1.
Southworth & Hawes
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Southworth & Hawes was an early photographic firm in Boston, 1843–1863. Their images are prominent in major book and collection of early American photography. Southworth & Hawes worked almost exclusively in the daguerreotype process, working in the 8 ½ x 6 ½ inch whole plate format, their images are brilliant, mirror-like, and finely detailed. These traits have achieved for them a reputation with all true artists. He further noted that the firm had devoted their time chiefly to daguerreotypes, during their 20 years of collaboration, Southworth & Hawes catered to Boston society and the famous. Their advertisements drew a distinction between the styles for personal versus public portraiture. A likeness for an acquaintance or one’s own family should be marked by that amiability and cheerfulness, so appropriate to the social circle. Those for the public, of official dignitaries and celebrated characters admit of more firmness, sternness and soberness. On the evening of September 30,1846, Mr. Eben Frost, suffering from a violent toothache, called upon Dr. William Thomas Green Morton, Dr. Morton administered nitrous oxide and extracted the tooth. Mortons public demonstration of general anesthesia was therefore historic, to commemorate this momentous event, Southworth & Hawes were asked to daguerreotype the operation, however Hawes was squeamish about the blood, and they photographed a re-enactment instead. On April 3,1847, Southworth & Hawes were called upon to record an actual operation, later Dr. Warren presented his Laundy scalpel and probe, the surgical instruments he used in the first operation, to Hawes in gratitude for recording the operations. Hawes lived until 1901, continuing to operate a studio and carefully protecting its sizeable archive, the archives were finally dispersed during the Great Depression. Most made their way into three museums, while only a few have ever been privately held. However, on April 27,1999, a previously unknown hoard of 240 Southworth & Hawes daguerreotypes appeared at Sothebys auction from the estate of David Feigenbaum, the total sales price realized was $3.3 million
2.
Boston
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Boston is the capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. Boston is also the seat of Suffolk County, although the county government was disbanded on July 1,1999. The city proper covers 48 square miles with a population of 667,137 in 2015, making it the largest city in New England. Alternately, as a Combined Statistical Area, this wider commuting region is home to some 8.1 million people, One of the oldest cities in the United States, Boston was founded on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by Puritan settlers from England. It was the scene of several key events of the American Revolution, such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston. Upon U. S. independence from Great Britain, it continued to be an important port and manufacturing hub as well as a center for education, through land reclamation and municipal annexation, Boston has expanded beyond the original peninsula. Its rich history attracts many tourists, with Faneuil Hall alone drawing over 20 million visitors per year, Bostons many firsts include the United States first public school, Boston Latin School, first subway system, the Tremont Street Subway, and first public park, Boston Common. Bostons economic base also includes finance, professional and business services, biotechnology, information technology, the city has one of the highest costs of living in the United States as it has undergone gentrification, though it remains high on world livability rankings. Bostons early European settlers had first called the area Trimountaine but later renamed it Boston after Boston, Lincolnshire, England, the renaming on September 7,1630 was by Puritan colonists from England who had moved over from Charlestown earlier that year in quest of fresh water. Their settlement was limited to the Shawmut Peninsula, at that time surrounded by the Massachusetts Bay and Charles River. The peninsula is thought to have been inhabited as early as 5000 BC, in 1629, the Massachusetts Bay Colonys first governor John Winthrop led the signing of the Cambridge Agreement, a key founding document of the city. Puritan ethics and their focus on education influenced its early history, over the next 130 years, the city participated in four French and Indian Wars, until the British defeated the French and their Indian allies in North America. Boston was the largest town in British America until Philadelphia grew larger in the mid-18th century, Bostons harbor activity was significantly curtailed by the Embargo Act of 1807 and the War of 1812. Foreign trade returned after these hostilities, but Bostons merchants had found alternatives for their investments in the interim. Manufacturing became an important component of the economy, and the citys industrial manufacturing overtook international trade in economic importance by the mid-19th century. Boston remained one of the nations largest manufacturing centers until the early 20th century, a network of small rivers bordering the city and connecting it to the surrounding region facilitated shipment of goods and led to a proliferation of mills and factories. Later, a network of railroads furthered the regions industry. Boston was a port of the Atlantic triangular slave trade in the New England colonies
3.
Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
4.
Gilbert Stuart
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Gilbert Charles Stuart was an American painter from Rhode Island. Gilbert Stuart is widely considered one of Americas foremost portraitists and his best known work is the unfinished portrait of George Washington that is sometimes referred to as The Athenaeum, begun in 1796 and never finished. Stuart retained the portrait and used it to paint 130 copies which he sold for $100 each, throughout his career, Gilbert Stuart produced portraits of over 1,000 people, including the first six Presidents of the United States. C. The National Portrait Gallery, London, Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts, Gilbert Stuart was born on December 3,1755 in Saunderstown, Rhode Island, a village of North Kingstown, and baptized at Old Narragansett Church on April 11,1756. Stuarts father worked in the first colonial snuff mill in America, Gilbert Stuart moved to Newport, Rhode Island at the age of six, where his father pursued work in the merchant field. In Newport, Stuart first began to show promise as a painter. In 1770, Stuart made the acquaintance of Scottish artist Cosmo Alexander, a visitor of the colonies who made portraits of local patrons and who became a tutor to Stuart. Under the guidance of Alexander, Stuart painted the famous portrait Dr. Hunters Spaniels when he was fourteen years old, the painting is also referred to as Dr. Hunters Dogs by some accounts. In 1771, Stuart moved to Scotland with Alexander to finish his studies, Stuart tried to maintain a living and pursue his painting career, but to no avail, so he returned to Newport in 1773. Stuarts prospects as a portraitist were jeopardized by the onset of the American Revolution, Stuart departed for England in 1775 following the example set by John Singleton Copley. He was unsuccessful at first in pursuit of his vocation, the relationship was beneficial, with Stuart exhibiting at the Royal Academy as early as 1777. By 1782, Stuart had met with success, largely due to acclaim for The Skater, Stuart said that he was suddenly lifted into fame by a single picture. At one point, the prices for his pictures were exceeded only by those of renowned English artists Joshua Reynolds, despite his many commissions, however, Stuart was habitually neglectful of finances and was in danger of being sent to debtors prison. In 1787, he fled to Dublin, Ireland where he painted and accumulated debt with equal vigor, Stuart ended his 18-year stay in Britain and Ireland in 1793, leaving behind numerous unfinished paintings. He returned to the United States and settled briefly in New York City, in 1795, he moved to Germantown, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, where he opened a studio. It was here that he gained a foothold in the art world, Stuart painted George Washington in a series of iconic portraits, each of them leading in turn to a demand for copies, and keeping Stuart busy and highly paid for years. The most famous and celebrated of these likenesses is known as The Athenaeum and is portrayed on the United States one dollar bill. Stuart, along with his daughters, painted a total of 130 reproductions of The Athenaeum, however, he never completed the original version, after finishing Washingtons face, he kept the original version to make the copies
5.
Guido Reni
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Guido Reni was an Italian painter of high-Baroque style. Born in Bologna into a family of musicians, Guido Reni was the son of Daniele Reni, as a child of nine, he was apprenticed under the Bolognese studio of Denis Calvaert. Soon after, he was joined in studio by Albani. He may also have trained with a painter by the name of Ferrantini, when Reni was about twenty years old, the three Calvaert pupils migrated to the rising rival studio, named Accademia degli Incamminati, led by Lodovico Carracci. They went on to form the nucleus of a prolific and successful school of Bolognese painters who followed Lodovicos cousin Annibale Carracci to Rome, like many other Bolognese painters, Renis painting was thematic and eclectic in style. By late 1601, Reni and Albani had moved to Rome to work with the led by Annibale Carracci in fresco decoration of the Farnese Palace. During 1601–1604, his patron was Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrati. By 1604–1605, he received an independent commission for an altarpiece of the Crucifixion of St. Peter, after a few year sojourn in Bologna, he returned to Rome to become one of the premier painters during the papacy of Paul V. From 1607–1614, he was one of the painters patronized by the Borghese family, Renis frescoed ceiling of the large central hall of garden palace, Casino dellAurora located in the grounds of the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi, is considered his masterpiece. The casino was originally a pavilion commissioned by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the massive fresco is framed in quadri riportati and depicts Apollo in his Chariot preceded by Dawn bringing light to the world. The work is restrained in classicism, copying poses from Roman sarcophagi, there is little concession to perspective, and the vibrantly colored style is antithetical to the tenebrism of Caravaggios followers. Payments showed that he was paid in 247 scudi and 54 baiocchi upon completion on 24 September 1616, the two families were in rather bad relations, and the reason for such friction was their constant quest for temporal power. Also the Popes brother, Antonio Barberini, was a cardinal, in those days, the main church of the Capuchins in Rome was St. Nicholas, rather small and dating back to the Middle Ages. The Archangel Michael trampling Satan, wears a late Roman military cloak,1636, held in Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini, Rome. According to a legend, Reni became aware that Cardinal Giovanni Battista Pamphilj had slandered him, so, Reni, sensing an opportunity, decided to avenge himself by means of his own talent, at the same time pleasing his client, who belonged to the opposing family. According to existing portraits of him, Cardinal Pamphilj had a face, with thin hair, a scanty beard and a somewhat strange look in his eyes. Therefore, the face that Archangel Michael crushes under his foot looks almost identical to that of Giovanni Battista Pamphilj and this turned out even more embarrassing a few years later, when in 1644 the cardinal was elected Pope Innocent X. According to rumor, the chapel of Montecavallo was assigned to Reni to paint
6.
Thomas Sully
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Thomas Sully was an American portrait painter, who was born in Britain but lived most of his life in Philadelphia. He painted in the style of Thomas Lawrence, and his subjects included Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams and he also painted landscapes and historical pieces such as Passage of the Delaware, and his work was used on United States coinage. Sully was born in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England in 1783, to the actors Matthew Sully, in March 1792, the Sullys and their nine children emigrated to Charleston, South Carolina, where Thomas’s uncle managed a theater. Sully made his first appearance in the arts as a tumbler at the age of 11 in Charleston, after a brief apprenticeship to an insurance broker, who recognized his artistic talent, at about age 12 Sully began painting. He studied with his brother-in-law Jean Belzons, a French miniaturist and he returned to Richmond to learn miniature and device painting from his elder brother Lawrence Sully. After Lawrence Sullys death, Thomas Sully married his brothers widow and he took on the rearing of Lawrences children and fathered an additional nine children with Sarah. Among the children were Alfred Sully, Mary Chester Sully, Jane Cooper Sully Darley, Blanche Sully, Rosalie Sully, Sully was one of the founding members of The Musical Fund Society where he painted the portraits of many of the musicians and composers. Sully became a painter at age 18 in 1801. He studied portrait painting under Gilbert Stuart in Boston for three weeks, after some time in Virginia with his brother, Sully moved to New York. He settled in Philadelphia in 1806, where he resided for the remainder of his life, in 1809 he traveled to London for nine months of study under Benjamin West. Sullys 1824 portraits of John Quincy Adams, who became President within the year and his Adams portrait may be seen in the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Many notable Americans of the day had their portraits painted by him, in 1837–1838 he was in London to paint Queen Victoria at the request of Philadelphias St. Georges Society. His daughter Blanche assisted him as the Queens stand-in, modeling the Queens costume when she was not available, one of Sullys portraits of Thomas Jefferson is owned by the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society at the University of Virginia and hangs in that schools rotunda. Another Jefferson portrait, this one head-to-toe, hangs at West Point, Sullys own index indicates that he produced 2,631 paintings from 1801, most of which are currently in the United States. His style resembles that of Thomas Lawrence, though best known as a portrait painter, Sully also made historical pieces and landscapes. An example of the former is the 1819 Passage of the Delaware, now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The Sully painting, Portrait of Anna and Harriet Coleman, sold on September 28,2013 for $145,000 by John M. Hess Auction Service Inc. of Manheim, Pennsylvania. Sully died in Philadelphia on November 5,1872, where he had spent the majority of his long and he is buried in the Laurel Hill Cemetery
7.
Antoine-Jean Gros
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Antoine-Jean Gros, also known as Baron Gros, was both a French history and neoclassical painter. Born in Paris, Gros began to learn to draw at the age of six from his father, Jean-Antoine Gros, who was a miniature painter, and showed himself as a gifted artist. The death of his father, whose circumstances had been embarrassed by the French Revolution, threw Gros, in 1791 and he now devoted himself wholly to his profession, and competed in 1792 for the grand prix. He supported himself at Genoa by the means, producing a great quantity of miniatures and fixes. He visited Florence, but returned to Genoa where he made the acquaintance of Joséphine de Beauharnais and he followed her to Milan, where he was well received by her husband, Napoleon Bonaparte. On 15 November 1796, Gros was present with the army near Arcola when Bonaparte planted the French tricolor on the bridge, Gros seized on this incident, and showed by his treatment of it that he had found his vocation. In 1799, having escaped from the city of Genoa, Gros made his way to Paris. Les Pestiférés de Jaffa was followed by The Battle of Aboukir,1806, at the Salon of 1804, Gros debuted his painting Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa. The painting launched his career as a successful painter and it depicts Bonaparte in Jaffa visiting soldiers infected with the bubonic plague. He is portrayed reaching out to one of the sick, unfazed by the illness, while Bonaparte did actually visit the pesthouse, later, as his army prepared to withdraw from Syria, he ordered the poisoning of about fifty of his plague-infected men. The painting was commissioned as damage control when word spread of his actions, the painting is in the Neo-Classical style, though it shows elements such as the lighting and a taste for the exotic that are precursors to the upcoming Romantic ideals. In 1810, his Madrid and Napoleon at the Pyramids show that his star had deserted him, again citing Britannica, Exasperated by criticism and the consciousness of failure, Gros sought refuge in the gros pleasures of life. On 25 June 1835, he was drowned on the shores of the Seine at Meudon. From a paper which he had placed in his hat, it known that tired of life. Gros was decorated and named Baron of the Empire by Napoleon, after the Salon of 1808, the number of Gross pupils was very great, and was considerably augmented when, in 1815, David quit Paris and gave over his own classes to him. He became a member of the Institute, professor at the École des Beaux Arts, Gros had also been an inspiration to Eugene Delacroix, especially with his work in lithography. The two both worked in the time period, and both did portraits of Napoleon. Though at one point, Gros had referred to Delacroixs Chios, G. Dargenty produced a book titled Les Artistes Celebres Le Baron Gros GILBERT WOOD & Co
8.
Thomas Couture
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Thomas Couture was an influential French history painter and teacher. He taught such later luminaries of the art world as Édouard Manet, Henri Fantin-Latour, John La Farge, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Karel Javůrek, Couture was born at Senlis, Oise, France. When he was 11, his family moved to Paris, where he would study at the arts school. He failed the prestigious Prix de Rome competition at the six times. Couture finally did win the prize in 1837, in 1840, he began exhibiting historical and genre pictures at the Paris Salon, earning several medals for his works, in particular for his masterpiece, Romans During the Decadence. Shortly after this success, Couture opened an independent atelier meant to challenge the École des Beaux-Arts by turning out the best new history painters, coutures innovative technique gained much attention, and he received Government and Church commissions for murals during the late 1840s through the 1850s. He never completed the first two commissions, and the third met with mixed criticism. Upset by the reception of his murals, in 1860 he left Paris, for a time returning to his hometown of Senlis. In 1867, he thumbed his nose at the establishment by publishing a book on his own ideas. It was also translated to Conversations on Art Methods in 1879, asked by a publisher to write an autobiography, Couture responded, Biography is the exaltation of personality—and personality is the scourge of our time. In 1879, he died at Villiers-le-Bel, Val-dOise, and was interred in Père Lachaise Cemetery, romanticism and The School of Nature, Nineteenth-century drawings and paintings from the Karen B. Cohen collection. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, media related to Thomas Couture at Wikimedia Commons Thomas Couture at Find a Grave Article on Thomas Couture
9.
Salon (Paris)
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The Salon, or rarely Paris Salon, beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art event in the Western world, at the 1761 Salon, thirty-three painters, nine sculptors, and eleven engravers contributed. From 1881 onward, it has been managed by the Société des Artistes Français, in 1667, the royally sanctioned French institution of art patronage, the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, held its first semi-public art exhibit at the Salon Carré. The Salons original focus was the display of the work of recent graduates of the École des Beaux-Arts, exhibition at the Salon de Paris was essential for any artist to achieve success in France for at least the next 200 years. Exhibition in the Salon marked a sign of royal favor, in 1725, the Salon was held in the Palace of the Louvre, when it became known as Salon or Salon de Paris. In 1737, the exhibitions, held from 18 August 1737 to 5 September 1737 at the Grand Salon of the Louvre and they were held, at first, annually, and then biennially, in odd-numbered years. They would start on the feast day of St. Louis, once made regular and public, the Salons status was never seriously in doubt. In 1748 a jury of awarded artists was introduced, from this time forward, the influence of the Salon was undisputed. The Salon exhibited paintings floor-to-ceiling and on every inch of space. The jostling of artwork became the subject of other paintings. Printed catalogues of the Salons are primary documents for art historians, critical descriptions of the exhibitions published in the gazettes mark the beginning of the modern occupation of art critic. The French revolution opened the exhibition to foreign artists, the vernissage of opening night was a grand social occasion, and a crush that gave subject matter to newspaper caricaturists like Honoré Daumier. Charles Baudelaire, Denis Diderot and others wrote reviews of the Salons, the 1848 revolution liberalized the Salon. The amount of refused works was greatly reduced, the increasingly conservative and academic juries were not receptive to the Impressionist painters, whose works were usually rejected, or poorly placed if accepted. The Salon opposed the Impressionists shift away from traditional painting styles, in 1863 the Salon jury turned away an unusually high number of the submitted paintings. An uproar resulted, particularly from regular exhibitors who had been rejected, in order to prove that the Salons were democratic, Napoleon III instituted the Salon des Refusés, containing a selection of the works that the Salon had rejected that year. It opened on 17 May 1863, marking the birth of the avant-garde, the Impressionists held their own independent exhibitions in 1874,1876,1877,1879,1880,1881,1882 and 1886. In 1881, the government withdrew official sponsorship from the annual Salon, in December 1890, the leader of the Société des Artistes Français, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, propagated the idea that Salon should be an exhibition of young, not-yet awarded, artists
10.
National Academy Museum and School
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Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, and others to promote the fine arts in America through instruction and exhibition. The Academy is an honorary organization, a school. The school offers instruction, master classes, intensive critiques, various workshops. The museum houses a collection of over 7,000 works of American art from the 19th, 20th. The Academy has been located at several locations over the years, notable among them was a building built during 1863-1865, designed by architect P. B. Wight in Venetian Gothic style, which was modeled on the Doges Palace in Venice, another locale was at West 109th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan. Since 1942 the academy has occupied a mansion that was the home of sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington and Archer Milton Huntington at Fifth Avenue. The original founders of the National Academy of Design were students of the American Academy of the Fine Arts, samuel F. B. Morse and other students set about forming the drawing association to meet several times each week for the study the art of design. Still, the association was viewed as a dependent organization of the American Academy, an attempt was made to reconcile the difference and maintain a single academy by appointing six of the artists from the association as directors of the American Academy. When four of the nominees were not elected, however, the frustrated artists resolved to form a new academy, among the teaching staff were numerous artists, including Will Hicok Low, who taught from 1889 to 1892. The famous American poet William Cullen Bryant also gave lectures, architect Alexander Jackson Davis taught at the Academy. Painter Lemuel Wilmarth was the first full-time instructor Gulian C, verplanck, a Congressman and a man of letters, gave an address at the school in 1824. and Silas Dustin was a curator
11.
Benjamin Franklin
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Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Franklin was a polymath and a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, freemason, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman. As a scientist, he was a figure in the American Enlightenment. As an inventor, he is known for the rod, bifocals. He facilitated many civic organizations, including Philadelphias fire department and the University of Pennsylvania, Franklin earned the title of The First American for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity, initially as an author and spokesman in London for several colonies. As the first United States Ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American nation, in the words of historian Henry Steele Commager, In a Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without its defects, the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat. To Walter Isaacson, this makes Franklin the most accomplished American of his age, Franklin became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the leading city in the colonies, publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette at the age of 23. He became wealthy publishing this and Poor Richards Almanack, which he authored under the pseudonym Richard Saunders, after 1767, he was associated with the Pennsylvania Chronicle, a newspaper that was known for its revolutionary sentiments and criticisms of the British policies. He pioneered and was first president of The Academy and College of Philadelphia which opened in 1751 and he organized and was the first secretary of the American Philosophical Society and was elected president in 1769. Franklin became a hero in America as an agent for several colonies when he spearheaded an effort in London to have the Parliament of Great Britain repeal the unpopular Stamp Act. An accomplished diplomat, he was widely admired among the French as American minister to Paris and was a figure in the development of positive Franco-American relations. His efforts proved vital for the American Revolution in securing shipments of crucial munitions from France, during the Revolution, he became the first US Postmaster General. He was active in community affairs and colonial and state politics, from 1785 to 1788, he served as governor of Pennsylvania. He initially owned and dealt in slaves but, by the 1750s, he argued against slavery from an economic perspective, Franklins father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler, a soap-maker and a candle-maker. Josiah was born at Ecton, Northamptonshire, England on December 23,1657, the son of Thomas Franklin, a blacksmith-farmer, and Jane White. His mother, Abiah Folger, was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on August 15,1667, to Peter Folger, a miller and schoolteacher, and his wife, Mary Morrill, Josiah Franklin had seventeen children with his two wives. He married his first wife, Anne Child, in about 1677 in Ecton and emigrated with her to Boston in 1683, after her death, Josiah was married to Abiah Folger on July 9,1689 in the Old South Meeting House by Samuel Willard. Benjamin, their child, was Josiah Franklins fifteenth child and tenth
12.
Louis XVI of France
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Louis XVI, born Louis-Auguste, was the last King of France and Navarre before the French Revolution, during which he was also known as Louis Capet. In 1765, at the death of his father, Louis, Dauphin of France, son and heir apparent of Louis XV of France, Louis XVI was guillotined on 21 January 1793. The first part of his reign was marked by attempts to reform France in accordance with Enlightenment ideas and these included efforts to abolish serfdom, remove the taille, and increase tolerance toward non-Catholics. The French nobility reacted to the reforms with hostility. Louis implemented deregulation of the market, advocated by his liberal minister Turgot. In periods of bad harvests, it would lead to food scarcity which would prompt the masses to revolt, from 1776, Louis XVI actively supported the North American colonists, who were seeking their independence from Great Britain, which was realized in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The ensuing debt and financial crisis contributed to the unpopularity of the Ancien Régime and this led to the convening of the Estates-General of 1789. In 1789, the storming of the Bastille during riots in Paris marked the beginning of the French Revolution. Louiss indecisiveness and conservatism led some elements of the people of France to view him as a symbol of the tyranny of the Ancien Régime. The credibility of the king was deeply undermined, and the abolition of the monarchy, Louis XVI was the only King of France ever to be executed, and his death brought an end to more than a thousand years of continuous French monarchy. Louis-Auguste de France, who was given the title Duc de Berry at birth, was born in the Palace of Versailles. Out of seven children, he was the son of Louis, the Dauphin of France. His mother was Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, the daughter of Frederick Augustus II of Saxony, Prince-Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. A strong and healthy boy, but very shy, Louis-Auguste excelled in his studies and had a taste for Latin, history, geography, and astronomy. He enjoyed physical activities such as hunting with his grandfather, and rough-playing with his brothers, Louis-Stanislas, comte de Provence. From an early age, Louis-Auguste had been encouraged in another of his hobbies, locksmithing, upon the death of his father, who died of tuberculosis on 20 December 1765, the eleven-year-old Louis-Auguste became the new Dauphin. His mother never recovered from the loss of her husband, and died on 13 March 1767, throughout his education, Louis-Auguste received a mixture of studies particular to religion, morality, and humanities. His instructors may have also had a hand in shaping Louis-Auguste into the indecisive king that he became
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Healy, George Peter Alexander". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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