1.
Freeport, Illinois
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Freeport is the county seat and largest city of Stephenson County, Illinois. The population was 25,638 at the 2010 census, Freeport High Schools mascot is the Pretzel to honor this unique heritage. The community was originally called Winneshiek, when it was incorporated, the new municipality took its name from the generosity of Tutty Baker, who was credited with running a free port on the Pecatonica River. The name Winneshiek was later adopted, and is preserved to this day, in 1837, Stephenson County was formed and Freeport became its seat of government in 1838. Linked by a stagecoach with Chicago, the community grew rapidly, in 1840, a frame courthouse was erected and the first school was founded. Within two years, Freeport had two newspapers and in 1853, the two were joined by a third published in German. By then, the community had a population of 2,000, on August 27,1858, the second debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas took place in Freeport and gave the nation direction in the following years. This enabled Abraham Lincoln to win the Presidency in 1860, a monument to the debate was dedicated in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt and stands at this site. A life size statue recreating the event was dedicated in 1992, another renowned statue, Lincoln the Debator by Leonard Crunelle, is a focal point in the citys Taylor Park. In many years there is also a reenactment of the debate, Freeport is known as the Pretzel City, and its public high schools team is named the Pretzels. In 1869, a German immigrant named John Billerbeck established the Billerbeck Bakery, the city later capitalized on this nickname in 2003 by starting Freeports first Pretzel Festival. Freeport is home to the oldest Carnegie Library in Illinois and one of the first Carnegie Libraries designed by the famous Chicago architectural firm of Patton and it is being renovated into Freeports City Hall. Before February 1893, a square of land was purchased from the former Keller-Wittbecker farm in East Freeport. Some of this land had recently been subdivided and platted as the Arcade Addition, the Arcade Manufacturing Company had been in operation since 1885 when the previous Novelty Iron Works had gone out of business at the corner of Chicago and Jackson streets. That earlier company began as early as 1868, after the 1892 fire, the Arcade Manufacturing Company built an entirely new factory in the Arcade Addition of East Freeport, where they produced coffee mills and other metal products. Local Freeport media includes WFRL, WFPS Radio and The Journal Standard daily newspaper, WIFR, the Rockford markets CBS affiliate, is licensed to Freeport, though its studios are west of Rockford. Freeport is located approximately 20 miles south of the Wisconsin state line, according to the 2010 census, Freeport has a total area of 11.79 square miles, of which 11.78 square miles is land and 0.01 square miles is water. U. S. Route 20 is a divided highway that skirts the communitys northern edge
2.
Santa Monica, California
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Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, United States. The Census Bureau population for Santa Monica in 2010 was 89,736, due in part to an agreeable climate, Santa Monica became a famed resort town by the early 20th century. The city has experienced a boom since the late 1980s through the revitalization of its core, significant job growth. The Santa Monica Pier remains a popular and iconic destination, Santa Monica was long inhabited by the Tongva people. Santa Monica was called Kecheek in the Tongva language, the first non-indigenous group to set foot in the area was the party of explorer Gaspar de Portolà, who camped near the present-day intersection of Barrington and Ohio Avenues on August 3,1769. Named after the Christian saint Monica, there are two different accounts of how the name came to be. One says it was named in honor of the feast day of Saint Monica, another version says it was named by Juan Crespí on account of a pair of springs, the Kuruvungna Springs, that were reminiscent of the tears Saint Monica shed over her sons early impiety. In Los Angeles, several battles were fought by the Californios, following the Mexican–American War, Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which gave Mexicans and Californios living in state certain unalienable rights. US government sovereignty in California began on February 2,1848, in the 1870s the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad, connected Santa Monica with Los Angeles, and a wharf out into the bay. The first town hall was a modest 1873 brick building, later a beer hall and it is Santa Monicas oldest extant structure. By 1885, the towns first hotel was the Santa Monica Hotel, around the start of the 20th century, a growing population of Asian Americans lived in and around Santa Monica and Venice. A Japanese fishing village was near the Long Wharf while small numbers of Chinese lived or worked in Santa Monica, the two ethnic minorities were often viewed differently by White Americans who were often well-disposed towards the Japanese but condescending towards the Chinese. The Japanese village fishermen were an economic part of the Santa Monica Bay community. Donald Wills Douglas, Sr. built a plant in 1922 at Clover Field for the Douglas Aircraft Company, in 1924, four Douglas-built planes took off from Clover Field to attempt the first aerial circumnavigation of the world. Two planes returned after covering 27,553 miles in 175 days, the Douglas Company kept facilities in the city until the 1960s. The Great Depression hit Santa Monica deeply, one report gives citywide employment in 1933 of just 1,000. Hotels and office building owners went bankrupt, in the 1930s, corruption infected Santa Monica. The federal Works Project Administration helped build several buildings, most notably City Hall, the main Post Office and Barnum Hall were also among other WPA projects
3.
William Randolph Hearst
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Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 after being given control of The San Francisco Examiner by his wealthy father. Acquiring more newspapers, Hearst created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak and he later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world. Politically he espoused the Progressive Movement, speaking on behalf of the working class and he controlled the editorial positions and coverage of political news in all his papers and magazines and thereby exercised enormous political influence. He also called for war in 1898 against Spain—as did many other newspaper editors—but he did it in sensational fashion, after 1918, he called for an isolationist foreign policy to avoid any more entanglement in what he regarded as corrupt European affairs. He was at once a militant nationalist, a fierce anti-communist, and deeply suspicious of the League of Nations and of the British, French, Japanese, and Russians. He was a supporter of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932–34, but then broke with FDR. His life story was the inspiration for Charles Foster Kane. His famous mansion, Hearst Castle, on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean near San Simeon, is now a State Historical Monument and a National Historic Landmark. William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco, to mining engineer, goldmine owner and U. S. senator George Hearst. His paternal great-grandfather was John Hearst, of Ulster Protestant origin and he migrated to America from Ballybay, County Monaghan as part of the Cahans Exodus with his wife and six children in 1766 and settled in South Carolina. Their immigration to South Carolina was spurred in part by the governments policy that encouraged the immigration of Irish Protestants. The names John Hearse and John Hearse Jr, the Hearse spelling of the family name never was used afterward by the family members themselves, or any family of any size. Hearsts mother, née Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson, was also of Irish ancestry and she was the first woman regent of University of California, Berkeley, funded many anthropological expeditions and founded the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. Following preparation at St. Pauls School in Concord, New Hampshire, while there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A. D. Searching for an occupation, in 1887, Hearst took over management of a newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, a self-proclaimed populist, Hearst went on to publish stories of municipal and financial corruption, often attacking companies in which his own family held an interest. Within a few years, his paper dominated the San Francisco market, outcault, the inventor of color comics, and all of Pulitzers Sunday staff as well. Another prominent hire was James J. Montague, who came from the Portland Oregonian, Hearst imported his best managers from the San Francisco Examiner and quickly established himself as the most attractive employer among New York newspapers. Hearsts activist approach to journalism can be summarized by the motto, While others Talk, the New York Journal and its chief rival, the New York World, mastered a style of popular journalism that came to be derided as yellow journalism, after Outcaults Yellow Kid comic
4.
Marion Davies
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Marion Davies was an American film actress, producer, screenwriter, and philanthropist. Davies was already building a reputation as a film comedian when newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, with whom she had begun a romantic relationship. Hearst financed Davies pictures, promoted her heavily through his newspapers and Hearst Newsreels, for this reason, Davies is better remembered today as Hearsts mistress and the hostess of many lavish events for the Hollywood elite. In particular, her name is linked with the 1924 scandal aboard Hearsts yacht when one of his guests, film producer Thomas Ince, in the film Citizen Kane, the title characters second wife—an untalented singer whom he tries to promote—was widely assumed to be based on Davies. But many commentators, including Citizen Kane writer/director Orson Welles himself, have defended Davies record as a gifted actress and she retired from the screen in 1937, choosing to devote herself to Hearst and charitable work. In Hearsts declining years, Davies provided financial as well as support until his death in 1951. She married for the first time eleven weeks after his death, Davies was born Marion Cecilia Douras on January 3,1897, in Brooklyn, the youngest of five children born to Bernard J. Douras, a lawyer and judge in New York City, and Rose Reilly. Her father performed the marriage of Gloria Gould Bishop. Her elder siblings included Rose, Reine, and Ethel, a brother, Charles, drowned at the age of 15 in 1906. His name was given to Davies favorite nephew, screenwriter Charles Lederer. The Douras family lived near Prospect Park in Brooklyn, the sisters changed their surname to Davies, which one of them spotted on a real-estate agents sign in the neighborhood. Even at a time when New York was the pot for new immigrants. Educated in a New York convent, Davies left school to pursue a career and she worked as a chorus girl in Broadway revues and modeled for illustrators Harrison Fisher and Howard Chandler Christy. In 1916, Davies was signed on as a Ziegfeld girl in the Ziegfeld Follies, after making her screen debut in 1916, modelling gowns by Lady Duff-Gordon in a fashion newsreel, she appeared in her first feature film in the 1917 Runaway Romany. Davies wrote the film, which was directed by her brother-in-law, the following year she starred in two films – The Burden of Proof and Cecilia of the Pink Roses. Cecilia of the Pink Roses in 1918 was her first film backed by Hearst and she was on her way to being the most infamously advertised actress in the world. During the next ten years she appeared in 29 films, an average of almost three films a year, one of her most known roles was as Mary Tudor in When Knighthood Was in Flower, directed by Robert G. Vignola, with whom she collaborated on several films. According to her own diaries, she met Hearst long before she had started working in films
5.
Episcopal Church (United States)
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The Episcopal Church is the United States-based member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The current presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church is Michael Bruce Curry, in 2014, the Episcopal Church had 1,956,042 baptized members. In 2011, it was the nations 14th largest denomination, in 2015, Pew Research estimated that 1.2 percent of the adult population in the United States, or 3 million people, self-identify as mainline Episcopalians/Anglicans. The Episcopal Church describes itself as Protestant, yet Catholic, the Episcopal Church is an apostolic church, tracing its bishops back to the apostles via holy orders. The Book of Common Prayer, a collection of traditional rites, blessings, liturgies, the Episcopal Church was active in the Social Gospel movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Since the 1960s and 1970s, the church has pursued a more liberal course. It has opposed the death penalty and supported the civil rights movement, some of its leaders and priests are known for marching with influential civil rights demonstrators such as Martin Luther King Jr. The Church calls for the legal equality of gay and lesbian people. Due to the process of editing or making additions to the Prayer Book, the BCP still describes marriage as being the union of a man. The Episcopal Church ordains women and LGBT people to the priesthood, the diaconate, in 2003, Gene Robinson was the first non-celibate openly gay person ordained as a bishop in documented Christian history. There are two names of the Episcopal Church specified in its constitution, The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. The latter is the commonly used name. In other languages, an equivalent is used, until 1964, the only official name in use was The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. In the 19th century, High Church members advocated changing the name and they were opposed by the churchs evangelical wing, which felt that the Protestant Episcopal label accurately reflected the Reformed character of Anglicanism. After 1877, alternative names were proposed and rejected by the General Convention. A commonly proposed alternative was the American Catholic Church, by the 1960s, opposition to dropping the word Protestant had largely subsided. The 66th General Convention voted in 1979 to use the name The Episcopal Church in the Oath of Conformity of the Declaration for Ordination, the evolution of the name can be seen in the churchs Book of Common Prayer. The alternate name The Episcopal Church in the United States of America has never been a name of the church but is commonly seen in English
6.
Ronald Reagan
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Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician and actor who was the 40th President of the United States, from 1981 to 1989. Before his presidency, he was the 33rd Governor of California, from 1967 to 1975, after a career as a Hollywood actor and union leader. Raised in a family in small towns of northern Illinois, Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932. After moving to Hollywood in 1937, he became an actor, Reagan was twice elected President of the Screen Actors Guild, the labor union for actors, where he worked to root out Communist influence. In the 1950s, he moved into television and was a speaker at General Electric factories. Having been a lifelong Democrat, his views changed and he became a conservative and in 1962 switched to the Republican Party. In 1964, Reagans speech, A Time for Choosing, in support of Barry Goldwaters foundering presidential campaign, Building a network of supporters, he was elected Governor of California in 1966. Entering the presidency in 1981, Reagan implemented sweeping new political, in his first term he survived an assassination attempt, spurred the War on Drugs, and fought public sector labor. During his re-election bid, Reagan campaigned on the notion that it was Morning in America, foreign affairs dominated his second term, including ending of the Cold War, the bombing of Libya, and the Iran–Contra affair. Publicly describing the Soviet Union as an empire, and during his famous speech at the Brandenburg Gate. Jack, a salesman and storyteller, was the grandson of Irish Catholic immigrants from County Tipperary, Reagan had one older brother, John Neil Reagan, who became an advertising executive. As a boy, Reagans father nicknamed his son Dutch, due to his fat little Dutchman-like appearance and Dutchboy haircut, Reagans family briefly lived in several towns and cities in Illinois, including Monmouth, Galesburg, and Chicago. In 1919, they returned to Tampico and lived above the H. C, Pitney Variety Store until finally settling in Dixon. After his election as president, residing in the upstairs White House private quarters, for the time, Reagan was unusual in his opposition to racial discrimination, and recalled a time in Dixon when the local inn would not allow black people to stay there. Reagan brought them back to his house, where his mother invited them to stay the night and have breakfast the next morning, after the closure of the Pitney Store in late 1920 and the familys move to Dixon, the midwestern small universe had a lasting impression on Reagan. Reagan attended Dixon High School, where he developed interests in acting, sports and his first job was as a lifeguard at the Rock River in Lowell Park in 1927. Over a six-year period, Reagan reportedly performed 77 rescues as a lifeguard and he attended Eureka College, a Disciples-oriented liberal arts school, where he became a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, a cheerleader, and studied economics and sociology. While involved, the Miller Center of Public Affairs described him as an indifferent student and he majored in economics and sociology, and graduated with a C grade
7.
Burlington, Iowa
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Burlington is a city and the county seat of Des Moines County, Iowa, United States. The population was 25,663 in the 2010 census, a decline from the 26,839 population in the 2000 census, Burlington is the center of a micropolitan area including West Burlington, Iowa, and Middletown, Iowa, and Gulfport, Illinois. Burlington is the home of Snake Alley, once labelled the crookedest alley in the world, prior to European settlement, the area was neutral territory for the Sac and Fox Indians, who called it Shoquoquon, meaning Flint Hills. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson organized two parties of explorers to map the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark Expedition followed the Missouri River, while Lt. Zebulon Pike followed the Mississippi River. In 1805, Pike landed at the bluffs below Burlington and raised the United States Flag for the first time on what would become Iowa soil, the American Fur Company of John Jacob Astor established a post in the area in 1829. Settlement began in 1833, shortly after the Black Hawk Purchase, when Samuel White, Amzi Doolitle, andreas wrote in 1875, White erected a cabin in the area later platted to be Front Street between Court and High streets. Andreas called White and Doolittle the Romulus and Remus of their settlement, referring to the heroes who founded Rome. A few weeks later, William R. Ross joined them, in November and December, he surveyed the settlement for White and Doolittle. In the spring of 1834 they allowed John Gray, who purchased the first lot with his wife Eliza Jane, Gray chose to name it Burlington in honor of his hometown in Vermont. The Grays daughter Abigail was born in Burlington that same year, in 1837, Burlington was designated the second territorial capital of the Wisconsin Territory. The Iowa Territory was organized in the year, and Burlington was named as its first territorial capital. The government used Old Zion, the first Methodist Church in Iowa, a historical marker commemorates the site of the church and early territorial government. On May 22,1849, Maj. William Williams visited Burlington, writing a description in his journal, This town originally called Flint Hill- the Indian name was Shoquokon. Beautifully elevated, situated on the west side of the Mississippi River, the town is very well built. Houses are good, generally taste, brick dwellings, a great many handsome residences on the more elevated parts of the bluff. The number of inhabitants between 3,000 and 3,500, was the first seat of government after the formation of the Territory of Iowa. The view of the city is extremely picturesque from the river, the main part of the city is situated like an amphitheater formed by the surrounding hills, beautiful buildings and private residences on the eminences around. From the location of Burlington it must always be a place of considerable trade, the city is well built modern style, a very intelligent population
8.
Film
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A film, also called a movie, motion picture, theatrical film or photoplay, is a series of still images which, when shown on a screen, creates the illusion of moving images due to the phi phenomenon. This optical illusion causes the audience to perceive continuous motion between separate objects viewed rapidly in succession, the process of filmmaking is both an art and an industry. The word cinema, short for cinematography, is used to refer to the industry of films. Films were originally recorded onto plastic film through a photochemical process, the adoption of CGI-based special effects led to the use of digital intermediates. Most contemporary films are now fully digital through the process of production, distribution. Films recorded in a form traditionally included an analogous optical soundtrack. It runs along a portion of the film exclusively reserved for it and is not projected, Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures. They reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them, Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment, and a powerful medium for educating—or indoctrinating—citizens. The visual basis of film gives it a power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions by using dubbing or subtitles to translate the dialog into the language of the viewer, some have criticized the film industrys glorification of violence and its potentially negative treatment of women. The individual images that make up a film are called frames, the perception of motion is due to a psychological effect called phi phenomenon. The name film originates from the fact that film has historically been the medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for a motion picture, including picture, picture show, moving picture, photoplay. The most common term in the United States is movie, while in Europe film is preferred. Terms for the field, in general, include the big screen, the screen, the movies, and cinema. In early years, the sheet was sometimes used instead of screen. Preceding film in origin by thousands of years, early plays and dances had elements common to film, scripts, sets, costumes, production, direction, actors, audiences, storyboards, much terminology later used in film theory and criticism apply, such as mise en scène. Owing to the lack of any technology for doing so, the moving images, the magic lantern, probably created by Christiaan Huygens in the 1650s, could be used to project animation, which was achieved by various types of mechanical slides
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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
10.
Essanay Studios
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The Essanay Film Manufacturing Company was an American motion picture studio. It is best known today for its series of Charlie Chaplin comedies of 1915, the studio was founded in 1907 in Chicago, United States by George K. Spoor and Gilbert M. Anderson, originally as the Peerless Film Manufacturing Company. On August 10,1907, the name was changed to Essanay, Essanay was originally located at 496 Wells Street. Essanays first film, An Awful Skate, or The Hobo on Rollers, starring Ben Turpin, produced for only a hundred dollars. The studio prospered and in 1908 moved to its more famous address at 1333–45 W. Argyle St in Uptown, the mainstays of the organization, however, were studio co-owner G. M. Anderson, starring in the very popular Broncho Billy westerns, and Charlie Chaplin. Allan Dwan was hired by Essanay Studios as a screenwriter and developed into a famous Hollywood director, louella Parsons was also hired as a screenwriter and went on to be a Hollywood gossip columnist. Both George K. Spoor and Gilbert M. Broncho Billy Anderson received Oscars, specifically Academy Honorary Awards and this included locations in San Rafael and Santa Barbara. Colorado is the finest place in the country for Wild West stuff, Essanay opened the Essanay-West studio in Niles, California, in 1912, at the foot of Niles Canyon, where many Broncho Billy westerns were shot, along with The Tramp featuring Charlie Chaplin. Eventually the studio moved all operations to Los Angeles, the Chicago studio, as well as the new Niles studio, continued to produce films for another five years, reaching a total of well over 1,400 Essanay titles during its ten-year history. Essanay also produced some of the very first cartoons. In late 1914 Essanay succeeded in hiring Charlie Chaplin away from Mack Sennetts Keystone Studios, offering Chaplin a higher salary, Chaplin made 14 short comedies for Essanay in 1915, at both the Chicago and Niles studios, plus a cameo appearance in one of the Broncho Billy westerns. Chaplins Essanays are more disciplined than the chaotic roughhouse of Chaplins Keystones, with better story values, the landmark film of the Chaplin series is The Tramp, in which Chaplins vagabond character finds work on a farm and is smitten with the farmers daughter. Chaplin injected moments of drama and pathos unheard of in slapstick comedies, audiences responded to the humanity of Chaplins character, and Chaplin continued to explore serious or sentimental themes within comic situations. Chaplin disliked the weather of Chicago, and left after only one year for more money. His departure caused a rift between founders Spoor and Anderson, Chaplin was the studios biggest moneymaker, and Essanay resorted to creating new Chaplin comedies from file footage and out-takes. Finally, with Chaplin off the Essanay scene for good, Essanay signed French comedian Max Linder, Linder failed to match Chaplins popularity in America. In a last-ditch effort to save the studio, Essanay joined in a four-way merger orchestrated by Chicago distributor George Kleine in 1918, kleines new combine, V-L-S-E, Incorporated, was an amalgam of the Vitagraph, Lubin, Selig, and Essanay companies. Only the Vitagraph brand name continued into the 1920s, and was absorbed by Warner Brothers in 1925
