions that the center would prohibit any discrimination of audience. In 1955, the Stanford Research Institute was commissioned to select a site and provide design suggestions for the center. From 1955 to 1958, Congress debated the idea amid much controversy. A bill was passed in Congress in the summer of 1958 and on September 4, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the National Cultural Center Act which provided momentum for the project; this was the first time that the federal government helped finance a structure dedicated to the performing arts. The legislation required a portion of the costs, estimated at $10–25 million, to be raised within five years of the bill's passage. Edward Durell Stone was selected as architect for the project in June 1959, he presented preliminary designs to the President's Music Committee in October 1959, along with estimated costs of $50 million, double the original estimates of $25–30 million.
By November 1959, estimated costs had escalated to $61 million. Despite this, Stone's design was well received in editorials in The Washington Post, Washington Star, approved by the United States Commission of Fine Arts, National Capital Planning Commission, the National Park Service; the National Cultural Center was renamed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1964, following the assassination of President Kennedy; the National Cultural Center Board of Trustees, a group President Eisenhower established January 29, 1959, led fundraising. Fundraising efforts were not successful, with only $13,425 raised in the first three years. President John F. Kennedy was interested in bringing culture to the nation's capital, provided leadership and support for the project. In 1961, President Kennedy asked Roger L. Stevens to help develop the National Cultural Center, serve as chairman of the Board of Trustees. Stevens recruited First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy as Honorary Chairman of the Center, former First Lady Mamie Eisenhower as co-chairman.
The total cost of construction was $70 million. Congress allocated $43 million for construction costs, including $23 million as an outright grant and the other $20 million in bonds. Donations comprised a significant portion of funding, including $5 million from the Ford Foundation, $500,000 from the Kennedy family. Other major donors included J. Willard Marriott, Marjorie Merriweather Post, John D. Rockefeller III, Robert W. Woodruff, as well as many corporate donors. Foreign countries provided gifts to the Kennedy Center, including a gift of 3,700 tons of Carrara marble from Italy from the Italian government, used in the building's construction. President Lyndon B. Johnson dug the ceremonial first-shovel of earth at the groundbreaking for the Kennedy Center December 2, 1964. However, debate continued for another year over the Foggy Bottom site, with some advocating for another location on Pennsylvania Avenue. Excavation of the site got underway on December 11, 1965, the site was c
Richard Hofstadter
Richard Hofstadter was an American historian and public intellectual of the mid-20th century. Hofstadter was the DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University. Modifying his earlier communist approach to history, in the 1950s he came closer to the concept of "consensus history", was epitomized by some of his admirers as the "iconic historian of postwar liberal consensus." Others see in his work an early critique of the one-dimensional society, as Hofstadter was critical of socialist and capitalist models of society, bemoaned the "consensus" within the society as "bounded by the horizons of property and entrepreneurship", criticizing the "hegemonic liberal capitalist culture running throughout the course of American history". His most read works are Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915, he was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize: in 1956 for The Age of Reform, an analysis of the populism movement in the 1890s and the progressive movement of the early 20th century.
Richard Hofstadter was born in multi-ethnic Buffalo, New York, in 1916 to a Jewish father, Emil A. Hofstadter, a German American Lutheran mother, who died when Richard was ten, he attended the Fosdick-Masten Park High School in Buffalo. Hofstadter studied philosophy and history at the University at Buffalo, from 1933, under the diplomatic historian Julius W. Pratt. Despite opposition from both families, he married Felice Swados in 1936 after he and Felice spent several summers at Hunter Colony, New York, run by Margaret Lefranc, their close friend for years. Hofstadter was raised as an Episcopalian but identified more with his Jewish roots. Antisemitism may have cost him fellowships at attractive professorships; the Buffalo Jewish Hall of Fame list him as one of the "Jewish Buffalonians who have made a lasting contribution to the world."In 1936, Hofstadter entered the doctoral program in history at Columbia University where his advisor Merle Curti was demonstrating how to synthesize intellectual and political history based upon secondary sources rather than primary-source archival research.
In 1938 he became a member of the Communist Party, but soon became disillusioned by the Stalinist party discipline and show trials. After withdrawing membership in August 1939 following the Hitler-Stalin Pact, he retained a critical left wing perspective, still obvious in American Political Tradition in 1948. Hofstadter earned his PhD in 1942. In 1944, he published his dissertation Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915, it was a commercially successful critique of late nineteenth-century American capitalism and its ruthless "dog-eat-dog" economic competition and Social Darwinian self-justification. Conservative critics, such as Irwin G. Wylie and Robert C. Bannister, disagreed with his interpretation; the sharpest criticism of Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915 focused on Hofstadter's weakness as a research scholar: he did little or no research into manuscripts, archival, or unpublished sources. Instead, he relied upon secondary sources augmented by his lively style and wide-ranging interdisciplinary readings, thus producing well-written arguments based upon scattered evidence he found by reading other historians.
From 1942 to 1946 Hofstadter taught history at the University of Maryland, where he became a close friend of the radical sociologist C. Wright Mills and read extensively in the fields of sociology and psychology, absorbing ideas of Max Weber, Karl Mannheim, Sigmund Freud, the Frankfurt School, his books refer to behavioral concepts such as "status anxiety." In 1946 Hofstadter joined the Columbia University faculty and in 1959 succeeded Allan Nevins as the DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History, where he played a major role in directing Ph. D. dissertations in the field. According to David Brown, his biographer, after 1945 Hofstadter philosophically "broke" with Charles A. Beard and moved to the right, becoming leader of the "consensus historians," a term that Hofstadter disapproved of, but it was applied to his apparent rejection of the Beardian idea that the fundamental conflict running throughout American history that pitted economic classes against each other was the sole basis for understanding history.
In a dissenting view, Christopher Lasch wrote that unlike the "consensus historians" of the 1950s, Hofstadter saw the consensus of classes on behalf of business interests not as a strength but "as a form of intellectual bankruptcy and as a reflection, not of a healthy sense of the practical but of the domination of American political thought by popular mythologies". As early as his American Political Tradition, but still viewing politics from a critical left-wing perspective, Hofstadter rejected black-and-white polarization between pro-business and anti-business politicians. Making explicit reference to Jefferson, Lincoln, Bryan and Hoover, Hofstadter made a statement on the consensus in the American political tradition, sometimes seen as "ironic": The fierceness of the political struggles has been misleading: for the range of vision embraced by the primary contestants in the major parties has always been bounded by the horizons of property and enterprise; however much at odds on specific issues, the major political traditions have shared a belief in the rights of property, the philosophy of economic individualism, the value of comp
Alma mater
Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university, school, or college that one attended. In US usage it can mean the school from which one graduated; the phrase is variously translated as "nourishing mother", "nursing mother", or "fostering mother", suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to its students. Fine arts will depict educational institutions using a robed woman as a visual metaphor. Before its current usage, alma mater was an honorific title for various Latin mother goddesses Ceres or Cybele, in Catholicism for the Virgin Mary, it entered academic usage when the University of Bologna adopted the motto Alma Mater Studiorum, which describes its heritage as the oldest operating university in the Western world. It is related to alumnus, a term used for a university graduate that means a "nursling" or "one, nourished". Although alma was a common epithet for Ceres, Cybele and other mother goddesses, it was not used in conjunction with mater in classical Latin. In the Oxford Latin Dictionary, the phrase is attributed to Lucretius' De rerum natura, where it is used as an epithet to describe an earth goddess: After the fall of Rome, the term came into Christian liturgical usage in association with the Virgin Mary.
"Alma Redemptoris Mater" is a well-known 11th century antiphon devoted to Mary. The earliest documented use of the term to refer to a university in an English-speaking country is in 1600, when the University of Cambridge printer, John Legate, began using an emblem for the university's press; the device's first-known appearance is on the title-page of William Perkins' A Golden Chain, where the Latin phrase Alma Mater Cantabrigia is inscribed on a pedestal bearing a nude, lactating woman wearing a mural crown. In English etymological reference works, the first university-related usage is cited in 1710, when an academic mother figure is mentioned in a remembrance of Henry More by Richard Ward. Many historic European universities have adopted Alma Mater as part of the Latin translation of their official name; the University of Bologna Latin name, Alma Mater Studiorum, refers to its status as the oldest continuously operating university in the world. Other European universities, such as the Alma Mater Lipsiensis in Leipzig, Germany, or Alma Mater Jagiellonica, have used the expression in conjunction with geographical or foundational characteristics.
At least one, the Alma Mater Europaea in Salzburg, Austria, an international university founded by the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2010, uses the term as its official name. In the United States, the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, has been called the "Alma Mater of the Nation" because of its ties to the country's founding. At Queen's University in Kingston and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, the main student government is known as the Alma Mater Society; the ancient Roman world had many statues of the Alma Mater, some still extant. Modern sculptures are found in prominent locations on several American university campuses. For example, in the United States: there is a well-known bronze statue of Alma Mater by Daniel Chester French situated on the steps of Columbia University's Low Library. An altarpiece mural in Yale University's Sterling Memorial Library, painted in 1932 by Eugene Savage, depicts the Alma Mater as a bearer of light and truth, standing in the midst of the personified arts and sciences.
Outside the United States, there is an Alma Mater sculpture on the steps of the monumental entrance to the Universidad de La Habana, in Havana, Cuba. The statue was cast in 1919 by Mario Korbel, with Feliciana Villalón Wilson as the inspiration for Alma Mater, it was installed in its current location in 1927, at the direction of architect Raul Otero. Media related to Alma mater at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of alma mater at Wiktionary Alma Mater Europaea website
Librarian of Congress
The Librarian of Congress is the head of the Library of Congress, appointed by the President of the United States with the advice and consent of the United States Senate, for a term of ten years. The Librarian of Congress appoints the U. S. Poet Laureate and awards the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song; the Librarian of Congress has broad responsibilities around copyright, extending to electronic resources and fair use provisions outlined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The Librarian determines whether particular works are subject to DMCA prohibitions regarding technological access protection. On July 13, 2016, the US Senate confirmed Carla Hayden as the librarian by a vote of 74–18 and she was sworn in on September 14, 2016. On April 24, 1800, the 6th United States Congress passed an appropriations bill signed by President John Adams which created the Library of Congress; this law was to serve a "further provision for the removal and accommodation of the Government of the United States."
The fifth section of the act created the Library of Congress and designated some of its early capabilities. The act provided for "the acquisition of books for congressional use, a suitable place in the Capitol in which to house them, a joint committee to make rules for their selection and circulation," as well as an appropriation of $5,000 for the new library. In 1802, two years after the creation of the Library, President Thomas Jefferson approved a Congressional Act that created the Office of the Librarian and granted the President power of appointment over the new office. Shortly thereafter, Jefferson appointed his former campaign manager John J. Beckley to serve as the first Librarian of Congress, it was not until 1897. This same law gave the Librarian the sole power for making the institution's rules and appointing the Library's staff. From its creation until 2015, the post of the Librarian was not subject to term limits and allowed incumbents to maintain a lifetime appointment once confirmed.
Most Librarians of Congress have served until retirement. There were only 13 Librarians of Congress in the more than two centuries from 1802 to 2015, the Library "enjoyed a continuity of atmosphere and of policy, rare in national institutions." In 2015, Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed into law the "Librarian of Congress Succession Modernization Act of 2015" which put a 10-year term limit on the position with an option for reappointment. The legislation was seen as a critique of Librarian James H. Billington's unwillingness to hire a permanent Chief Information Officer to manage and update the Library's Information Technology. There are no regulations delineating qualifications for the office holder; the position of Librarian of Congress has been held by candidates of different backgrounds and talents, throughout its history. Politicians, authors, poets and one professional librarian have served as the Librarian of Congress. However, at various times there have been proposals for requirements for the position.
In 1945, Carl Vitz president of the American Library Association, wrote a letter to the President of the United States regarding the position of Librarian of Congress, which had become vacant. Vitz felt it necessary to recommend potential librarians. Vitz stated the position "requires a top-flight administrator, a statesman-like leader in the world of knowledge, an expert in bringing together the materials of scholarship and organizing them for use—in short, a distinguished librarian." In 1989, Congressman Major Owens introduced a bill to set stricter requirements for who may be appointed. He argued. List of librarians Parliamentary Librarian of Canada "Hiring: The First Librarian of Congress for the Internet Age", The Atlantic, June 2015 "Many Choices for Obama in Replacing Billington at Library of Congress", New York Times, June 2015 Alan S. Inouye, "Who Should Be the Next Librarian of Congress? Wrong Question!", Roll Call Jessamyn West, "The Next Librarian of Congress", The Message – via Medium Andrew Albanese, "Could the Nomination of the Next Librarian of Congress Spark a Political Battle?", Publishers Weekly
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States and one of the most prestigious in the world, it is ranked first in the world by the ARWU Shanghai Ranking. Each class in the three-year J. D. program has 560 students, among the largest of the top 150 ranked law schools in the United States. The first-year class is broken into seven sections of 80 students, who take most first-year classes together. Harvard's uniquely large class size and prestige have led the law school to graduate a great many distinguished alumni in the judiciary and the business world. According to Harvard Law's 2015 ABA-required disclosures, 95% of the Class of 2014 passed the Bar exam. Harvard Law School graduates have accounted for 568 judicial clerkships in the past three years, including one-quarter of all Supreme Court clerkships, more than any other law school in the United States.
Harvard Law School's founding is traditionally linked to the funding of Harvard's first professorship in law, paid for from a bequest from the estate of Isaac Royall, Jr. a colonial American landowner and a slaveholder. Today, it is home to the largest academic law library in the world; the current dean of Harvard Law School is John F. Manning, who assumed the role on July 1, 2017; the law school has 328 faculty members. Harvard Law School's founding is traced to the establishment of a "law department" at Harvard in 1817. Dating the founding to the year of the creation of the law department makes Harvard Law the oldest continuously-operating law school in the nation. William & Mary Law School opened first in 1779, but closed due to the American Civil War, reopening in 1920; the University of Maryland School of Law was chartered in 1816, but did not begin classes until 1824, closed during the Civil War. The founding of the law department came two years after the establishment of Harvard's first endowed professorship in law, funded by a bequest from the estate of wealthy slaveowner Isaac Royall, Jr. in 1817.
Royall left 1,000 acres of land in Massachusetts to Harvard when he died in exile in Nova Scotia, where he fled as a British loyalist during the American Revolution, in 1781, "to be appropriated towards the endowing a Professor of Laws... or a Professor of Physick and Anatomy, whichever the said overseers and Corporation shall judge to be best." The value of the land, when liquidated in 1809, was $2,938. The Royalls were so involved in the slave trade, that "the labor of slaves underwrote the teaching of law in Cambridge." The dean of the law school traditionally held the Royall chair, deans Elena Kagan and Martha Minow declined the Royall chair due to its origins in the proceeds of slavery. Royall’s legacy at Harvard is lasting, Harvard Law School adopted the Royall family crest as apart of its school crest; that crest features with three bushels of wheat. Until the connection of the seal to the slave owning Royalls was unknown to many. According to The Harvard Crimson "Most Law School alumni and faculty were unaware of the story behind the seal."
In response to its ties to slavery, Harvard Law School decided to stop using the Royalls seal. It has yet to design a replacement seal. Royall's Medford estate, the Isaac Royall House, is now a museum which features the only remaining slave quarters in the northeast United States; the Royall family coat-of-arms, which shows three stacked wheat sheaves, was adopted as the school crest in 1936, topped with the university motto. In March 2016, following requests by students, the school decided to remove the emblem because of its association with slavery. By 1827, the school, with one faculty member, was struggling. Nathan Dane, a prominent alumnus of the college endowed the Dane Professorship of Law, insisting that it be given to Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story. For a while, the school was called "Dane Law School." In 1829, John H. Ashmun, son of Eli Porter Ashmun and brother of George Ashmun, accepted a professorship and closed his Northampton Law School, with many of his students following him to Harvard.
Story's belief in the need for an elite law school based on merit and dedicated to public service helped build the school's reputation at the time, although the contours of these beliefs have not been consistent throughout its history. Enrollment remained low through the 19th century as university legal education was considered to be of little added benefit to apprenticeships in legal practice. After first trying lowered admissions standards, in 1848 HLS eliminated admissions requirements entirely. In 1869, HLS eliminated examination requirements. In the 1870s, under Dean Christopher Columbus Langdell, HLS introduced what has become the standard first-year curriculum for American law schools – including classes in contracts, torts, criminal law, civil procedure. At Harvard, Langdell developed the case method of teaching law, now the dominant pedagogical model at U. S. law schools. Langdell's notion that law could be studied as a "science" gave university legal education a reason for being distinct from vocational preparation.
Critics at first defended the old lecture method because it was faster and cheaper and made fewer demands on faculty and students. Advocates said the case method had a sounder theoretical basis in scientific research and the inductive method. Langdell's graduates became leading professors at other law schools where they introduced the case method; the metho
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from August 1974 to January 1977. Before his accession to the presidency, Ford served as the 40th vice president of the United States from December 1973 to August 1974. Ford is the only person to have served as both vice president and president without being elected to either office by the United States Electoral College. Born in Omaha and raised in Grand Rapids, Ford attended the University of Michigan and Yale Law School. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the U. S. Naval Reserve, serving from 1942 to 1946. Ford began his political career in 1949 as the U. S. representative from Michigan's 5th congressional district. He served in this capacity for the final nine of them as the House Minority Leader. In December 1973, two months after the resignation of Spiro Agnew, Ford became the first person appointed to the vice presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment by President Richard Nixon.
After the subsequent resignation of President Nixon in August 1974, Ford assumed the presidency. His 895 day-long presidency is the shortest in U. S. history for any president who did not die in office. As president, Ford signed the Helsinki Accords. With the collapse of South Vietnam nine months into his presidency, U. S. involvement in Vietnam ended. Domestically, Ford presided over the worst economy in the four decades since the Great Depression, with growing inflation and a recession during his tenure. In one of his most controversial acts, he granted a presidential pardon to President Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal. During Ford's presidency, foreign policy was characterized in procedural terms by the increased role Congress began to play, by the corresponding curb on the powers of the President. In the Republican presidential primary campaign of 1976, Ford defeated former California Governor Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination, he narrowly lost the presidential election to the Democratic challenger, former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter.
Following his years as president, Ford remained active in the Republican Party. His moderate views on various social issues put him at odds with conservative members of the party in the 1990s and early 2000s. After experiencing a series of health problems, he died at home on December 26, 2006. Ford was born Leslie Lynch King Jr. on July 14, 1913, at 3202 Woolworth Avenue in Omaha, where his parents lived with his paternal grandparents. He was Leslie Lynch King Sr. a wool trader. His father was a son of Martha Alicia King. Gardner separated from King just sixteen days after her son's birth, she took her son with her to Oak Park, home of her sister Tannisse and brother-in-law, Clarence Haskins James. From there, she moved to the home of her parents, Levi Addison Gardner and Adele Augusta Ayer, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Gardner and King divorced in December 1913, she gained full custody of her son. Ford's paternal grandfather Charles Henry King paid child support until shortly before his death in 1930.
Ford said that his biological father had a history of hitting his mother. In a biography of Ford, James M. Cannon, a member of the Ford administration, wrote that the separation and divorce of Ford's parents were sparked when, a few days after Ford's birth, Leslie King took a butcher knife and threatened to kill his wife, his infant son, Ford's nursemaid. Ford told confidants that his father had first hit his mother when she smiled at another man during their honeymoon. After living with her parents for two-and-a-half years, Gardner married Gerald Rudolff Ford on February 1, 1916. Gerald was a salesman in a family-owned varnish company, they now called her son Gerald Rudolff Ford Jr. The future president was never formally adopted and did not change his name until December 3, 1935, he was raised in Grand Rapids with his three half-brothers from his mother's second marriage: Thomas Gardner "Tom" Ford, Richard Addison "Dick" Ford, James Francis "Jim" Ford. Ford had three half-siblings from the second marriage of Leslie King Sr. his biological father: Marjorie King, Leslie Henry King, Patricia Jane King.
They never saw one another as children, he did not know them at all until 1960. Ford was not aware of his biological father until he was 17, when his parents told him about the circumstances of his birth; that year his biological father, whom Ford described as a "carefree, well-to-do man who didn't give a damn about the hopes and dreams of his firstborn son", approached Ford while he was waiting tables in a Grand Rapids restaurant. The two "maintained a sporadic contact" until Leslie King Sr.'s death in 1941. Ford said, "My stepfather was a magnificent person and my mother wonderful. So I couldn't have written a better prescription for a superb family upbringing."Ford was involved in the Boy Scouts of America, earned that program's highest rank, Eagle Scout. He is the only Eagle Scout to have ascended to the U. S. Presidency. Ford attended Grand Rapids South High School, where he was a star athlete and captain of the football team. In 1930, he was selected to the All-City team of the Grand Rapids City League.
He attracted the attention of college recruiters. Ford attended the University of Michigan, he washed dishes at his f
Tribute to Daniel J. Boorstin at the Library of Congress, December 4, 2000, C-SPAN
