1.
Philadelphia
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In 1682, William Penn, an English Quaker, founded the city to serve as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony. Philadelphia was one of the capitals in the Revolutionary War. In the 19th century, Philadelphia became an industrial center. It became a destination for African-Americans in the Great Migration. The areas many universities and colleges make Philadelphia a top international study destination, as the city has evolved into an educational, with a gross domestic product of $388 billion, Philadelphia ranks ninth among world cities and fourth in the nation. Philadelphia is the center of activity in Pennsylvania and is home to seven Fortune 1000 companies. The Philadelphia skyline is growing, with a market of almost 81,900 commercial properties in 2016 including several prominent skyscrapers. The city is known for its arts, culture, and rich history, Philadelphia has more outdoor sculptures and murals than any other American city. Fairmount Park, when combined with the adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park in the watershed, is one of the largest contiguous urban park areas in the United States. The 67 National Historic Landmarks in the city helped account for the $10 billion generated by tourism, Philadelphia is the only World Heritage City in the United States. Before Europeans arrived, the Philadelphia area was home to the Lenape Indians in the village of Shackamaxon, the Lenape are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government. They are also called Delaware Indians and their territory was along the Delaware River watershed, western Long Island. Most Lenape were pushed out of their Delaware homeland during the 18th century by expanding European colonies, Lenape communities were weakened by newly introduced diseases, mainly smallpox, and violent conflict with Europeans. Iroquois people occasionally fought the Lenape, surviving Lenape moved west into the upper Ohio River basin. The American Revolutionary War and United States independence pushed them further west, in the 1860s, the United States government sent most Lenape remaining in the eastern United States to the Indian Territory under the Indian removal policy. In the 21st century, most Lenape now reside in the US state of Oklahoma, with communities living also in Wisconsin, Ontario. The Dutch considered the entire Delaware River valley to be part of their New Netherland colony, in 1638, Swedish settlers led by renegade Dutch established the colony of New Sweden at Fort Christina and quickly spread out in the valley. In 1644, New Sweden supported the Susquehannocks in their defeat of the English colony of Maryland
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Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
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The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is a museum and art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1805 and is the first and oldest art museum, the academys museum is internationally known for its collections of 19th- and 20th-century American paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. Its archives house important materials for the study of American art history, museums, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts was founded in 1805 by painter and scientist Charles Willson Peale, sculptor William Rush, and other artists and business leaders. The growth of the Academy of Fine Arts was slow and it opened as a museum in 1807 and held its first exhibition in 1811, where more than 500 paintings and statues were on display. The first school classes held in the building were with the Society of Artists in 1810, in 1876, former Academy student Thomas Eakins returned to teach as a volunteer. Fairman Rogers, chairman of the Committee on Instruction from 1878 to 1883, made him a faculty member in 1878, Eakins revamped the certificate curriculum to what it remains today. From 1811 to 1969, the Academy also organized important annual art exhibitions from which significant acquisitions were made, harrison S. Morris, Managing Director from 1892 to 1905, collected contemporary American art for the institution. Among the many masterpieces acquired during his tenure were works by Cecilia Beaux, William Merritt Chase, Frank Duveneck, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Childe Hassam, and Edmund Tarbell. Work by The Eight, which included former Academy students Robert Henri and John Sloan, is represented in the collection. From 1890 to 1906, Edward Hornor Coates served as the president of the Academy. In 1915, Coates was awarded the Academys gold medal, rich endowments were made to the schools, a gallery of national portraiture was formed, and some of the best examples of Gilbert Stuarts work acquired. The annual exhibitions attained a brilliancy and éclat hitherto unknown, mr. Coates wisely established the schools upon a conservative basis, building almost unconsciously the dykes high against the oncoming flow of insane novelties in art patterns. In this last struggle against modernism the President was ably supported by Eakins, Anschutz, Grafly, Thouron, Vonnoh and his unfailing courtesy, his disinterested thoughtfulness, his tactfulness, and his modesty endeared him to scholars and masters alike. No sacrifice of time or of means was too great, if he thought he could accomplish the end he always had in view—the honour, during World War I, Academy students were actively involved in war work. About sixty percent of the men enlisted or entered Government service. A war service club was formed by students and a monthly publication, George Harding, a former PAFA student, was commissioned Captain during the war and created official combat sketches for the American Expeditionary Forces. Prior to the founding of the Academy, there were limited opportunities for women to receive training in the United States. Realizing the rise in interest of women, this period between the mid-19th and early 20th century shows a remarkable growth of formally trained women artists
3.
Royal Academy of Arts
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The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. The Royal Academy of Arts was founded through an act of King George III on 10 December 1768 with a mission to promote the arts of design in Britain through education and exhibition. Supporters wanted to foster a national school of art and to encourage appreciation, fashionable taste in 18th-century Britain was based on continental and traditional art forms, providing contemporary British artists little opportunity to sell their works. From 1746 the Foundling Hospital, through the efforts of William Hogarth, the success of this venture led to the formation of the Society of Artists of Great Britain and the Free Society of Artists. Both these groups were primarily exhibiting societies, their success was marred by internal factions among the artists. The combined vision of education and exhibition to establish a school of art set the Royal Academy apart from the other exhibiting societies. It provided the foundation upon which the Royal Academy came to dominate the art scene of the 18th and 19th centuries, supplanting the earlier art societies. Sir William Chambers, a prominent architect, used his connections with George III to gain royal patronage and financial support of the Academy, the painter Joshua Reynolds was made its first president. Francis Milner Newton was elected the first secretary, a post he held for two decades until his resignation in 1788, the instrument of foundation, signed by George III on 10 December 1768, named 34 founder members and allowed for a total membership of 40. William Hoare and Johann Zoffany were added to this list later by the King and are known as nominated members, among the founder members were two women, a father and daughter, and two sets of brothers. The Royal Academy was initially housed in cramped quarters in Pall Mall, although in 1771 it was given temporary accommodation for its library and schools in Old Somerset House, then a royal palace. In 1780 it was installed in purpose-built apartments in the first completed wing of New Somerset House, located in the Strand and designed by Chambers, the Academy moved in 1837 to Trafalgar Square, where it occupied the east wing of the recently completed National Gallery. These premises soon proved too small to house both institutions, in 1868,100 years after the Academys foundation, it moved to Burlington House, Piccadilly, where it remains. Burlington House is owned by the British Government, and used rent-free by the Royal Academy, the first Royal Academy exhibition of contemporary art, open to all artists, opened on 25 April 1769 and ran until 27 May 1769. 136 works of art were shown and this exhibition, now known as the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, has been staged annually without interruption to the present day. In 1870 the Academy expanded its programme to include a temporary annual loan exhibition of Old Masters. The range and frequency of these exhibitions have grown enormously since that time. Britains first public lectures on art were staged by the Royal Academy, led by Reynolds, the first president, a program included lectures by Dr. William Hunter, John Flaxman, James Barry, Sir John Soane, and J. M. W. Turner
4.
Edward VII
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Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, before his accession to the throne, he served as heir apparent and held the title of Prince of Wales for longer than any of his predecessors. During the long reign of his mother, he was excluded from political power. He travelled throughout Britain performing ceremonial duties, and represented Britain on visits abroad. His tours of North America in 1860 and the Indian subcontinent in 1875 were popular successes, as king, Edward played a role in the modernisation of the British Home Fleet and the reorganisation of the British Army after the Second Boer War. He reinstituted traditional ceremonies as public displays and broadened the range of people with whom royalty socialised and he died in 1910 in the midst of a constitutional crisis that was resolved the following year by the Parliament Act 1911, which restricted the power of the unelected House of Lords. Edward was born at 10,48 in the morning on 9 November 1841 in Buckingham Palace and he was the eldest son and second child of Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He was christened Albert Edward at St Georges Chapel, Windsor Castle and he was named Albert after his father and Edward after his maternal grandfather Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn. He was known as Bertie to the family throughout his life. As the eldest son of the British sovereign, he was automatically Duke of Cornwall, as a son of Prince Albert, he also held the titles of Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duke of Saxony. He was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester on 8 December 1841, Earl of Dublin on 17 January 1850, a Knight of the Garter on 9 November 1858, and a Knight of the Thistle on 24 May 1867. In 1863, he renounced his rights to the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in favour of his younger brother. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were determined that their eldest son should have an education that would prepare him to be a constitutional monarch. At age seven, Edward embarked on an educational programme devised by Prince Albert. Unlike his elder sister Victoria, Edward did not excel in his studies and he tried to meet the expectations of his parents, but to no avail. Although Edward was not a diligent student—his true talents were those of charm, sociability and tact—Benjamin Disraeli described him as informed, intelligent, after the completion of his secondary-level studies, his tutor was replaced by a personal governor, Robert Bruce. After an educational trip to Rome, undertaken in the first few months of 1859, he spent the summer of that year studying at the University of Edinburgh under, among others, in October, he matriculated as an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford. Now released from the strictures imposed by his parents, he enjoyed studying for the first time
5.
Holy Grail
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The Holy Grail is a vessel that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Different traditions describe it as a cup, dish or stone with miraculous powers that provide happiness, a grail, wondrous but not explicitly holy, first appears in Perceval, le Conte du Graal, an unfinished romance written by Chrétien de Troyes around 1190. Here, it is a processional salver used to serve at a feast, in the late 12th century, Robert de Boron wrote in Joseph dArimathie that the Grail was Jesuss vessel from the Last Supper, which Joseph of Arimathea used to catch Christs blood at the Crucifixion. The word graal, as it is earliest spelled, comes from Old French graal or greal, cognate with Old Provençal grazal and Old Catalan gresal, meaning a cup or bowl of earth, wood, or metal. The most commonly accepted etymology derives it from Latin gradalis or gradale via a form, cratalis, a derivative of crater or cratus. Late medieval writers came up with an etymology for sangréal. In Old French, san graal or san gréal means Holy Grail, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia this is a false etymology. After the cycle of Grail romances was well established, later used this alternative etymology. Since then, Sang real is sometimes employed to lend a medievalising air in referring to the Holy Grail and this connection with royal blood bore fruit in a modern bestseller linking many historical conspiracy theories. The Grail was considered a bowl or dish when first described by Chrétien de Troyes, hélinand of Froidmont described a grail as a wide and deep saucer, other authors had their own ideas. Robert de Boron portrayed it as the vessel of the Last Supper, the Welsh romance Peredur had no Grail per se, presenting the hero instead with a platter containing his kinsmans bloody, severed head. The authors of the Vulgate Cycle used the Grail as a symbol of divine grace, Galahad and the interpretation of the Grail involving him were picked up in the 15th century by Sir Thomas Malory in Le Morte dArthur and remain popular today. The Grail is first featured in Perceval, le Conte du Graal by Chrétien de Troyes, in this incomplete poem, dated sometime between 1180 and 1191, the object has not yet acquired the implications of holiness it would have in later works. First comes a man carrying a bleeding lance, then two boys carrying candelabras. Finally, a young girl emerges bearing an elaborately decorated graal. Chrétien refers to this not as The Grail but as a grail, showing the word was used, in its earliest literary context. Perceval, who had warned against talking too much, remains silent through all of this. He later learns that if he had asked the questions about what he saw, he would have healed his maimed host
6.
Boston Public Library
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The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, founded in 1848. In fiscal year 2014, the library held over 10,000 programs, all free to the public, and lent 3.7 million materials. According to its website, the Boston Public Library has a collection of over 23.7 million items, the vast majority of the collection – over 22.7 million volumes — is held in the Central Branch research stacks. Between July 2012 and June 2013, the circulation of the BPL was 3.69 million. The New York Public Library is the other public library that is a member of the ARL. The library has established collections of distinction, based on the depth and breadth, including subjects such as Boston history. In addition, the library is both a federal and state depository of government documents, included in the BPLs research collection are more than 1.7 million rare books and manuscripts. There are large collections of prints, photographs, postcards, the library, for example, holds one of the major collections of watercolors and drawings by Thomas Rowlandson. In the mid-19th century, several people were instrumental in the establishment of the Boston Public Library, George Ticknor, a Harvard professor and trustee of the Boston Athenaeum, raised the possibility of establishing a public library in Boston beginning as early as 1826. At the time, Ticknor could not generate enough interest, in 1839, Alexandre Vattemare, a Frenchman, suggested that all of Bostons libraries combine themselves into one institution for the benefit of the public. The idea was presented to many Boston libraries, however, most were uninterested in the idea, at Vattemares urging, Paris sent gifts of books in 1843 and 1847 to assist in establishing a unified public library. Vattemare made yet another gift of books in 1849, josiah Quincy, Jr. anonymously donated $5,000 to begin the funding of a new library. Quincy made the donation while he was mayor of Boston, indirectly, John Jacob Astor also influenced the establishment of a public library in Boston. At the time of his death, Astor bequeathed $400,000 to New York to establish a library there. Because of the cultural and economic rivalry between Boston and New York, this bequest prompted more discussion of establishing a library in Boston. In 1848, a statute of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts enabled the creation of the library, the library was officially established in Boston by a city ordinance in 1852. Mayor Benjamin Seaver recommended to the city council that a librarian be appointed, in May 1852 the city council adopted the recommendations of the mayor and Edward Capen was chosen to become Boston Public Librarys first librarian. Eager to support the library, Edward Everett collected documents from both houses of Congress, bound them at his own expense, and offered this collection to establish the new library
7.
John Singer Sargent
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John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the leading portrait painter of his generation for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and his oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida. His parents were American, but he was trained in Paris prior to moving to London and his commissioned works were consistent with the grand manner of portraiture, while his informal studies and landscape paintings displayed a familiarity with Impressionism. In later life Sargent expressed ambivalence about the restrictions of formal portrait work and he lived most of his life in Europe. Art historians generally ignored the society such as Sargent until the late 20th century. Before Sargents birth, his father, FitzWilliam, was an eye surgeon at the Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia 1844–1854, after Johns older sister died at the age of two, his mother, Mary, suffered a breakdown, and the couple decided to go abroad to recover. They remained nomadic expatriates for the rest of their lives, although based in Paris, Sargents parents moved regularly with the seasons to the sea and the mountain resorts in France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. While Mary was pregnant, they stopped in Florence, Tuscany, Sargent was born there in 1856. A year later, his sister Mary was born, after her birth, FitzWilliam reluctantly resigned his post in Philadelphia and accepted his wifes entreaties to remain abroad. They lived modestly on an inheritance and savings, living a quiet life with their children. They generally avoided society and other Americans except for friends in the art world, four more children were born abroad, of whom only two lived past childhood. Although his father was a patient teacher of basic subjects, young Sargent was a rambunctious child, as his father wrote home, He is quite a close observer of animated nature. His mother was convinced that traveling around Europe, and visiting museums and churches. Several attempts to have him formally schooled failed, owing mostly to their itinerant life, Sargents mother was a fine amateur artist and his father was a skilled medical illustrator. Early on, she gave him sketchbooks and encouraged drawing excursions, young Sargent worked with care on his drawings, and he enthusiastically copied images from The Illustrated London News of ships and made detailed sketches of landscapes. FitzWilliam had hoped that his sons interest in ships and the sea might lead him toward a naval career, at thirteen, his mother reported that John sketches quite nicely, & has a remarkably quick and correct eye. If we could afford to give him really good lessons, he would soon be quite a little artist, at the age of thirteen, he received some watercolor lessons from Carl Welsch, a German landscape painter. Although his education was far from complete, Sargent grew up to be a literate and cosmopolitan young man, accomplished in art, music
8.
Yale University Art Gallery
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The Yale University Art Gallery houses a significant and encyclopedic collection of art in several buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Although it embraces all cultures and periods, the gallery emphasizes early Italian painting, African sculpture, the Yale University Art Gallery is the oldest university art museum in the western hemisphere. The gallery was founded in 1832, when patriot-artist, John Trumbull, donated more than 100 paintings of the American Revolution to Yale College and this building, on the universitys Old Campus, was razed in 1901. The gallerys main building was built in 1953, and was among the first designed by Louis Kahn, a complete renovation, which returned many spaces to Kahns original vision, was completed in December 2006, by Polshek Partnership Architects. The older Tuscan romanesque portion was built in 1928, and was designed by Egerton Swartwout, the Gallery reopened on December 12,2012, after a 14-year renovation and expansion project at a cost of $135 million. The expanded space totals 69,975 sq ft, the museum is a member of the North American Reciprocal Museums program. On the second floor was a valuable collection of paintings by John Trumbull. Among them were his paintings of the Battle of Bunker Hill, Death of Montgomery before Quebec, Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, Declaration of Independence. Trumbull gave the paintings to Yale in consideration of an annuity of $1,000 and subject to the condition that he, the Gallery’s encyclopedic collections number more than 185,000 objects ranging in date from ancient times to the present day. The permanent collection includes, African Art, over 1000 objects in wood, metal, ivory, American Decorative Arts, about 18,000 objects in silver, glass, wood, porcelain, and textile with an emphasis on the colonial and early federal periods. Ancient Art, over 13,000 objects from the Near East, Egypt, Greece, Etruria, Art of the Ancient Americas, Mayan and Olmec figurines, vessels and sculptures. Prints, Drawings, and Photographs In 2005, the announced that it had acquired 1,465 gelatin silver prints by the influential American landscape photographer. In 2009, the museum mounted an exhibition of its collection of Picasso paintings and drawings. For the first time, portions of the Yale University Librarys, as an affiliate of Yale University, the gallery maintains a robust roster of education programs for university students, New Haven schools, and the general public. One such program is the Gallery Guide program, founded in 1998, the Yale Art Gallery charges no admission
9.
Harper's Weekly
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Harpers Weekly, A Journal of Civilization was an American political magazine based in New York City. Published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916, it featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects and it carried extensive coverage of the American Civil War, including many illustrations of events from the war. During its most influential period, it was the forum of the political cartoonist Thomas Nast, along with his brothers James, John, and Wesley, Fletcher Harper began the publishing company Harper & Brothers in 1825. Following the successful example of the Illustrated London News, Harper started publishing Harpers Magazine in 1850, in 1857, his company began publishing Harpers Weekly in New York City. By 1860 the circulation of the Weekly had reached 200,000, among the recurring features were the political cartoons of Thomas Nast, who was recruited in 1862 and worked with the Weekly for more than 20 years. Nast was a feared caricaturist, and is called the father of American political cartooning. He was the first to use an elephant as the symbol of the Republican Party and he also drew the legendary character of Santa Claus, his version became strongly associated with the figure, who was popularized as part of Christmas customs in the late nineteenth century. Harpers Weekly was the most widely read journal in the United States throughout the period of the Civil War, so as not to upset its wide readership in the South, Harpers took a moderate editorial position on the issue of slavery. Publications that supported abolition referred to it as Harpers Weakly, the Weekly had supported the Stephen A. Douglas presidential campaign against Abraham Lincoln, but as the American Civil War broke out, it fully supported Lincoln and the Union. The photograph inspired many free blacks in the North to enlist, some of the most important articles and illustrations of the time were Harpers reporting on the war. Besides renderings by Homer and Nast, the magazine also published illustrations by Theodore R. Davis, Henry Mosler, and the brothers Alfred and William Waud. In 1863, George William Curtis, one of the founders of the Republican Party, became the editor of the magazine. His editorials advocated civil service reform, low tariffs, and adherence to the gold standard, after the war, Harpers Weekly more openly supported the Republican Party in its editorial positions, and contributed to the election of Ulysses S. Grant in 1868 and 1872. It supported the Radical Republican position on Reconstruction, in the 1870s, the cartoonist Thomas Nast began an aggressive campaign in the journal against the corrupt New York political leader William Boss Tweed. Nast turned down a $500,000 bribe to end his attack, Tweed was arrested in 1873 and convicted of fraud. Nast and Harpers also played an important part in securing Rutherford B. Hayes 1876 presidential election, later on Hayes remarked that Nast was the most powerful, single-handed aid had. After the election, Nasts role in the magazine diminished considerably, since the late 1860s, Nast and George W. Curtis had frequently differed on political matters and particularly on the role of cartoons in political discourse. Harpers publisher Fletcher Harper strongly supported Nast in his disputes with Curtis, in 1877, Harper died, and his nephews, Joseph W. Harper Jr. and John Henry Harper, assumed control of the magazine
10.
Scribner's Magazine
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Scribners Magazine was an American periodical published by the publishing house of Charles Scribners Sons from January 1887 to May 1939. Scribners Magazine was the magazine out of the Scribners firm. Charles Scribners Sons spent over $500,000 setting up the magazine, to compete with the already successful Harpers Monthly, Scribners Magazine was launched in 1887, and was the first of any magazine to introduce color illustrations. The magazine ceased publication in 1939, the magazine had high sales when Roosevelt started contributing, reaching over 200,000, but gradually lost circulation after World War I. Scribners Magazine was the periodical publication of the Scribners firm. Scribners Monthly was later moved to publisher, and was renamed The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine. Charles Scribner announced to a New York Times reporter that they would make a new monthly publication as soon as the arrangements could be perfected. It was also announced that the editor would be Edward Burlingame, the son of Anson Burlingame, Charles Scribner also noted that the magazine would not be a revival of the formerly published Scribners Monthly. Charles Scribners Sons spent over $500,000 in launching Scribners Magazine, to complete with the already successful pictorials, Atlantic Monthly and Harpers Magazine. Edward L. Burlingame hired the best artists in his country for the magazine, Howard Pyle, Howard Chandler Christy, Charles Marion Russell, Walter Everett, Maxfield Parrish and Frederic Remington. Before the first issue was released, Charles Scribners Sons had their first annual Scribners Magazine dinner held at their main offices, Scribners Magazine was launched in January 1887, the first issue of which was to be published from January to June of that year. The magazine was printed and bound by Trows Printing and Bookbinding Company, Scribners Magazine was also the first magazine to introduce color illustrations later on. The first issue opens with the literary article The Downfall to the Empire, washburne, the former minister to France. An early morning fire on the Charles Scribners Sons offices heavily burned the third, in May 1914, the magazines editor, Edward L. Burlingame retired and Robert Bridges took over as editor of the publication. During the first World War, Scribners Magazine employed authors, Richard Harding Davis, Edith Wharton and John Galsworthy, during the time of 1917, when the United States joined the war, the magazine had four to six articles on the subject. On the date of November 19,1922 the first editor of the magazine, on January 1928 the magazine had a change in format, with the first of the newly formatted issue having a cover design by Rockwell Kent. The June issue of 1929 was banned in Boston, Massachusetts due to the article A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, the article was deemed salacious by the public and Boston police barred the magazine from book stands. Mr. Hemingway is one of the finest and most highly regarded of the modern writers, a Farewell to Arms is in its effect distinctly moral
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