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.
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
6.
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
