1.
Jesse Root Grant
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Jesse Root Grant was a farmer, tanner and successful leather merchant who owned tanneries and retail shops in several different states throughout his adult life. He is best known as the father of Ulysses S. Grant, Jesse was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania and was one of seven children. Jesse was a made man who rose from poverty to become a wealthy merchant. At age five, Jesses family moved to Ohio and settled in the Ohio River Valley, unable to support all his children Jesses father arranged for his apprenticeship at farms and tanneries during his youth. Jesse married Hannah Simpson and they became the parents of three boys and three girls, with Ulysses being their oldest, as a young man he worked for and came to know Owen Brown and soon acquired strong abolitionist sympathies. He became involved in politics and was elected Mayor in Georgetown and later, Bethel. After a 70-day journey the party arrived at Massachusetts Bay colony in Nantasket and it was one of many Pilgrims of the Puritan movement who fled England to escape religious persecution. Later generations of the extended Grant family migrated westward into Pennsylvania, Ohio, Jesses grandfather fought in the French and Indian War, and his father, Noah Grant, served in the American Revolution at Bunker Hill. Noah Grant was married to his first wife, Anna Richardson, Noah later married his second wife, Rachael Kelly in 1792, who became Jesses mother with his birth in 1794. Jesse was born January 23,1794, Noah named Jesse after the Honorable Jesse Root, Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Connecticut. In 1799, Jesse at age five, Noah moved his family to East Liverpool, Noah worked in a shoe shop, earning a modest wage, in Greensburg, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. In 1805, at age 9, Jesses mother died, in Deerfield, with little income and unable to provide enough to support all his children, Noah Grant had the eleven year old Jesse apprenticed out to various families. Beginning in 1805, from 11 to 14 years old, Jesse worked in Ohio at undesignated farms earning his keep and he didnt receive a formal education in his youth and later through years of apprenticeship became self-taught in the ways of general education and business. Placing great value on the merits of education he vowed that his sons would not have to endure the same disadvantage, with no public schools in most of Ohio in the early 1800s, Jesse would later send his son Ulysses to private schools. In 1808 Jesses father arranged for his apprenticeship with a judge, George Tod, of Youngstown, Jesse, age 14, lived there with his oldest sibling, Susan, while he worked under an apprenticeship that lasted four years. At the Tod residence the young Grants were treated like one of the family, Jesse was sent to school three months a year, for two years. Among Jesses playmates was the young David Tod, who would later become Governor of Ohio during the Civil War, later in life Jesse often spoke of them in terms of affection and admiration. Working for the judge the uneducated Jesse soon learned to read and write and acquired an interest in politics, a year after his commencement into apprenticeship Jesses father Noah died, leaving him an orphan and the family very poor
2.
St. Louis
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St. Louis is an independent city and major U. S. port in the state of Missouri, built along the western bank of the Mississippi River, on the border with Illinois. Prior to European settlement, the area was a regional center of Native American Mississippian culture. The city of St. Louis was founded in 1764 by French fur traders Pierre Laclède and Auguste Chouteau, in 1764, following Frances defeat in the Seven Years War, the area was ceded to Spain and retroceded back to France in 1800. In 1803, the United States acquired the territory as part of the Louisiana Purchase, during the 19th century, St. Louis developed as a major port on the Mississippi River. In the 1870 Census, St. Louis was ranked as the 4th-largest city in the United States and it separated from St. Louis County in 1877, becoming an independent city and limiting its own political boundaries. In 1904, it hosted the Louisiana Purchase Exposition and the Summer Olympics, the economy of metro St. Louis relies on service, manufacturing, trade, transportation of goods, and tourism. This city has become known for its growing medical, pharmaceutical. St. Louis has 2 professional sports teams, the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball, the city is commonly identified with the 630-foot tall Gateway Arch in Downtown St. Louis. The area that would become St. Louis was a center of the Native American Mississippian culture and their major regional center was at Cahokia Mounds, active from 900 AD to 1500 AD. Due to numerous major earthworks within St. Louis boundaries, the city was nicknamed as the Mound City and these mounds were mostly demolished during the citys development. Historic Native American tribes in the area included the Siouan-speaking Osage people, whose territory extended west, European exploration of the area was first recorded in 1673, when French explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette traveled through the Mississippi River valley. Five years later, La Salle claimed the region for France as part of La Louisiane. The earliest European settlements in the area were built in Illinois Country on the east side of the Mississippi River during the 1690s and early 1700s at Cahokia, Kaskaskia, migrants from the French villages on the opposite side of the Mississippi River founded Ste. In early 1764, after France lost the 7 Years War, Pierre Laclède, the early French families built the citys economy on the fur trade with the Osage, as well as with more distant tribes along the Missouri River. The Chouteau brothers gained a monopoly from Spain on the fur trade with Santa Fe, French colonists used African slaves as domestic servants and workers in the city. In 1780 during the American Revolutionary War, St. Louis was attacked by British forces, mostly Native American allies, the founding of St. Louis began in 1763. Pierre Laclede led an expedition to set up a fur-trading post farther up the Mississippi River, before then, Laclede had been a very successful merchant. For this reason, he and his trading partner Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent were offered monopolies for six years of the fur trading in that area
3.
Los Altos, California
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Los Altos /lɔːs ˈæltoʊs/ is a city at the southern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, in the San Francisco Bay Area. The city is in Santa Clara County, California, United States, the population was 28,976 according to the 2010 census. Most of the growth occurred between 1950 and 1980. Originally an agricultural town with summer cottages and apricot orchards. Los Altos has several distinctive features, commercial zones are strictly limited to the downtown area and small shopping and office parks lining Foothill Expressway and El Camino Real. Homes and other real estate are costly in Los Altos, the median household income of Los Altos for 2009–2013 was $157,907. The median home listing price in 2016 was $3.6 million, in 2016, Forbes put Los Altos as the 8th and 46th most expensive ZIP codes in the United States. Los Altos means the heights in Spanish, the area was originally called Banks and Braes. Paul Shoup, an executive of the Southern Pacific Railroad, and his colleagues formed the Altos Land Company in 1906, the company acquired 140 acres of land from Sarah Winchester. Shoup wanted to link Palo Alto and Los Gatos by making Los Altos a commuter town and it continued a train a day operation to and from San Francisco. In 1908, Southern Pacific Railroad began running steam train service through Los Altos with five trains per day, two freight cars served as train depot. Also, the first commercial building, Eschenbruecher’s Hardware, was built in downtown, in 1913, the craftsman-style Los Altos train station was built at 288 First Street. By 1949, many residents were dissatisfied with the policy of Santa Clara county. Also, there was a constant threat of being annexed by neighboring Palo Alto and Mountain View, Los Altos became the eleventh city in Santa Clara county on December 1,1952. Train service stopped its operation in January,1964, and the track became Foothill Expressway. In 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, along with others including Ronald Wayne, Jobs, Wozniak, and Wayne founded Apple Computer, Inc on 1 April 1976. Los Altos is located at 37°22′5″N 122°5′51″W, according to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 6.487 square miles. Los Altos is crossed by three creeks that flow north to San Francisco Bay, Adobe Creek on its boundary, Stevens Creek on its eastern boundary
4.
Democratic Party (United States)
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The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The Democrats dominant worldview was once socially conservative and fiscally classical liberalism, while, especially in the rural South, since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition in the 1930s, the Democratic Party has also promoted a social-liberal platform, supporting social justice. Today, the House Democratic caucus is composed mostly of progressives and centrists, the partys philosophy of modern liberalism advocates social and economic equality, along with the welfare state. It seeks to provide government intervention and regulation in the economy, the party has united with smaller left-wing regional parties throughout the country, such as the Farmer–Labor Party in Minnesota and the Nonpartisan League in North Dakota. Well into the 20th century, the party had conservative pro-business, the New Deal Coalition of 1932–1964 attracted strong support from voters of recent European extraction—many of whom were Catholics based in the cities. After Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal of the 1930s, the pro-business wing withered outside the South, after the racial turmoil of the 1960s, most southern whites and many northern Catholics moved into the Republican Party at the presidential level. The once-powerful labor union element became smaller and less supportive after the 1970s, white Evangelicals and Southerners became heavily Republican at the state and local level in the 1990s. However, African Americans became a major Democratic element after 1964, after 2000, Hispanic and Latino Americans, Asian Americans, the LGBT community, single women and professional women moved towards the party as well. The Northeast and the West Coast became Democratic strongholds by 1990 after the Republicans stopped appealing to socially liberal voters there, overall, the Democratic Party has retained a membership lead over its major rival the Republican Party. The most recent was the 44th president Barack Obama, who held the office from 2009 to 2017, in the 115th Congress, following the 2016 elections, Democrats are the opposition party, holding a minority of seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The party also holds a minority of governorships, and state legislatures, though they do control the mayoralty of cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Washington, D. C. The Democratic Party traces its origins to the inspiration of the Democratic-Republican Party, founded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and that party also inspired the Whigs and modern Republicans. Organizationally, the modern Democratic Party truly arose in the 1830s, since the nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, the party has generally positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party on economic issues. They have been liberal on civil rights issues since 1948. On foreign policy both parties changed position several times and that party, the Democratic-Republican Party, came to power in the election of 1800. After the War of 1812 the Federalists virtually disappeared and the national political party left was the Democratic-Republicans. The Democratic-Republican party still had its own factions, however. As Norton explains the transformation in 1828, Jacksonians believed the peoples will had finally prevailed, through a lavishly financed coalition of state parties, political leaders, and newspaper editors, a popular movement had elected the president
5.
President of the United States
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The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. The president is considered to be one of the worlds most powerful political figures, the role includes being the commander-in-chief of the worlds most expensive military with the second largest nuclear arsenal and leading the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP. The office of President holds significant hard and soft power both in the United States and abroad, Constitution vests the executive power of the United States in the president. The president is empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves. The president is responsible for dictating the legislative agenda of the party to which the president is a member. The president also directs the foreign and domestic policy of the United States, since the office of President was established in 1789, its power has grown substantially, as has the power of the federal government as a whole. However, nine vice presidents have assumed the presidency without having elected to the office. The Twenty-second Amendment prohibits anyone from being elected president for a third term, in all,44 individuals have served 45 presidencies spanning 57 full four-year terms. On January 20,2017, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th, in 1776, the Thirteen Colonies, acting through the Second Continental Congress, declared political independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution. The new states, though independent of each other as nation states, desiring to avoid anything that remotely resembled a monarchy, Congress negotiated the Articles of Confederation to establish a weak alliance between the states. Out from under any monarchy, the states assigned some formerly royal prerogatives to Congress, only after all the states agreed to a resolution settling competing western land claims did the Articles take effect on March 1,1781, when Maryland became the final state to ratify them. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former colonies, with peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. Prospects for the convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washingtons attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia. It was through the negotiations at Philadelphia that the presidency framed in the U. S. The first power the Constitution confers upon the president is the veto, the Presentment Clause requires any bill passed by Congress to be presented to the president before it can become law. Once the legislation has been presented, the president has three options, Sign the legislation, the bill becomes law. Veto the legislation and return it to Congress, expressing any objections, in this instance, the president neither signs nor vetoes the legislation
6.
William Jennings Bryan
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He served two terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Nebraska and was United States Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson. He resigned because of his pacifist position on World War I. Bryan was a devout Presbyterian, an advocate of popular democracy, and an enemy of the banks. He demanded Free Silver because he believed it undermined the evil Money Power and he was a peace advocate, a supporter of Prohibition, and an opponent of Darwinism on religious and humanitarian grounds. With his deep, commanding voice and wide travels, he was perhaps the best-known orator, because of his faith in the wisdom of the common people, he was called The Great Commoner. In the intensely fought 1896 and 1900 elections, he was defeated by William McKinley, with over 500 speeches in 1896, Bryan invented the national stumping tour in an era when other presidential candidates stayed home. President Wilson appointed him Secretary of State in 1913, after the Lusitania was torpedoed in 1915, Wilson made strong demands on Germany that Bryan disagreed with, resigning in protest as a pacifist. After 1920, he turned to Christian fundamentalism, he supported Prohibition and attacked Darwinism and evolution, five days after the conclusion of the Scopes case, Bryan died in his sleep. William Jennings Bryan was born in Salem, Illinois, on March 19,1860, to Silas Lillard Bryan, Bryans mother was of English heritage. Mary Bryan joined the Salem Baptists in 1872, so Bryan attended Methodist services on Sunday morning with his father, at this point, William began spending his Sunday afternoons at the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. At age 14, Bryan attended a revival, was baptized, in later life, Bryan said the day of his baptism was the most important day in his life, but at the time it caused little change in his daily routine. In 1906, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church joined the larger Presbyterian Church in the United States of America and his father, Silas Bryan, of Scots-Irish and English ancestry, was an avid Jacksonian Democrat. Silas won election to the Illinois State Senate, but was defeated for re-election in 1860. He won election as a circuit judge, and in 1866 moved his family to a 520-acre farm north of Salem. Until age ten, Bryan was home-schooled, as children were. The Bible and McGuffey Readers shaped his views that gambling and liquor were evil, to attend Whipple Academy, which was attached to Illinois College, Bryan was sent to Jacksonville, Illinois, in 1874. Following high school, he entered Illinois College, graduating as valedictorian in 1881, during his time at Illinois College, Bryan was a member of the Sigma Pi literary society. He studied law at Union Law College in Chicago, while preparing for the bar exam, he taught high school and met Mary Elizabeth Baird, a cousin of William Sherman Jennings, the latter was also his own first-cousin. Bryan and Mary Elizabeth Baird married on October 1,1884, and they settled in Jacksonville, Mary also became a lawyer, and collaborated with Bryan on all his speeches and writings
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