1.
Paul Robeson
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Paul Leroy Robeson was an American bass singer and actor who became involved with the Civil Rights Movement. He became politically involved in response to the Spanish Civil War, fascism and his advocacy of anti-imperialism, affiliation with communism, and criticism of the United States government caused him to be blacklisted during the McCarthy era. In 1915 Robeson won a scholarship to Rutgers College, where he was twice named a consensus All-American and was the class valedictorian. Almost eighty years later, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame and he received his LL. B. from Columbia Law School, while playing in the National Football League. At Columbia, he sang and acted in productions, and, after graduating, he became a figure in the Harlem Renaissance with performances in The Emperor Jones. Robeson first appeared outside the US in 1928 in the London premier of Show Boat, Robeson next appeared as Othello in London before becoming an international cinema star during the 1930s through roles in Show Boat and Sanders of the River. He became increasingly attuned to the sufferings of people of other cultures, despite being warned of his economic ruin if he became politically active, he set aside his theatrical career to advocate the cause of the Republican forces of the Spanish Civil War. He then became active in the Council on African Affairs, during World War II, he supported Americas war efforts and won accolades for his portrayal of Othello on Broadway. However, his history of supporting pro-Soviet policies brought scrutiny from the FBI, after the war ended, the CAA was placed on the Attorney Generals List of Subversive Organizations and Robeson was investigated during the age of McCarthyism. Due to his decision not to recant his public advocacy of pro-Soviet policies, he was denied a passport by the U. S. State Department and he moved to Harlem and published a periodical critical of United States policies. His right to travel was restored by the 1958 United States Supreme Court decision, Kent v. Dulles. In the early 1960s he retired and lived the years of his life privately in Philadelphia. Paul Robeson was born in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1898, to Reverend William Drew Robeson and his mother was from a prominent Quaker family of mixed ancestry, African, Anglo-American, and Lenape. Robeson had three brothers, William Drew, Jr. Reeve, and Ben, and one sister, in 1900, a disagreement between William and white financial supporters of Witherspoon arose with apparent racial undertones, which were prevalent in Princeton. William, who had the support of his entirely black congregation, the loss of his position forced him to work menial jobs. Three years later when Robeson was six, his mother, who was nearly blind, William found a stable parsonage at the St. Thomas A. M. E. Zion in 1910, where Robeson would fill in for his father during sermons when he was called away. His athletic dominance elicited racial taunts which he ignored, prior to his graduation, he won a statewide academic contest for a scholarship to Rutgers. He took a job as a waiter in Narragansett Pier, Rhode Island
2.
Folk music
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Folk music includes both traditional music and the genre that evolved from it during the 20th century folk revival. The term originated in the 19th century, but is applied to music older than that. Some types of music are also called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways, as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers and it has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. Starting in the century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is called contemporary folk music or folk revival music to distinguish it from earlier folk forms. Smaller, similar revivals have occurred elsewhere in the world at other times and this type of folk music also includes fusion genres such as folk rock, folk metal, electric folk, and others. Even individual songs may be a blend of the two, a consistent definition of traditional folk music is elusive. The terms folk music, folk song, and folk dance are comparatively recent expressions and they are extensions of the term folklore, which was coined in 1846 by the English antiquarian William Thoms to describe the traditions, customs, and superstitions of the uncultured classes. Traditional folk music also includes most indigenous music, however, despite the assembly of an enormous body of work over some two centuries, there is still no certain definition of what folk music is. Some do not even agree that the term Folk Music should be used, Folk music may tend to have certain characteristics but it cannot clearly be differentiated in purely musical terms. One meaning often given is that of old songs, with no known composers, the fashioning and re-fashioning of the music by the community that give it its folk character. Such definitions depend upon processes rather than abstract musical types, one widely used definition is simply Folk music is what the people sing. For Scholes, as well as for Cecil Sharp and Béla Bartók, Folk music was already. seen as the authentic expression of a way of life now past or about to disappear, particularly in a community uninfluenced by art music and by commercial and printed song. In these terms folk music may be seen as part of a schema comprising four types, primitive or tribal, elite or art, folk. Music in this genre is often called traditional music. Although the term is only descriptive, in some cases people use it as the name of a genre
3.
Singer-songwriter
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Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose, and perform their own musical material, including lyrics and melodies. The genre began with the folk-acoustic tradition, singer-songwriters often provide the sole accompaniment to an entire composition or song, typically using a guitar or piano. Singer-songwriter is used to define popular music artists who write and perform their own material, such an artist performs the roles of composer, lyricist, vocalist, instrumentalist, and often self-manager. Most records by artists have a similarly straightforward and spare sound that placed emphasis on the song itself. The term has also used to describe songwriters in the rock, folk, and pop music genres including Henry Russell, Aristide Bruant, Hank Williams. Song topics include political protest, as in the case of the Almanac Singers, Pete Seeger, the concept of a singer-songwriter can be traced to ancient bardic oral tradition, which has existed in various forms throughout the world. Poems would be performed as chant or song, sometimes accompanied by a harp or other similar instrument, after the invention of printing, songs would be written and performed by ballad sellers. Usually these would be versions of existing tunes and lyrics, which were constantly evolving and this developed into the singer-songwriting traditions of folk culture. The term singer-songwriter in North America can be traced back to singers who developed works in the blues and folk music style. Early to mid-20th century American singer-songwriters include Lead Belly, Jimmie Rodgers, Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker, Blind Willie McTell, Lightnin Hopkins, Son House, the tradition of writing topical songs was established by this group of musicians. This focus on social issues has greatly influenced the singer-songwriter genre, artists who had been primarily songwriters, notably Carole King, Townes Van Zandt, and Neil Diamond, also began releasing work as performers. In contrast to the approach of most prior country and folk music. The adjectives confessional and sensitive were often used singer-songwriter style, in the rock band era, members were not technically singer-songwriters as solo acts. However, many were singer-songwriters who created songs with band members. Many others like Eric Clapton found success as singer-songwriters in their later careers, there were hints of cross-pollination, but rock and folk music had remained largely separate genres, often with different audiences. An early attempt at fusing elements of folk and rock was highlighted in the Animals House of the Rising Sun, dylan plugged an entire generation into the milieu of the singer-songwriter. In the mid- to late 1960s, bands and singer-songwriters began to proliferate the underground New York art/music scene. Lotti Golden, in her Atlantic debut album Motor-Cycle, chronicled her life in NYCs East Village in the late 60s counterculture, visiting subjects such as gender identity, kate Bush remained distinctive throughout with her idiosyncratic style
4.
Seattle
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Seattle is a seaport city on the west coast of the United States and the seat of King County, Washington. With an estimated 684,451 residents as of 2015, Seattle is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of North America. In July 2013, it was the major city in the United States. The city is situated on an isthmus between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, about 100 miles south of the Canada–United States border, a major gateway for trade with Asia, Seattle is the fourth-largest port in North America in terms of container handling as of 2015. The Seattle area was inhabited by Native Americans for at least 4,000 years before the first permanent European settlers. Arthur A. Denny and his group of travelers, subsequently known as the Denny Party, arrived from Illinois via Portland, the settlement was moved to the eastern shore of Elliott Bay and named Seattle in 1852, after Chief Siahl of the local Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. Logging was Seattles first major industry, but by the late-19th century, growth after World War II was partially due to the local Boeing company, which established Seattle as a center for aircraft manufacturing. The Seattle area developed as a technology center beginning in the 1980s, in 1994, Internet retailer Amazon was founded in Seattle. The stream of new software, biotechnology, and Internet companies led to an economic revival, Seattle has a noteworthy musical history. From 1918 to 1951, nearly two dozen jazz nightclubs existed along Jackson Street, from the current Chinatown/International District, to the Central District, the jazz scene developed the early careers of Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Ernestine Anderson, and others. Seattle is also the birthplace of rock musician Jimi Hendrix and the alternative rock subgenre grunge, archaeological excavations suggest that Native Americans have inhabited the Seattle area for at least 4,000 years. By the time the first European settlers arrived, the people occupied at least seventeen villages in the areas around Elliott Bay, the first European to visit the Seattle area was George Vancouver, in May 1792 during his 1791–95 expedition to chart the Pacific Northwest. In 1851, a party led by Luther Collins made a location on land at the mouth of the Duwamish River. Thirteen days later, members of the Collins Party on the way to their claim passed three scouts of the Denny Party, members of the Denny Party claimed land on Alki Point on September 28,1851. The rest of the Denny Party set sail from Portland, Oregon, after a difficult winter, most of the Denny Party relocated across Elliott Bay and claimed land a second time at the site of present-day Pioneer Square, naming this new settlement Duwamps. For the next few years, New York Alki and Duwamps competed for dominance, david Swinson Doc Maynard, one of the founders of Duwamps, was the primary advocate to name the settlement after Chief Sealth of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. The name Seattle appears on official Washington Territory papers dated May 23,1853, in 1855, nominal land settlements were established. On January 14,1865, the Legislature of Territorial Washington incorporated the Town of Seattle with a board of managing the city
5.
Cantata
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A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir. Cantatas for use in the liturgy of church services are called church cantata or sacred cantata, several cantatas were, and still are, written for special occasions, such as Christmas cantatas. Johann Sebastian Bach composed cycles of cantatas for the occasions of the liturgical year. The term originated in the early 17th century simultaneously with opera, prior to that, all cultured music was vocal. With the rise of music the term appeared, while the instrumental art became sufficiently developed to be embodied in sonatas. From the beginning of the 17th century until late in the 18th, a cantata consisted first of a declamatory narrative or scene in recitative, held together by a primitive aria repeated at intervals. Fine examples may be found in the music of Giacomo Carissimi. With the rise of the da capo aria, the became a group of two or three arias joined by recitative. George Frideric Handels numerous Italian duets and trios are examples on a large scale. His Latin motet Silete Venti, for solo, shows the use of this form in church music. This is equally evident whether we examine the church cantatas of Bach, of which nearly 200 are extant. Cantatas were in demand for the services of the Lutheran church. Many secular cantatas were composed for events in the nobility and they were so similar in form to the sacred ones that many of them were parodied to sacred cantatas, for example in Bachs Christmas Oratorio. The term cantata came to be applied almost exclusively to choral works, Anton Bruckner composed several Name-day cantatas, a Festive Cantata and two secular cantatas. Brucknerss Psalm 146 is also in cantata form, mendelssohns Symphony Cantata, the Lobgesang, is a hybrid work, partly in the oratorio style. Robert Schumann wrote the cantata Paradise and the Peri, the full lyric possibilities of a string of choral songs were realized by Johannes Brahms in his Rinaldo, that—like the Walpurgisnacht—was set to a text by Goethe. The competition for the French Prix de Rome prescribed that each candidate submit a cantata, hector Berlioz failed in three attempts before finally winning in 1830 with Sardanapale. While almost all of the Prix de Rome cantatas have long since been forgotten, cantatas, both of the chamber variety and on a grand scale, were composed after 1900 as well
6.
Ballad for Americans
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Ballad for Americans, originally titled The Ballad for Uncle Sam, is an American patriotic cantata with lyrics by John La Touche and music by Earl Robinson. It was written for the Federal Theatre Project production, Sing for Your Supper that opened on April 24,1939, congress abolished the Project on June 30,1939. The “Ballad of Uncle Sam” had been performed 60 times, producer Norman Corwin then had Robinson sing “Ballad of Uncle Sam” for the CBS brass. CBS was impressed and hired Paul Robeson to perform the song, Corwin retitled the song “Ballad for Americans. ”Robeson and Robinson rehearsed for a week. On Sunday, November 5,1939, on the 4,30 pm CBS radio show The Pursuit of Happiness, Norman Corwin produced and directed, Mark Warnow conducted, Ralph Wilkinson did the orchestration, and Lyn Murray handled the chorus. Robeson subsequently began to perform the song, beginning with a repeat on CBS on New Year’s Eve, robbins Music Corporation published the sheet music. Victor Records decided to record and release the song, Robinson recommended the American People’s Chorus for the recording and he re-rehearsed them in Robeson’s key. Time Magazine mentioned the album on the May 6,1940 issue, on May 14,1940, a full page ad for the records appeared in the New York Daily News. Each side of the album ended with the lyrics “You know who I am. ”By the end of 1940, on July 6,1940, Bing Crosby recorded the song for Decca Records and it was issued as a 4-disc set. MGM included the song as the finale of the 1942 movie Born to Sing, jules Bledsoe, James Melton and others also performed the song. Lawrence Tibbett performed it on NBC for the Ford Hour, the British premiere was in September 1943 with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hugo Weisgall. In the 1940 presidential campaign it was sung at both the Republican National Convention and that of the Communist Party. Its popularity continued through the period of World War II — in autumn 1943,200 African American soldiers performed the piece in a concert at Londons Royal Albert Hall —. After the war, Robeson transferred from Victor to Columbia Records, Victor responded by withdrawing Robeson’s Ballad from their catalogue. In 1966, Vanguard Records released Robeson’s recording on a 33 1⁄3 rpm record and it has been periodically revived, notably during the United States Bicentennial. There is also a recording by Odetta, recorded at Carnegie Hall in 1960. Robesons recording is available on CD. Invoking the American Revolution, and the freeing of the slaves in the American Civil War, as well as Lewis and Clark, the Klondike Gold Rush, many performers of the Ballad have made minor changes in the lyrics
7.
Joe Hill
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Joe Hill, born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund in Gävle, Sweden, and also known as Joseph Hillström was a Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World. A native Swedish speaker, he learned English during the early 1900s, Hill, an immigrant worker frequently facing unemployment and underemployment, became a popular songwriter and cartoonist for the union. In 1914, John G. Morrison, a Salt Lake City area grocer and former policeman, the same evening, Hill arrived at a doctors office with a gunshot wound, and briefly mentioned a fight over a woman. Yet Hill refused to further, even after he was accused of the grocery store murders on the basis of his injury. Hill was convicted of the murders in a controversial trial, following an unsuccessful appeal, political debates, and international calls for clemency from high-profile figures and workers organizations, Hill was executed in November 1915. After his death, he was memorialized by several folk songs and his life and death have inspired books and poetry. The identity of the woman and the rival who supposedly caused Hills injury, though frequently speculated upon, william M. Adlers 2011 biography of Hill reveals new information about his alibi, which was never introduced at his trial. According to Adler, Hill and his friend and countryman, Otto Appelquist, were rivals for the attention of 20-year-old Hilda Erickson, in a recently discovered letter, Erickson confirmed her relationship with the two men and the rivalry between them. The letter indicates that when she first discovered Hill was injured, he explained to her that Appelquist had shot him, Joel Emmanuel Hägglund was born 1879 in Gävle, a city in the province of Gästrikland, Sweden. He was the child in a family of nine, where three children died young. His father, Olof, worked as a conductor on the Gefle-Dala railway line, Olof died at the age of 41, and his death meant economic disaster for the family. Joes mother Margareta Catharina did, however, succeed in keeping the family together until she died in 1902, the Hägglund family home still stands in Gävle at the address Nedre Bergsgatan 28, in Gamla Stan, the Old Town. As of 2011 it houses a museum and the Joe Hill-gården, in his late teens-early 20s, Joel fell seriously ill with skin and glandular tuberculosis, and underwent extensive treatment in Stockholm. In 1902, when about 23, he and his brother Paul emigrated to the United States, Hill became an itinerant laborer, moving from New York City to Cleveland, Ohio, and eventually to the west coast. He was in San Francisco, California, at the time of the 1906 earthquake, by this time using the name Joe or Joseph Hillstrom, he joined the Industrial Workers of the World or Wobblies around 1910, when working on the docks in San Pedro, California. In late 1910 he wrote a letter to the IWW newspaper Industrial Worker, identifying himself as a member of the IWW local chapter in Portland, Oregon. He rose in the IWW organization and traveled widely, organizing workers under the IWW banner, writing songs and satirical poems. He shortened his pseudonym to Joe Hill as the pen-name under which his songs, cartoons and his songs frequently appropriated familiar melodies from popular songs and hymns of the time
8.
Left-wing politics
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Left-wing politics supports social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy and social inequality. The term left wing can also refer to the radical, reforming, use of the term Left became more prominent after the restoration of the French monarchy in 1815 when it was applied to the Independents. The word wing was appended to Left and Right in the late 19th century, usually with disparaging intent, throughout the 19th century in France, the main line dividing left and right was between supporters of the French Republic and those of the Monarchy. The June Days Uprising during the Second Republic was an attempt by the Left to assert itself after the 1848 Revolution, in the mid-19th century, nationalism, socialism, democracy, and anti-clericalism became features of the French Left. After Napoleon IIIs 1851 coup and the subsequent establishment of the Second Empire, Marxism began to rival radical republicanism, the influential Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, published in 1848, asserted that all human history is the history of class struggle. They predicted that a revolution would eventually overthrow bourgeois capitalism and create a classless, stateless. It was in period that the word wing was appended to both Left and Right. Following a split between supporters of Marx and Mikhail Bakunin, anarchists formed the International Workers Association, the Second International became divided over the issue of World War I. Those who opposed the war, such as Vladimir Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg, in the United States after Reconstruction, the phrase the Left was used to describe those who supported trade unions, the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement. More recently in the United States, left-wing and right-wing have often used as synonyms for Democratic and Republican. Since the Right was populist, both in the Western and the Eastern Bloc, anything viewed as art was called leftist in all Europe. The following positions are typically associated with left-wing politics, during the industrial revolution, leftists supported trade unions. At the beginning of the 20th century, many leftists advocated strong government intervention in the economy, leftists continue to criticize what they perceive as the exploitative nature of globalization, the race to the bottom, and unjust lay-offs. Other leftists believe in Marxian economics, which are based on the theories of Karl Marx. Marxian economics does not exclusively rely upon Marx, it draws from a range of Marxist and non-Marxist sources, the political relevance of farmers has divided the left. In Das Kapital, Marx scarcely mentioned the subject, Mao Zedong believed that it would be rural peasants, not urban workers, who would bring about the proletarian revolution. Both Karl Marx and the early socialist William Morris arguably had a concern for environmental matters, according to Marx, Even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together. Are not owners of the earth and they are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations
9.
Communist Party USA
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The Communist Party USA is a communist political party in the United States. Established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America, it has a long, complex history that is tied with the U. S. labor movement. For the first half of the 20th century, the Communist Party was an influential force in various struggles for democratic rights. It played a prominent role in the U. S. S, by August 1919, only months after its founding, the Communist Party claimed 50,000 to 60,000 members. Members also included anarchists and other radical leftists, at the time, the older and more moderate Socialist Party of America, suffering from criminal prosecutions for its antiwar stance during World War I, had declined to 40,000 members. But the Communist Partys early labor and organizing successes did not last, by 1957, membership had dwindled to less than 10,000, of whom some 1,500 were informants for the FBI. At the same time, the partys aging membership demographics and noticeably hollow calls for peaceful coexistence failed to speak to a new Left in the United States. In 1989, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union cut off funding to the CPUSA due to its opposition to glasnost. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the party held its convention, the majority reasserted the partys now purely Marxist outlook, prompting a minority faction which urged social democrats to exit the now reduced party. The party has since adopted Marxism-Leninism within its program, in 2014, the new draft of the party constitution declared, We apply the scientific outlook developed by Marx, Engels, Lenin and others in the context of our American history, culture, and traditions. The Communist Party USA is based in New York City, for decades, its West Coast newspaper was the Peoples World, and its East Coast newspaper was The Daily World. The two newspapers merged in 1986 into the Peoples Weekly World, the PWW has since become an online only publication, called Peoples World. The partys former theoretical journal, Political Affairs Magazine, is now published exclusively online. In June 2014, the Party held its 30th National Convention in Chicago, against homophobia and all manifestations of discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people. Among the points in the partys Immediate Program are a minimum wage for all workers, national universal health care. The Communist Party USA emphasizes a vision of socialism as an extension of American democracy, millions of workers are unemployed, underemployed, or insecure in their jobs, even during economic upswings and periods of recovery from recessions. Most workers experience long years of stagnant and declining wages, while health. Many workers are forced to second and third jobs to make ends meet
10.
University of Washington
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The University of Washington, commonly referred to as simply Washington, UW, or informally U-Dub, is a public flagship research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast, the university has three campuses, the oldest and largest in the University District of Seattle and two others in Tacoma and Bothell. Washington is a member of the Association of American Universities and is ranked among the top 15 universities in the world by a variety of international publications. In athletics, the university competes in the NCAA Division I Pac-12 Conference and its athletic teams are called the Huskies. Seattle was one of several settlements in the mid to late 19th century vying for primacy in the new Washington Territory, in 1854, territorial governor Isaac Stevens recommended the establishment of a university in Washington. Several prominent Seattle-area residents, chief among them Methodist preacher Daniel Bagley and they convinced early founder of Seattle and member of the territorial legislature Arthur A. Denny of the importance of Seattle winning the school. When no site emerged, the legislature, encouraged by Denny, in 1861, scouting began for an appropriate 10 acres site in Seattle to serve as the campus for a new university. Arthur and Mary Denny donated eight acres, and fellow pioneers Edward Lander and Charlie and this tract was bounded by 4th and 6th Avenues on the west and east and Union and Seneca Streets on the north and south. UW opened on November 4,1861, as the Territorial University of Washington, the following year, the legislature passed articles incorporating the University and establishing a Board of Regents. The school struggled initially, closing three times, in 1863 for lack of students, and again in 1867 and 1876 due to shortage of funds. However, Clara Antoinette McCarty Wilt became the first graduate of UW in 1876 when she graduated from UW with a degree in science. By the time Washington entered the Union in 1889, both Seattle and the University had grown substantially, enrollment increased from 30 students to nearly 300, and the relative isolation of the campus had given way to encroaching development. A special legislative committee headed by UW graduate Edmond Meany was created to find a new campus able to serve the growing student population. The committee selected a site on Union Bay northeast of downtown, the university relocated from downtown to the new campus in 1895, moving into the newly built Denny Hall. The regents tried and failed to sell the old campus, the University still owns what is now called the Metropolitan Tract. In the heart of the city, it is among the most valuable pieces of estate in Seattle. The original Territorial University building was torn down in 1908 and its former site houses the Fairmont Olympic Hotel. The sole surviving remnants of UWs first building are four 24-foot, white, hand-fluted cedar and they were salvaged by Edmond S. Meany—one of the Universitys first graduates and the former head of the history department
11.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
12.
Hanns Eisler
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Hanns Eisler was an Austrian composer. He is best known for composing the anthem of the German Democratic Republic, for his long artistic association with Bertolt Brecht. The Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler is named after him, Eisler was born in Leipzig in Saxony, the son of Rudolf Eisler, a professor of philosophy, and Marie Ida Fischer. His father was Jewish and his mother was Lutheran, in 1901, the family moved to Vienna. His brother, Gerhart, was a Communist journalist, and his sister, during the Great War, Hanns Eisler served as a front-line soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army and was wounded several times in combat. Returning to Vienna after Austrias defeat, he studied from 1919 to 1923 under Arnold Schoenberg, Eisler was the first of Schoenbergs disciples to compose in the twelve-tone or serial technique. He married Charlotte Demant in 1920, they separated in 1934, in 1925, he moved to Berlin—then a hothouse of experimentation in music, theater, film, art and politics. There he became a supporter of the Communist Party of Germany. In 1928, he taught at the Marxist Workers School in Berlin and his son Georg Eisler and his music became increasingly oriented towards political themes and, to Schoenbergs dismay, more popular in style with influences drawn from jazz and cabaret. At the same time, he drew close to Bertolt Brecht, the collaboration between the two artists lasted for the rest of Brechts life. In 1929, Eisler composed the song cycle Zeitungsausschnitte, Op.11, the piece is dedicated to Margot Hinnenberg-Lefebre. Eislers piece parodies a newspapers layout and content, with songs in the given titles similar to headlines. The piece offers evidence of Eislers socialist leanings, as its lyrics indicate the struggles of ordinary Germans who, after World War I, Eisler wrote music for several Brecht plays, including The Decision, The Mother and Schweik in the Second World War. They also collaborated on protest songs that intervened in the turmoil of Weimar Germany in the early 1930s. Brecht-Eisler songs of this period tended to look at life from below—from the perspective of prostitutes, hustlers, the unemployed, in 1931–32 he collaborated with Brecht and director Slatan Dudow on the working-class film Kuhle Wampe. After 1933, Eislers music and Brechts poetry were banned by the Nazi Party, while Brecht settled in Svendborg, Denmark, Eisler traveled for a number of years, working in Prague, Vienna, Paris, London, Moscow, Spain, Mexico and Denmark. He made two visits to the USA, with speaking tours from coast to coast, in 1938, Eisler finally managed to emigrate to the United States with a permanent visa. In New York City, Eisler taught composition at New School for Social Research and wrote experimental chamber, in 1942, he moved to Los Angeles, where he joined Brecht who arrived in California in 1941 after a journey from Denmark across the Soviet Union and the Pacific Ocean
13.
Aaron Copland
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Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as the Dean of American Composers, the open, slowly changing harmonies in much of his music are typical of what many people consider to be the sound of American music, evoking the vast American landscape and pioneer spirit. He is best known for the works he wrote in the 1930s and 1940s in an accessible style often referred to as populist. Works in this include the ballets Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid and Rodeo, his Fanfare for the Common Man. In addition to his ballets and orchestral works, he produced music in other genres including chamber music, vocal works, opera. After some initial studies with composer Rubin Goldmark, Copland traveled to Paris and he studied three years with Boulanger, whose eclectic approach to music inspired his own broad taste. Determined upon his return to the U. S. to make his way as a composer, Copland gave lecture-recitals, wrote works on commission. He found composing orchestral music in the modernist style he had adapted abroad a financially contradictory approach and he shifted in the mid-1930s to a more accessible musical style which mirrored the German idea of Gebrauchsmusik, music that could serve utilitarian and artistic purposes. During the Depression years, he traveled extensively to Europe, Africa, during the late 1940s, Copland became aware that Stravinsky and other fellow composers had begun to study Arnold Schoenbergs use of twelve-tone techniques. After he had exposed to the works of French composer Pierre Boulez, he incorporated serial techniques into his Piano Quartet, Piano Fantasy, Connotations for orchestra. From the 1960s onward, Coplands activities turned more from composing to conducting and he became a frequent guest conductor of orchestras in the U. S. and the UK and made a series of recordings of his music, primarily for Columbia Records. Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 14,1900 and he was the youngest of five children in a Conservative Jewish family of Lithuanian origins. While emigrating from Russia to the United States, Coplands father, Harris Morris Copland, Copland was however unaware until late in his life that the family name had been Kaplan, and his parents never told him this. His father was a staunch Democrat, the family members were active in Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes, where Aaron celebrated his Bar Mitzvah. Not especially athletic, the young man became an avid reader. Coplands father had no musical interest and his mother, Sarah Mittenthal Copland, sang, played the piano, and arranged for music lessons for her children. Of his siblings, oldest brother Ralph was the most advanced musically and his sister Laurine had the strongest connection with Aaron, she gave him his first piano lessons, promoted his musical education, and supported him in his musical career. A student at the Metropolitan Opera School and a frequent opera-goer, Copland attended Boys High School and in the summer went to various camps
14.
Works Progress Administration
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In a much smaller but more famous project, Federal Project Number One, the WPA employed musicians, artists, writers, actors and directors in large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects. Almost every community in the United States had a new park, the WPAs initial appropriation in 1935 was for $4.9 billion. Headed by Harry Hopkins, the WPA provided jobs and income to the unemployed during the Great Depression in the United States. At its peak in 1938, it provided jobs for three million unemployed men and women, as well as youth in a separate division, the National Youth Administration. Between 1935 and 1943, when the agency was disbanded, the WPA employed 8.5 million people, most people who needed a job were eligible for employment in some capacity. Hourly wages were set to the prevailing wages in each area. The stated goal of building programs was to end the depression or, at least, alleviate its worst effects. Millions of people needed subsistence incomes, Work relief was preferred over public assistance because it maintained self-respect, reinforced the work ethic, and kept skills sharp. The WPA was a program that operated its own projects in cooperation with state and local governments. Usually the local sponsor provided land and often trucks and supplies, WPA sometimes took over state and local relief programs that had originated in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation or Federal Emergency Relief Administration programs. It was liquidated on June 30,1943, as a result of low unemployment due to the shortage of World War II. The WPA had provided millions of Americans with jobs for eight years, on May 6,1935, FDR issued Executive Order 7034, establishing the Works Progress Administration. The WPA superseded the work of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, direct relief assistance was permanently replaced by a national work relief program—a major public works program directed by the WPA. The WPA was largely shaped by Harry Hopkins, supervisor of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, both Roosevelt and Hopkins believed that the route to economic recovery and the lessened importance of the dole would be in employment programs such as the WPA. The Division of Professional and Service Projects, which was responsible for projects including education programs, recreation programs. It was later named the Division of Community Service Programs and the Service Division, the Division of Investigation, which succeeded a comparable division at FERA and investigated fraud, misappropriation of funds and disloyalty. The Division of Statistics, also known as the Division of Social Research, the Project Control Division, which processed project applications. Other divisions including the Employment, Management, Safety, Supply, the goal of the WPA was to employ most of the unemployed people on relief until the economy recovered
15.
Federal Theatre Project
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The Federal Theatre Project was a New Deal program to fund theatre and other live artistic performances and entertainment programs in the United States during the Great Depression. It was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administration and it was created not as a cultural activity but as a relief measure to employ artists, writers, directors and theater workers. The Federal Theatre Project ended when its funding was canceled after strong Congressional objections to the political tone of a small percentage of its productions. Part of the Works Progress Administration, the Federal Theatre Project was a New Deal program established August 27,1935, funded under the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935. Of the $4.88 billion allocated to the WPA, $27 million was approved for the employment of artists, musicians, the Federal Theatre Project was a new approach to unemployment in the theatre profession. Only those certified as employable could be offered work, and that work was to be within the individuals defined skills, Flanagan was given the daunting task of building a nationwide theater program to employ thousands of unemployed artists in as little time as possible. The problems of the theatre preceded the collapse of 1929. By that time it was threatened with extinction due to the growing popularity of films and radio. Many actors, technicians and stagehands had suffered since 1914, when began to replace stock, vaudeville. Sound motion pictures displaced 30,000 musicians, unemployed directors, actors, designers, musicians and stagecrew took any kind of work they were able to find, whatever it paid, and charity was often their only recourse. This is a job were asking you to do, Hopkins told Flanagan at their first meeting in May 1935. I dont know why I still hang on to the idea that unemployed actors get just as hungry as anybody else, Hopkins promised a free, adult, uncensored theatre — something Flanagan spent the next four years trying to build. The far reaching purpose is the establishment of theatres so vital to community life that they continue to function after the program of this Federal Project is completed. Within a year the Federal Theatre Project employed 15,000 men and women and its productions totalled approximately 1,200, not including its radio programs. Because the Federal Theatre was created to employ and train people, not to generate revenue, at its conclusion,65 percent of its productions were still presented free of charge. The total cost of the Federal Theatre Project was $46 million, therefore, when Federal Theatre was criticized for spending money, it was criticized for doing what it was set up to do. The Federal Theatre Project did not operate in every state, since many lacked a sufficient number of unemployed people in the theatre profession, the project in Alabama was closed in January 1937 when its personnel were transferred to a new unit in Georgia. Only one event was presented in Arkansas, units created in Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin were closed in 1936, projects in Indiana, Nebraska, Rhode Island and Texas were discontinued in 1937, and the Iowa project was closed in 1938
16.
Little Red School House
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Created as a joint public-private educational experiment, the school tested principles of progressive education that had been advocated since the turn of the 20th century by John Dewey. The founders postulated that the lessons of progressive education could be applied successfully in the crowded, parents raised sufficient funds to pay for salaries, but OShea refused to accept the money, and the school was forced to turn to private funding. It moved to a building on Bleecker Street provided at no cost by the First Presbyterian Church, the Little Red School House consists of a lower school, a middle school, and a high school. The Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School occupy two separate buildings, with a space housing athletic facilities. The middle-and-lower-school building is located at 272 Avenue of the Americas at Bleecker Street, in June 2008, LREI announced the acquisition of additional space with the purchase of 42 Charlton Street, directly next door. The new townhouse was to be renovated and connected to the existing building, a separate building, the Thompson Street Gym, houses facilities for physical education and athletics. LREIs sports teams include soccer, volleyball, cross-country track, basketball, spring track, tennis, softball, baseball, golf, ultimate Frisbee, the school and team colors are red and white. Its director from 1951 to 1970 was educator and folklorist Norman Studer,15,2006 The New York Observer Feb.8,2004 LREI celebrates 75 years Longtime School Director to Leave in June New York State Association of Independent Schools
17.
Carl Sandburg
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Carl Sandburg was an American poet, writer, and editor who won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. Carl Sandburg was born in a cottage at 313 East Third Street in Galesburg, Illinois, to Clara Mathilda and August Sandberg. He adopted the nickname Charles or Charlie in elementary school at about the time he. At the age of thirteen he left school and began driving a milk wagon, from the age of about fourteen until he was seventeen or eighteen, he worked as a porter at the Union Hotel barbershop in Galesburg. After that he was on the route again for eighteen months. He then became a bricklayer and a laborer on the wheat plains of Kansas. After an interval spent at Lombard College in Galesburg, he became a servant in Denver. He began his career as a journalist for the Chicago Daily News. Later he wrote poetry, history, biographies, novels, childrens literature, Sandburg also collected and edited books of ballads and folklore. He spent most of his life in the Midwest before moving to North Carolina, Sandburg volunteered to go to the military and was stationed in Puerto Rico with the 6th Illinois Infantry during the Spanish–American War, disembarking at Guánica, Puerto Rico on July 25,1898. Sandburg was never called to battle. He attended West Point for just two weeks, before failing a mathematics and grammar exam, Sandburg returned to Galesburg and entered Lombard College, but left without a degree in 1903. He then moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and joined the Social Democratic Party, Sandburg served as a secretary to Emil Seidel, socialist mayor of Milwaukee from 1910 to 1912. Sandburg met Lilian Steichen at the Social Democratic Party office in 1907, lilians brother was the photographer Edward Steichen. Sandburg with his wife, whom he called Paula, raised three daughters, the Sandburgs moved to Harbert, Michigan, and then to suburban Chicago, Illinois. They lived in Evanston, Illinois, before settling at 331 South York Street in Elmhurst, Illinois, during the time, Sandburg wrote Chicago Poems, Cornhuskers, and Smoke and Steel. In 1919 Sandburg won a Pulitzer Prize made possible by a grant from The Poetry Society for his collection Cornhuskers. Sandburg also wrote three books in Elmhurst, Rootabaga Stories, in 1922, followed by Rootabaga Pigeons
18.
Woody Guthrie
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He frequently performed with the slogan This machine kills fascists displayed on his guitar. His best-known song is This Land Is Your Land, many of his recorded songs are archived in the Library of Congress. Throughout his life Guthrie was associated with United States Communist groups, Guthrie was married three times and fathered eight children, including American folk musician Arlo Guthrie. Guthrie died from complications of Huntingtons disease, a genetic neurological disorder. Guthrie was born in Okemah, a town in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma. His parents named him after Woodrow Wilson, then Governor of New Jersey, Charles Guthrie was an industrious businessman, owning at one time up to 30 plots of land in Okfuskee County. He was actively involved in Oklahoma politics and was a conservative Democratic candidate for office in the county, when Charles was making stump speeches, he would often be accompanied by his son. Charles Guthrie was involved in the 1911 lynching of Laura and Lawrence Nelson, Woody Guthrie wrote three songs about the event and said that his father, Charles, was later a member of the revived Ku Klux Klan. Guthries early family life was affected by fires, including one that caused the loss of his familys home in Okemah. His sister Clara later died in a fire when Guthrie was seven. Guthries mother, Nora, was afflicted with Huntingtons disease, although the family did not know this at the time and it leads to dementia as well as muscular degeneration. She was eventually committed to the Oklahoma Hospital for the Insane, judging from the circumstances of her fathers death by drowning, researchers suspect that George Sherman suffered from the same hereditary disease. When Nora Guthrie was institutionalized, Woody Guthrie was 14 and his father Charley was living and working in Pampa, Texas, to repay his debts from unsuccessful real estate deals. Woody and his siblings were on their own in Oklahoma, they relied on their eldest brother Roy for support, the 14-year-old Woody Guthrie worked odd jobs around Okemah, begging meals and sometimes sleeping at the homes of family friends. According to one story, Guthrie befriended an African-American blues harmonica player named George, before long, Guthrie bought his own harmonica and began playing along with him. In another interview 14 years later, Guthrie claimed he learned how to play harmonica from a friend, John Woods. He seemed to have an affinity for music and easily learned to play by ear. He began to use his musical skills around town, playing a song for a sandwich or coins, Guthrie easily learned old ballads and traditional English & Scots songs from the parents of friends
19.
Lead Belly
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Huddie William Ledbetter /ˈhjuːdi/ was an American folk and blues musician notable for his strong vocals, virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the folk standards he introduced. He is best known as Lead Belly, though many releases list him as Leadbelly, he himself wrote it as Lead Belly, which is also the spelling on his tombstone and the spelling used by the Lead Belly Foundation. Lead Belly usually played a guitar, but he also played the piano, mandolin, harmonica, violin. In some of his recordings he sang while clapping his hands or stomping his foot. Lead Bellys songs covered a range, including gospel music, blues about women, liquor, prison life, and racism, and folk songs about cowboys, prison, work, sailors, cattle herding. He also wrote songs about people in the news, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Jean Harlow, Jack Johnson, Lead Belly was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 and the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame in 2008. Lead Belly was born Huddie William Ledbetter on the Jeter Plantation near Mooringsport, Louisiana, the 1900 United States Census lists Hudy Ledbetter as 12 years old, born January 1888, and the 1910 and 1930 censuses also give his age as corresponding to a birth in 1888. The 1940 census lists his age as 51, with supplied by wife. However, in April 1942, when Ledbetter filled out his World War II draft registration, he gave his date as January 23,1889. His grave marker bears the date given on his draft registration, Ledbetter was the younger of two children born to Wesley Ledbetter and Sallie Brown. The pronunciation of his name is purported to be HYEW-dee or HUGH-dee and he can be heard pronouncing his name as HUH-dee on the track Boll Weevil, from the Smithsonian Folkways album Lead Belly Sings for Children. His parents had cohabited for several years, but they married on February 26,1888. When Huddie was five years old, the family settled in Bowie County, by 1903, Huddie was already a musicianer, a singer and guitarist of some note. He performed for nearby Shreveport audiences in St. Pauls Bottoms, the 1910 census of Harrison County, Texas, shows Hudy Ledbetter living next door to his parents with his first wife, Aletha Lethe Henderson. Aletha is registered as age 19 and married one year, others say she was 15 when they married in 1908. It was in Texas that Ledbetter received his first instrument, an accordion from his uncle Terrell, by his early twenties, having fathered at least two children, Ledbetter left home to make his living as a guitarist and occasional laborer. Influenced by the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912, Ledbetter wrote the song The Titanic, his first composed on the twelve-string guitar, which later became his signature instrument. Initially played when performing with Blind Lemon Jefferson in and around Dallas, Texas, Johnson had in fact been denied passage on a ship for being black, but it was not the Titanic
20.
Pete Seeger
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Peter Pete Seeger was an American folk singer and social activist. Members of the Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era, in the 1960s, he re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament, civil rights, counterculture, and environmental causes. A prolific songwriter, his songs include Where Have All the Flowers Gone. If I Had a Hammer, and Turn, Turn. which have been recorded by many artists both in and outside the folk revival movement and are sung throughout the world. Flowers was a hit recording for the Kingston Trio, Marlene Dietrich, who recorded it in English, German and French, if I Had a Hammer was a hit for Peter, Paul and Mary and Trini Lopez while the Byrds had a number one hit with Turn. In the PBS American Masters episode Pete Seeger, The Power of Song, Seeger was born on May 3,1919, at the French Hospital, Midtown Manhattan. His Yankee-Protestant family, which Seeger called enormously Christian, in the Puritan, Calvinist New England tradition, Petes father, the Harvard-trained composer and musicologist Charles Louis Seeger, Jr. was born in Mexico City, Mexico, to American parents. Petes mother, Constance de Clyver, raised in Tunisia and trained at the Paris Conservatory of Music, was a concert violinist and later a teacher at the Juilliard School. In 1912, Charles Seeger was hired to establish the department at the University of California, Berkeley. Charles and Constance moved back east, making Charles parents estate in Patterson, New York, northeast of New York City, their base of operations. When baby Pete was eighteen months old they set out with him, upon their return, Constance taught violin and Charles taught composition at the New York Institute of Musical Art, whose president, family friend Frank Damrosch, was Constances adoptive uncle. Charles also taught part-time at the New School for Social Research, beginning in 1936, Charles held various administrative positions in the federal governments Farm Resettlement program, the WPAs Federal Music Project, and the wartime Pan American Union. After World War II, he taught ethnomusicology at the University of California, Petes uncle, Alan Seeger, a noted poet, had been one of the first American soldiers to be killed in World War I. All four of Petes half-siblings from his fathers second marriage – Margaret, Mike, Barbara, peggy Seeger, a well-known performer in her own right, married British folk singer and activist Ewan MacColl. Mike Seeger was a founder of the New Lost City Ramblers, one of members, John Cohen. Barbara Seeger joined her siblings in recording songs for children. In 1935, Pete attended Camp Rising Sun, a leadership camp held every summer in upstate New York that influenced his lifes work. He visited it most recently in 2012, in 1943, Pete married Toshi-Aline Ōta, whom he credited with being the support that helped make the rest of his life possible
21.
Bing Crosby
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Harry Lillis Bing Crosby, Jr. was an American singer and actor. The first multimedia star, from 1931 to 1954 Crosby was a leader in sales, radio ratings. His early career coincided with technical recording innovations such as the microphone and this allowed him to develop a laid-back, intimate singing style that influenced many of the popular male singers who followed him, including Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Dick Haymes, and Dean Martin. Also in 1948, the Music Digest estimated that Crosby recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours allocated to recorded radio music, in 1963, Crosby received the first Grammy Global Achievement Award. He is one of only 33 people to have three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in the categories of motion pictures, radio, Crosby influenced the development of the postwar recording industry. He became the first performer to pre-record his radio shows and master his commercial recordings onto magnetic tape. In addition to his work with early tape recording, he helped to finance the development of videotape, bought television stations, bred racehorses, Crosby died at the age of 74 on October 14,1977, from a sudden heart attack in Alcobendas, Spain. Crosby was born on May 2,1903 in Tacoma, Washington, in 1906, Crosbys family moved to Spokane, and in 1913, Crosbys father built a house at 508 E. Sharp Avenue. The house now sits on the campus of Crosbys alma mater Gonzaga University and he was the fourth of seven children, brothers Larry, Everett, Ted, and Bob, and two sisters, Catherine and Mary Rose. His parents were Harry Lowe Crosby, Sr. a bookkeeper, Crosbys mother was a second generation Irish-American. In 1910, seven-year-old Harry Crosby Jr. was forever renamed, the Sunday edition of the Spokesman-Review published a feature called The Bingville Bugle. Written by humorist Newton Newkirk, The Bingville Bugle was a parody of a hillbilly newsletter filled with gossipy tidbits, minstrel quips, creative spelling, and mock ads. A neighbor, 15-year-old Valentine Hobart, shared Crosbys enthusiasm for The Bugle, and noting Crosbys laugh, took a liking to him, eventually, the last vowel was dropped and the nickname stuck. Crosby later described Jolsons delivery as electric, Crosby graduated from Gonzaga High School in 1920 and enrolled at Gonzaga University. He attended Gonzaga for three years, but did not earn a bachelors degree, as a freshman, he played on the universitys baseball team. The university granted him a doctorate in 1937. In 1923, Crosby was invited to join a new band composed of school students a few years younger than himself. Al Rinker, Miles Rinker, James Heaton, Claire Pritchard and Robert Pritchard, along with drummer Crosby, formed the Musicaladers, the group performed on Spokane radio station KHQ, but disbanded after two years
22.
Lawrence Tibbett
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Lawrence Mervil Tibbett was a famous American opera singer and recording artist who also performed as a film actor and radio personality. A baritone, he sang leading roles with the Metropolitan Opera in New York more than 600 times from 1923 to 1950 and he performed diverse musical theatre roles, including Captain Hook in Peter Pan in a touring show. Lawrence Tibbett was born Lawrence Mervil Tibbet on November 16,1896 in Bakersfield and his father was a part-time deputy sheriff, killed in a shootout with desperado Jim McKinney in 1903. Tibbett grew up in Los Angeles, earning money by singing in church choirs and he graduated from Manual Arts High School in 1915. A year later, he met his wife, Grace Mackay Smith. During World War I he served in the Merchant Marine, after which he found employment singing as prologue to silent movies at the Grauman Million Dollar Theater in downtown Los Angeles. Tibbett studied in New York City with Frank La Forge and in 1923 at the age of 26, he signed his first contract, for $60 per week, with the New York Metropolitan Opera, using the name Tibbett. Over the ensuing years, with the Met, he built a successful career, displaying an outstanding voice, immaculate musicianship. He recorded exclusively for the Victor Talking Machine Company/RCA Victor throughout his career and his Met roles included Valentin in Charles Gounods Faust, Silvio, and later, Tonio, in Ruggiero Leoncavallos Pagliacci and the Kings Herald in Richard Wagners Lohengrin. He first achieved national recognition playing Ford in Giuseppe Verdis Falstaff, during the 1930s, Tibbett toured Europe and Australia, performing on stage or giving recitals in London, Paris, Prague and Vienna as well as in Sydney and Melbourne. Tibbett made his first recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1926, in the early 1930s, Tibbett also appeared in movies. Soon afterward, he starred in another MGM musical film, New Moon, opposite Grace Moore and The Cuban Love Song, with the Mexican Spitfire, in 1935, he made Metropolitan for 20th Century Fox. This film is notable for its extensive segments of Tibbett performing operatic arias in a stage setting and his final film was Under Your Spell in 1936. Also during the 1930s, Tibbett had a radio program sponsored by the Packard Motor Car Company of America on which he sang formal music. The company chose him to announce the Packard 120 to the world on air, when the firm wanted to sell less expensive cars, they persuaded him to add popular tunes to his repertoire in order to boost sales. He also appeared on Your Hit Parade, together with violinist Jascha Heifetz, in 1936 he founded the American Guild of Musical Artists, the most important labor union for solo performing artists. He was the Guilds proactive president for 17 years and his forceful and articulate advocacy of artistic causes was unique in its day. After his operatic career concluded, in the early 1950s, Tibbett performed in musicals, most notably, Tibbett took over the Italian operatic bass Ezio Pinzas role in Fanny during its original Broadway run
23.
Odetta
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Odetta Holmes, known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a civil and human rights activist, often referred to as The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement. Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals. Time included her song Take This Hammer on its list of the All-Time 100 Songs, stating that Rosa Parks was her No.1 fan, and Martin Luther King Jr. called her the queen of American folk music. Odetta was born in Birmingham, Alabama, grew up in Los Angeles, attended Belmont High School and she had operatic training from the age of 13. Her mother hoped she would follow Marian Anderson, but Odetta doubted a large black girl would ever perform at the Metropolitan Opera. Her first professional experience was in theater in 1944, as an ensemble member for four years with the Hollywood Turnabout Puppet Theatre. She later joined the touring company of the musical Finians Rainbow in 1949. While on tour with Finians Rainbow, Odetta fell in with an group of young balladeers in San Francisco. She made her name by playing around the United States at the Blue Angel nightclub, the i, and Tin Angel. A solo career followed, with Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues, Odetta Sings Folk Songs was one of 1963s best-selling folk albums. In 1959 she appeared on Tonight With Belafonte, a televised special. Odetta sang Water Boy and a duet with Belafonte, Theres a Hole in My Bucket, in 1961, Martin Luther King, Jr. anointed her The Queen of American folk music. Also in 1961 the duo Harry Belafonte and Odetta made #32 in the UK Singles Chart with the song Theres a Hole in the Bucket, many Americans remember her performance at the 1963 civil rights movements March on Washington where she sang O Freedom. She considered her involvement in the Civil Rights movement as being one of the privates in a big army. Broadening her musical scope, Odetta used band arrangements on several albums rather than playing alone, and released music of a jazz style on albums like Odetta. She gave a performance in 1968 at the Woody Guthrie memorial concert. Odetta also acted in films during this period, including Cinerama Holiday. In 1961 she appeared in an episode of TVs Have Gun, Will Travel and her marriages to Dan Gordon and Gary Shead ended in divorce
24.
Joan Baez
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Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician, and activist whose contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest or social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 55 years, releasing over 30 albums, fluent in Spanish and English, she has recorded songs in at least six other languages. She is regarded as a singer, although her music has diversified since the counterculture days of the 1960s and now encompasses everything from folk rock and pop to country. In recent years, she has found success interpreting songs of modern songwriters such as Ryan Adams, Josh Ritter, Steve Earle and her recordings include many topical songs and material dealing with social issues. She began her career in 1960 and achieved immediate success. Her first three albums, Joan Baez, Joan Baez, Vol.2, and Joan Baez in Concert all achieved gold status and stayed on the Billboard. Songs of acclaim include Diamonds & Rust and covers of Phil Ochss There but for Fortune and she is also known for Farewell, Angelina, Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word, Forever Young, Joe Hill, Sweet Sir Galahad and We Shall Overcome. Baez will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 7,2017, Baez was born on Staten Island, New York, on January 9,1941. Joans grandfather, the Reverend Alberto Baez, left Catholicism to become a Methodist minister and her father, Albert Baez, was born in Puebla, Mexico and grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where his father preached to—and advocated for—a Spanish-speaking congregation. Albert first considered becoming a minister but instead he turned to the study of mathematics and physics, Albert was later credited as a co-inventor of the x-ray microscope. Baez, is a mathematical physicist, whom Albert interested in physics as a child, born in April 1913, she died on April 20,2013, days after her one hundredth birthday. Baez had two sisters — the elder, Pauline Thalia Baez Bryan, and the younger, Mimi Fariña, Mimi, also a musician and activist, died of cancer in California in 2001. The Baez family converted to Quakerism during Joans early childhood, and she has continued to identify with the tradition, particularly in her commitment to pacifism, while growing up, Baez was subjected to racial slurs and discrimination due to her Mexican heritage. Consequently, she became involved with a variety of social causes early in her career and she declined to play in any venues that were segregated, which meant that when she toured the Southern states she would play only at black colleges. Joan graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1958, Joan Baez became involved with a variety of social causes early in her career, including civil rights and non-violence. Social justice, she stated in the PBS series American Masters, is the core of her life. The opening line of Baezs memoir And a Voice to Sing With is I was born gifted, a friend of Joans father gave her a ukulele. She learned four chords, which enabled her to play rhythm and blues and her parents, however, were fearful that the music would lead her into a life of drug addiction
25.
Phil Ochs
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He wrote hundreds of songs in the 1960s and 1970s and released eight albums. After years of writing in the 1960s, Ochss mental stability declined in the 1970s. He eventually succumbed to a number of problems including bipolar disorder and alcoholism, some of Ochss major musical influences were Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Bob Gibson, Faron Young, and Merle Haggard. Phil Ochs was born in El Paso, Texas, to Jacob Jack Ochs, a physician who was born in New York on August 11,1910, and Gertrude Phin Ochs and his parents met and married in Edinburgh where Jack was attending medical school. After their marriage, they moved to the United States, Jack, drafted into the army, was sent overseas near the end of World War II, where he treated soldiers at the Battle of the Bulge. His war experiences affected his health and he received an honorable medical discharge in November 1945. Suffering from bipolar disorder and depression on his home, Jack was unable to establish a successful medical practice. As a result, the Ochs family moved frequently, to Far Rockaway, New York, when Ochs was a teenager, then to Perrysburg in western New York, where he first studied music, and then to Columbus, Ohio. Ochs grew up with a sister, Sonia, and a younger brother. The Ochs family was middle class and Jewish, but not religious and his father was distant from his wife and children, and was hospitalized for depression, he died on April 30,1963, from a cerebral hemorrhage, His mother died on March 9,1994. Ochs also spent a lot of time at the movies and he especially liked big screen heroes such as John Wayne and Audie Murphy. Later on, he developed an interest in movie rebels, including Marlon Brando, from 1956 to 1958, Ochs was a student at the Staunton Military Academy in rural Virginia, and when he graduated he returned to Columbus and enrolled in the Ohio State University. Unhappy after his first quarter, he took a leave of absence, so in a flash I decided — Ill be a writer and a major in journalism. Ochs returned to Ohio State to study journalism and developed an interest in politics, at Ohio State he met Jim Glover, a fellow student who was a devotee of folk music. Glover introduced Ochs to the music of Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Glover taught Ochs how to play guitar, and they debated politics. Ochs began writing articles, often on radical themes. When the student paper refused to publish some of his more radical articles and his two main interests, politics and music, soon merged, and Ochs began writing topical political songs. Ochss parents and brother had moved from Columbus to Cleveland, and Ochs started to more time there
26.
Joe Hill (film)
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Joe Hill is a 1971 biopic about the famous Swedish-American labor activist and songwriter Joe Hill, born Joel Emanuel Hägglund in Gävle, Sweden. It stars Thommy Berggren as Joe Hill, while the rest of the cast were mostly unknowns in their first film roles and it is the only film that Widerberg made in the US. The film won the Jury Prize at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival, Joe Hill was mostly unavailable commercially for nearly four decades until a restored and digitally remastered version was produced in 2015 by the National Library of Sweden. It is now available on DVD, the distributor is Studio S Entertainment, Stockholm
27.
Abraham Lincoln
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Abraham Lincoln was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War—its bloodiest war and perhaps its greatest moral, constitutional, in doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy. Born in Hodgenville, Kentucky, Lincoln grew up on the frontier in Kentucky. Largely self-educated, he became a lawyer in Illinois, a Whig Party leader, elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1846, Lincoln promoted rapid modernization of the economy through banks, tariffs, and railroads. Reentering politics in 1854, he became a leader in building the new Republican Party, in 1860, Lincoln secured the Republican Party presidential nomination as a moderate from a swing state. Though he gained little support in the slaveholding states of the South. Subsequently, on April 12,1861, a Confederate attack on Fort Sumter inspired the North to enthusiastically rally behind the Union. Politically, Lincoln fought back by pitting his opponents against each other, by carefully planned political patronage and his Gettysburg Address became an iconic endorsement of the principles of nationalism, republicanism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy. Lincoln initially concentrated on the military and political dimensions of the war and his primary goal was to reunite the nation. He suspended habeas corpus, leading to the ex parte Merryman decision. Lincoln closely supervised the war effort, especially the selection of top generals, including his most successful general, Lincoln tried repeatedly to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond, each time a general failed, Lincoln substituted another, until finally Grant succeeded. As the war progressed, his moves toward ending slavery included the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. On April 14,1865, five days after the surrender of Confederate commanding general Robert E. Lee, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton launched a manhunt for Booth, and 12 days later on April 26, Lincoln has been consistently ranked both by scholars and the public as among the greatest U. S. presidents. Abraham Lincoln was born February 12,1809, the child of Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, in a one-room log cabin on the Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville. He was a descendant of Samuel Lincoln, an Englishman who migrated from Hingham, Norfolk to its namesake of Hingham, samuels grandson and great-grandson began the familys western migration, which passed through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Lincolns paternal grandfather and namesake, Captain Abraham Lincoln, moved the family from Virginia to Jefferson County, Captain Lincoln was killed in an Indian raid in 1786. His children, including eight-year-old Thomas, the presidents father
28.
Burl Ives
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Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives was an American singer and actor of stage, screen, radio and television. He began as an itinerant singer and banjoist, and launched his own show, The Wayfaring Stranger. In 1942, he appeared in Irving Berlins This Is the Army, in the 1960s, he successfully crossed over into country music, recording hits such as A Little Bitty Tear and Funny Way of Laughing. Ives was born near Hunt City, a town in Jasper County, Illinois, near Newton, Illinois, to Levi Frank Ives. He had six siblings, Audry, Artie, Clarence, Argola, Lillburn and his father was first a farmer and then a contractor for the county and others. One day, Ives was singing in the garden with his mother and he invited his nephew to sing at the old soldiers reunion in Hunt City. The boy performed a rendition of the folk ballad Barbara Allen, from 1927 to 1929, Ives attended Eastern Illinois State Teachers College in Charleston, Illinois, where he played football. During his junior year, he was sitting in English class, listening to a lecture on Beowulf, as he walked out of the door, the professor made a snide remark, and Ives slammed the door behind him, shattering the window in the door. Sixty years later, the school named a building after its most famous dropout, Ives was also involved in Freemasonry from 1927 onward. On July 23,1929, in Richmond, Indiana, Ives made a recording of Behind the Clouds for the Starr Piano Companys Gennett label. In later years, Ives did not recall having made the record, Ives traveled about the U. S. as an itinerant singer during the early 1930s, earning his way by doing odd jobs and playing his banjo. He was jailed in Mona, Utah, for vagrancy and for singing Foggy Dew, around 1931, he began performing on WBOW radio in Terre Haute, Indiana. He also went back to school, attending classes at Indiana State Teachers College, in 1933, Ives also attended the Juilliard School in New York. He made his Broadway debut in 1938 with a role in Rodgers and Hart’s hit musical. In 1937, he met and befriended actor Eddie Albert, the two lived together for a while in Hollywood. In 1940, Ives began his own show, titled The Wayfaring Stranger after one of his ballads. Over the next decade, he popularized several traditional songs, such as Foggy Dew, The Blue Tail Fly. He was also associated with the Almanac Singers, a group which at different times included Woody Guthrie, Will Geer, Millard Lampell
29.
Lewis Milestone
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Lewis Milestone was a Moldovan-born American motion picture director. He is known for directing Two Arabian Knights and All Quiet on the Western Front, Milestone was born in Kishinev, in the Bessarabia Governorate of the Russian Empire, to a family of Jewish heritage. He came to the United States in 1912, just prior to World War I, Milestone held a number of odd jobs before enlisting in the U. S. Signal Corps, where he worked as an assistant director on Army training films during the war. In 1919 he became a citizen of the United States. After the war he went to Hollywood, where he first worked as a film cutter, howard Hughes promoted Milestone to director and one of his early efforts, the 1928 film Two Arabian Knights, won him an Oscar in the first Academy Award ceremony. He also directed The Racket, a gangster film. Milestone won his second Academy Award for All Quiet on the Western Front and his next, The Front Page, brought the Ben Hecht/Charles MacArthur play to the screen. In the Front Page Milestone was one of the first directors to use the rotoambulator, the rotoambulator is a combination of a crane and a dolly with three wheels. The rotoambulator was used in the scene of the Front Page where Walter Bums descends to the shipping area of his plant. The rotoambulator was used to capture the scene in a way that had never been done before. It earned him another Oscar nomination and his work during the 1930s and 1940s was always easily identifiable by its lighting and imaginative use of fluid camera. During this time, he made the original Of Mice and Men, then in the war years Milestone made The North Star, The Purple Heart, and A Walk in the Sun, movies made during and set in World War II. In these films, he defended the worlds fighting both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, after the war, he was blacklisted under the suspicion that he was a communist sympathizer. Deciding to wait for anti-communist hostility to cool, he and his left for Europe. In the U. S. he made other films before leaving for Europe and he worked extensively in television from the mid-1950s on. He returned to the U. S. to make two films, Oceans 11 starring the Rat Pack including Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. The original Oceans 11 worked, but Bounty became a box office bomb, with no other work to do, he turned to TV work which he disliked, then left directing as his health began failing. Milestone died from natural causes on September 25,1980, five short of his 85th birthday
30.
A Walk in the Sun (1945 film)
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A Walk in the Sun is a 1945 American war film based on the novel by Harry Brown, who was a writer for Yank, the Army Weekly based in England. The book was serialized in Liberty Magazine in October 1944, platoon Sergeant Pete Halverson takes over command and orders Sgt. Eddie Porter to lead the men to the beach while he tries to find the company commander, first aid man McWilliams remains with Rand, and the rest of the men hit the beach and dig in while trying to elude the shelling and machine-gun fire. Bill Tyne wonders what they will do if Halverson does not return, and after the sun rises, Tyne remains on the beach to wait for Halverson, but learns from McWilliams that both Rand and Halverson are dead. Soon after, McWilliams is shot by an airplane when he goes to a bluff to view the aerial attack on the beachhead. Tyne walks to the woods, and there discovers that three men have been hit, including Sgt. Hoskins who was the senior surviving NCO, hoskins wound means he cannot continue and Porter as the next senior NCO is forced to take command. Hoskins warns Tyne as he is leaving to keep an eye on Porter because he suspects Porter is going to crack under the pressure of command. Ward then lead the men in three squads along a road toward their objective, a bridge that they are to blow up that is near a farmhouse, Porter knows that the six-mile journey will be a dangerous one, and grows agitated. He warns the men to watch out for enemy tanks and aircraft, as they walk, the men shoot the breeze and discuss their likes and dislikes, the nature of war and the food they wish they were eating. Enemy aircraft appear and one of them strafes the platoon as they run for cover in a ditch, some of the men are killed. Afterwards Porter is distracted when two retreating Italian soldiers surrender to the platoon and confirm that they are on the right road, the Italians warn them that the area is controlled by German troops, and soon after, the platoon meets a small reconnaissance patrol of American soldiers. After the patrols motorcycle driver offers to ride to the farmhouse and report back, finally Tyne tells the men to take a break while he sits with Porter. As machine gunner Rivera and his pal, Jake Friedman, razz each other, Porter begins to break down and tells Ward that he is putting Tyne in charge. Leaving a man to guard the still-crying Porter, Tyne pushes on, the men finally reach the farmhouse, but when a small patrol attempts to crawl through the field in front of the house, they are shot at by the Germans, and two men are killed. Tyne and Ward are baffled about what to do next when Windy, the remaining men nervously wait for their comrades to reach the bridge, until finally Rivera opens fire and Tyne and his men go over the stone wall and into the field. The bridge is blown up, and despite heavy losses, the platoon captures the house. Then, at noon, Windy, Ward and the remaining men wander through the house as Farmer fulfills his dream of eating an apple
31.
The House I Live In (1945 film)
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The House I Live In is a ten-minute short film written by Albert Maltz, produced by Frank Ross and Mervyn LeRoy, and starring Frank Sinatra. Made to oppose anti-Semitism at the end of World War II, it received an Honorary Academy Award, in 2007, this film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. Sinatra, apparently playing himself, takes a break from a recording session and he sees more than ten boys chasing a Jewish boy and intervenes, first with dialogue, then with a short speech. His main points are that we are all Americans and that one Americans blood is as good as anothers, the song originally appeared in the musical revue, Let Freedom Sing, which opened on Broadway on October 5,1942. In the film, Sinatra sings the title song and his recording became a national hit. The music was written by Earl Robinson, Robinson was later blacklisted during the McCarthy era for being a member of the Communist Party. He also wrote songs for the presidential campaigns of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Henry A. Wallace. The lyrics were written in 1943 by Abel Meeropol under the pen name Lewis Allan, in 1957 Meeropol adopted two boys, Michael and Robert, who had been orphaned when their parents Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in 1953. Meeropol was enraged that the verse of the song was not used in the film. When the film premiered, he protested against the deletion of the verse referring to my neighbors white, the song was memorably covered in later years by Paul Robeson, Mahalia Jackson, and Josh White. Kim Weston included it on her second post-Motown album This Is America, Sinatra continued to include it in his repertory for decades. Bill Cosby used a recording of the song to some of his shows in 2002. The song figures prominently in Arch Obolers radio play The House I Live In, Film, The House I Live In at the Internet Movie Database The short film The House I Live In is available for free download at the Internet Archive Song, Song Facts
32.
Frank Sinatra
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Francis Albert Sinatra was an American singer, actor, and producer who was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century. He is one of the music artists of all time. Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants, Sinatra began his career in the swing era with bandleaders Harry James. Sinatra found success as a solo artist after he signed with Columbia Records in 1943 and he released his debut album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, in 1946. Sinatras professional career had stalled by the early 1950s, and he turned to Las Vegas and his career was reborn in 1953 with the success of From Here to Eternity, with his performance subsequently winning an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Sinatra released several critically lauded albums, including In the Wee Small Hours, Come Fly with Me, Only the Lonely and Nice n Easy. Sinatra left Capitol in 1960 to start his own label, Reprise Records. It was followed by 1968s collaboration with Duke Ellington, using his Las Vegas shows as a home base, he toured both within the United States and internationally until a short time before his death in 1998. Sinatra forged a successful career as a film actor. After winning an Academy Award for From Here to Eternity, he starred in The Man with the Golden Arm and he appeared in various musicals such as On the Town, Guys and Dolls, High Society, and Pal Joey, winning another Golden Globe for the latter. Toward the end of his career, he associated with playing detectives. Sinatra would later receive the Golden Globe Cecil B, on television, The Frank Sinatra Show began on ABC in 1950, and he continued to make appearances on television throughout the 1950s and 1960s. While Sinatra never formally learned how to read music, he had a natural, intuitive understanding of it, a perfectionist, renowned for his impeccable dress sense and cleanliness, he always insisted on recording live with his band. His bright blue eyes earned him the popular nickname Ol Blue Eyes, Sinatra led a colorful personal life, and was often involved in turbulent affairs with women, such as with his second wife Ava Gardner. He went on to marry Mia Farrow in 1966 and Barbara Marx in 1976, Sinatra had several violent confrontations, usually with journalists he felt had crossed him, or work bosses with whom he had disagreements. He was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1985, Sinatra was also the recipient of eleven Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Trustees Award, Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. After his death, American music critic Robert Christgau called him the greatest singer of the 20th century, Francis Albert Sinatra was born on December 12,1915, in an upstairs tenement at 415 Monroe Street in Hoboken, New Jersey. He was the child of Italian immigrants Antonino Martino Marty Sinatra
33.
Documentary film
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A documentary film is a nonfictional motion picture intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education, or maintaining a historical record. Documentary has been described as a practice, a cinematic tradition. Polish writer and filmmaker Bolesław Matuszewski was among those who identified the mode of documentary film and he wrote two of the earliest texts on cinema Une nouvelle source de lhistoire and La photographie animée. Both were published in 1898 in French and among the written works to consider the historical. Matuszewski is also among the first filmmakers to propose the creation of a Film Archive to collect, the American film critic Pare Lorentz defines a documentary film as a factual film which is dramatic. Others further state that a documentary stands out from the types of non-fiction films for providing an opinion. Documentary practice is the process of creating documentary projects. Documentary filmmaking can be used as a form of journalism, advocacy, early film was dominated by the novelty of showing an event. They were single-shot moments captured on film, a train entering a station and these short films were called actuality films, the term documentary was not coined until 1926. Many of the first films, such as made by Auguste and Louis Lumière, were a minute or less in length. Films showing many people were made for commercial reasons, the people being filmed were eager to see, for payment. One notable film clocked in at over an hour and a half, using pioneering film-looping technology, Enoch J. Rector presented the entirety of a famous 1897 prize-fight on cinema screens across the United States, in May 1896, Bolesław Matuszewski recorded on film few surigical operations in Warsaw and Saint Petersburg hospitals. In 1898, French surgeon Eugène-Louis Doyen invited Bolesław Matuszewski and Clément Maurice and they started in Paris a series of surgical films sometime before July 1898. Until 1906, the year of his last film, Doyen recorded more than 60 operations, Doyen said that his first films taught him how to correct professional errors he had been unaware of. These and five other of Doyens films survive, all these short films have been preserved. I must say I forgot those works and I am thankful to you that you reminded them to me, unfortunately, not many scientists have followed your way. Travelogue films were popular in the early part of the 20th century
34.
Theodore Dreiser
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Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. Dreisers best known novels include Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy, in 1930 he was nominated to the Nobel Prize in Literature. Dreiser was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, to Sarah Maria, John Dreiser was a German immigrant from Mayen in the Eifel region, and Sarah was from the Mennonite farming community near Dayton, Ohio. Her family disowned her for converting to Roman Catholicism in order to marry John Dreiser, Theodore was the twelfth of thirteen children. Paul Dresser was one of his brothers, Paul changed the spelling of his name as he became a popular songwriter. After graduating from school in Warsaw, Indiana, Dreiser attended Indiana University in the years 1889–1890 before dropping out. Within several years, Dreiser was writing as a journalist for the Chicago Globe newspaper, Other interviewees included Lillian Nordica, Emilia E. Barr, Philip Armour and Alfred Stieglitz. After proposing in 1893, he married Sara Osborne White on December 28,1898 and they ultimately separated in 1909, partly as a result of Dreisers infatuation with Thelma Cudlipp, the teenage daughter of a colleague, but were never formally divorced. In 1913, he began a relationship with the actress. In 1919 Dreiser met his cousin Helen Patges Richardson with whom he began an affair, through the following decades she remained the constant woman in his life, as other more temporary love affairs bloomed and perished. Helen tolerated Dreisers affairs, and they married on June 13,1944. Dreiser was going to return from his first European vacation on the Titanic but was talked out of going by an English publisher who recommended he board a cheaper boat. During 1899, the Dreisers stayed with Arthur Henry and his wife, Maude Wood Henry, at the House of Four Pillars, there Dreiser began work on his first novel, Sister Carrie, published in 1900. Unknown to Maude, Henry sold a half-interest in the house to Dreiser, in Sister Carrie, Dreiser portrayed a changing society, writing about a young woman who flees rural life for the city and struggles with poverty, complex relationships with men, and prostitution. It sold poorly and was considered controversial because of objections to his featuring a country girl who pursues her dreams of fame. The book has since acquired a considerable reputation and it has been called the greatest of all American urban novels. It was adapted as a 1952 film by the name, directed by William Wyler. In response to witnessing a lynching in 1893, Dreiser wrote the story, Nigger Jeff
35.
Alan Arkin
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Alan Wolf Arkin is an American actor, director, musician, and singer. He has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor twice for his performances in The Russians Are Coming and he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Little Miss Sunshine and received a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his performance in Argo. Arkin was born Alan Wolf Arkin in Brooklyn, New York City] on March 26,1934, Arkin, a painter and writer, and his wife, Beatrice, a teacher. He was raised in a Jewish family with no emphasis on religion and his grandparents were immigrants from Ukraine, Russia, and Germany. His parents moved to Los Angeles when Alan was 11, during the 1950s Red Scare, Arkins parents were accused of being Communists, and his father was fired when he refused to answer questions about his political ideology. David Arkin challenged the dismissal, but he was vindicated only after his death, Arkin attended Los Angeles City College from 1951 to 1953. With two friends, he formed the music group The Tarriers, in which Arkin sang. It reached #4 on the Billboard magazine chart the year as Harry Belafontes better-known hit version. The group appeared in the 1957 Calypso-exploitation film Calypso Heat Wave, singing Banana Boat Song, from 1958 to 1968, Arkin performed and recorded with the childrens folk group, The Baby Sitters. He also performed the role of Dr. Pangloss in a staging of Leonard Bernsteins operetta Candide, alongside Madeline Kahns Cunegonde. Arkin was an member of the Second City comedy troupe in the 1960s. Arkin is one of six actors to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his first screen appearance. Two years later, he was nominated, for The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. In 1968, he appeared in the role of Inspector Clouseau after Peter Sellers disassociated himself from the role. His portrayal of Dr. Oatman, a scared and emotionally conflicted psychiatrist treating John Cusacks hit man character Martin Q, Blank in Grosse Point Blank was also well received. At 72 years old, Arkin was the sixth oldest winner of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, on Broadway, Arkin starred in Enter Laughing and Luv. He also directed The Sunshine Boys, among others, in 1969, Arkins directorial debut was a 12-minute childrens film titled People Soup, starring his sons Adam and Matthew Arkin. His most acclaimed directorial effort is Little Murders, released in 1971, the film opened to a lukewarm review by Roger Greenspan, and a more positive one by Vincent Canby in the New York Times
36.
Brown v. Board of Education
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The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation, insofar as it applied to public education. Handed down on May 17,1954, the Warren Courts unanimous decision stated that educational facilities are inherently unequal. As a result, de jure segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This ruling paved the way for integration and was a victory of the Civil Rights Movement. For much of the sixty years preceding the Brown case, race relations in the United States had been dominated by racial segregation, racial segregation in education varied widely from the 17 states that required racial segregation to the 16 in which it was prohibited. Brown was influenced by UNESCOs 1950 Statement, signed by a variety of internationally renowned scholars. This declaration denounced previous attempts at scientifically justifying racism as well as morally condemning racism, another work that the Supreme Court cited was Gunnar Myrdals An American Dilemma, The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. Myrdal had been a signatory of the UNESCO declaration, the research performed by the educational psychologists Kenneth B. Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark also influenced the Courts decision. The Clarks doll test studies presented substantial arguments to the Supreme Court about how segregation affected black schoolchildrens mental status, the plaintiffs were thirteen Topeka parents on behalf of their 20 children. The suit called for the district to reverse its policy of racial segregation. The plaintiffs had been recruited by the leadership of the Topeka NAACP, notable among the Topeka NAACP leaders were the chairman McKinley Burnett, Charles Scott, one of three serving as legal counsel for the chapter, and Lucinda Todd. The named plaintiff, Oliver L. Brown, was a parent, a welder in the shops of the Santa Fe Railroad, an assistant pastor at his church. He was convinced to join the lawsuit by Scott, a childhood friend, as directed by the NAACP leadership, the parents each attempted to enroll their children in the closest neighborhood school in the fall of 1951. They were each refused enrollment and directed to the segregated schools, linda Brown Thompson later recalled the experience in a 2004 PBS documentary. Like I say, we lived in a neighborhood and I had all of these playmates of different nationalities. And so when I found out that day that I might be able to go to their school, I was just thrilled, you know. And I remember walking over to Sumner school with my dad that day and going up the steps of the school, and I remember going inside and my dad spoke with someone and then he went into the inner office with the principal and they left me out. To sit outside with the secretary, and while he was in the inner office, I could hear voices and hear his voice raised, you know, as the conversation went on
37.
Sammy Davis Jr.
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Samuel George Sammy Davis Jr. was an American entertainer. Primarily a dancer and singer, he was also an actor of stage and screen, comedian, musician, at the age of 3, Davis began his career in vaudeville with his father and Will Mastin as the Will Mastin Trio, which toured nationally. After military service, Davis returned to the trio, Davis became an overnight sensation following a nightclub performance at Ciros after the 1951 Academy Awards. With the trio, he became a recording artist, in 1954, he lost his left eye in a car accident, and several years later, he converted to Judaism. Daviss film career began as a child in 1933, in 1960, he appeared in the Rat Pack film Oceans 11. After a starring role on Broadway in 1956s Mr Wonderful, he returned to the stage in 1964s Golden Boy, in 1966 he had his own TV variety show, titled The Sammy Davis Jr. Show. Daviss career slowed in the late 1960s, but he had a hit record with The Candy Man in 1972 and became a star in Las Vegas, earning him the nickname Mister Show Business. Davis was a victim of racism throughout his life, particularly during the pre-Civil Rights era, Davis had a complex relationship with the black community, and drew criticism after publicly supporting President Richard Nixon in 1972. One day on a course with Jack Benny, he was asked what his handicap was. This was to become a comment, recounted in his autobiography. After reuniting with Sinatra and Dean Martin in 1987, Davis toured with them and Liza Minnelli internationally and he died in debt to the Internal Revenue Service, and his estate was the subject of legal battles. Davis was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and he was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 1987, and in 2001, he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. During his lifetime, Davis stated that his mother was Puerto Rican, as an infant, he was reared by his paternal grandmother. When he was 3 years old, his parents separated and his father, not wanting to lose custody of his son, took him on tour. Davis learned to dance from his father and his uncle Will Mastin, Davis joined the act as a child and they became the Will Mastin Trio. Throughout his career, Davis included the Will Mastin Trio in his billing, Mastin and his father shielded him from racism. Snubs were explained as jealousy, for instance, when Davis served in the United States Army during World War II, however, he was confronted by strong racial prejudice. He later said, Overnight the world looked different and it wasnt one color any more
38.
Three Dog Night
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Three Dog Night is an American rock band. They formed in 1967 with a line-up consisting of vocalists Danny Hutton, Cory Wells and this lineup was soon augmented by Jimmy Greenspoon, Joe Schermie, Michael Allsup, and Floyd Sneed. The band registered 21 Billboard Top 40 hits between 1969 and 1975 and it helped introduce mainstream audiences to the work of many songwriters, including Paul Williams, Hoyt Axton, Laura Nyro, Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, and Leo Sayer. On colder nights they would sleep with two dogs and, if the night was freezing, it was a three dog night. The three vocalists, Danny Hutton, Chuck Negron and Cory Wells first came together in 1967 and made recordings with Brian Wilson. Ron Morgan left the early on and subsequently went on to join the Electric Prunes. Michael Allsup was quickly recruited to replace him on guitar, Three Dog Night earned 12 gold albums and recorded 21 consecutive Billboard Top 40 hits, seven of which went gold. Their first gold record was One, which had been written and recorded by Harry Nilsson. The group had three US #1 songs, each of which featured a different lead singer, Mama Told Me Not to Come, which was also their only Top 10 hit in the UK, Joy to the World, and Black and White. Dunhill Records claimed that 40 million record albums were sold by the band during this time, as its members wrote just a handful of songs on the albums, most songs Three Dog Night recorded were written by outside songwriters. Three Dog Night made its debut in 1968 at the Whiskey a Go Go. They were still in the process of making their first album Three Dog Night when they heard the favorable reactions from the hypercritical audience. The album Three Dog Night was a success with its hit songs One and Nobody and helped the band gain recognition, other damages were sought due to ATI taking deposits for booking Three Dog Night, whom they no longer represented. Joe Schermie was replaced by Jack Ryland in 1973, and the then became an eight-piece with the inclusion of another keyboard player. In late 1974, Allsup and Sneed left to form a new band, SS Fools, with Schermie. New members James Smitty Smith and drummer Mickey McMeel were recruited, by 1976, their run of hit records had ended and Hutton was succeeded by Jay Gruska. Hours before their first concert of their 1975 tour, Chuck Negron was arrested for the possession of narcotics but was released on $10,000 bond. After writing a couple of songs for them, and doing background vocals on one of their albums, I was asked to do a national tour of 10 to 12 thousand seat venues as the ‘3rd Dog’
