1.
Carl Van Vechten
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Carl Van Vechten was an American writer and artistic photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein. Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he was the youngest child of Charles and he graduated from Washington High School in 1898, and later the University of Chicago in 1903. In 1906, he moved to New York City and he was hired as the assistant music critic at The New York Times. His interest in opera had him take a leave of absence from the paper in 1907, while in England he married his long-time friend from Cedar Rapids, Anna Snyder. He returned to his job at the New York Times in 1909, at that time, Isadora Duncan, Anna Pavlova, and Loie Fuller were performing in New York City. The marriage to Anna Snyder ended in divorce in 1912 and he wed actress Fania Marinoff in 1914 and their marriage lasted until the end of his life, even while his relationships with men were an open secret. They continued corresponding for the remainder of Steins life, and at her death she appointed Van Vechten her literary executor, several books of Van Vechtens essays on various subjects such as music and literature were published between 1915 and 1920. Van Vechtens controversial novel Nigger Heaven was published in 1926 and his essay Negro Blues Singers was published in Vanity Fair in 1926. Biographer Edward White suggests Van Vechten was convinced that Negro culture was the essence of America, by the start of the 1930s and at age 50, Van Vechten was finished with writing and took up photography, using his apartment at 150 West 55th Street as a studio. After the 1930s Van Vechten published little writing, though he continued writing letters to many correspondents, Van Vechten died in 1964, at the age of 84, in New York City. Most of Van Vechtens personal papers are held by the Beinecke Rare Book, the Beinecke Library also holds a collection titled Living Portraits, Carl Van Vechtens Color Photographs Of African Americans, 1939–1964, a collection of 1,884 color Kodachrome slides. The Library of Congress has a collection of approximately 1,400 photographs, there is also a collection of Van Vechtens photographs in the Prentiss Taylor collection in the Smithsonians Archives of American Art, and a Van Vechten collection at Fisk University. The Museum of the City of New Yorks collection includes 2,174 of Carl Van Vechtens photographs, brandeis Universitys department of Archives & Special Collections holds 1,689 Carl Van Vechten portraits. Van Vechten also donated materials to Fisk University to form the George Gershwin Memorial Collection of Music, the album ’O, Write My Name’, American Portraits, Harlem Heroes was completed in 1983. That year, the National Endowment for the Arts transferred the Eakins Press Foundation’s prototype albums to the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, dust Tracks on a Road, An Autobiography. Guide to the Carl Van Vechten papers, 1833–1965, manuscripts and Archives, New York Public Library. Carl Van Vechten collection of papers, 1911–1964, berg Collection of English and American Literature, New York Public Library
2.
McKeesport, Pennsylvania
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McKeesport is a city in Allegheny County in the U. S. state of Pennsylvania, it is situated at the confluence of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers and is part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. The population was 19,731 at the 2010 census, by population, it is Allegheny Countys second-largest city, after Pittsburgh. Settled in 1795 and named in honor of John McKee, its founder, large deposits of bituminous coal existed. McKeesport was incorporated as a borough in 1842 and as a city in 1891 and its population grew steadily until the mid-20th century, when it peaked in the 1940s. The citys population in 1900 was 34,227, in 1910,42,694, in 1920,45,975, the decrease in the population since the 1940s is attributable to the general economic malaise that descended upon the region when the steelmaking industry moved elsewhere. The major employer was the National Tube Works, a manufacturer of iron pipes, McKeesport was the site of the first G. C. Murphy five-and-ten-cent store. John McKee, a settler of Philadelphia and son of David McKee, built a log cabin near the confluence of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers. After taking over his fathers local river ferry business, he devised a plan for a city to be called McKees Port, John set out his proposal in the Pittsburgh Gazette, as part of a program under which new residents could purchase plots of land for $20.00. Around the time of the French and Indian Wars, George Washington often came to McKeesport to visit his friend, Queen Alliquippa, after being settled by the McKee family in 1795, McKeesport began to grow in 1830 when coal mining began. The first schoolhouse was built in 1832, with James E. Huey as its schoolmaster, the citys first steel mill was established in 1851. The National Tube Company opened in 1872 and became part of U. S. Steel, in the years directly following the opening of the National Tube Company, according to the U. S. Census Bureau, McKeesport was the fastest growing municipality in the nation. Families arrived from other parts of the eastern United States, Italy, Germany, Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, McKeesport rose to national importance during the 1900s as a center for manufacturing steel. The citys population reached a peak of 55,355 in 1940 National Tube closed in the 1980s, the city with the help of regional development agencies has conducted efforts to revitalize the former mill sites. McKeesport is located at 40°20′38″N 79°50′56″W, McKeesport is about 12 miles upstream from Pittsburgh, at the confluence of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 5.4 square miles, of which 5.0 square miles is land and 0.4 square miles. The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers, according to the Köppen Climate Classification system, McKeesport has a humid continental climate, abbreviated Cfa on climate maps. The population has fallen to little more than a third of its wartime high, as of the census of 2000, there were 24,040 people,9,655 households, and 5,976 families residing in the city. The population density was 4,806.9 people per square mile, there were 11,124 housing units at an average density of 2,224.3 per square mile
3.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
4.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
5.
Madeline Hurlock
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Madeline Hurlock was a silent film actress, hailing from Federalsburg, Maryland. Hurlock appeared in short comedies for Mack Sennett, starting as one of the Sennett Bathing Beauties in 1923. She was a comedian, also known for her incredible beauty. She appeared in over 50 short films, the first of which, was made in 1923, and the last, Pink Pajamas, in 1929. She featured in one of Laurel and Hardys earliest films, Duck Soup, Hurlock married three times, John S. McGovern, divorced 1924. Marc Connelly, married 1930, divorced 1935, Connelly won the Pulitzer Prize for his play The Green Pastures in 1930. Sherwood won the Pulitzer Prize four times, he died in 1955
6.
Masterpiece
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Historically, a masterpiece was a work of a very high standard produced in order to obtain membership of a guild or academy in various areas of the visual arts and crafts. The word masterpiece probably derives from the Dutch meesterstuk or German meisterstück via loan translation, masterprize was another early variant in English. In English, the term became used in a variety of contexts for an exceptionally good piece of creative work. Originally, the term referred to a piece of work produced by an apprentice or journeyman aspiring to become a master craftsman in the old European guild system. His fitness to qualify for membership was judged partly by the masterpiece, and if he was successful. Great care was taken to produce a fine piece in whatever the craft was, whether confectionery, painting, goldsmithing, knifemaking. In the 17th century, the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, for instance, the workhouse had been set up as part of a tightening of standards after the company became concerned that the level of skill of goldsmithing was being diluted. The same goldsmithing organization still requires the production of a masterpiece, if they failed to be admitted, then they could continue to work for other goldsmiths but not as a master themselves. In some guilds, apprentices were not allowed to marry until they had obtained full membership, the practice of producing a masterpiece has continued in some modern academies of art, where the general term for such works is now reception piece. The Royal Academy in London uses the term work and it has acquired a fine collection of diploma works received as a condition of membership. Painting the Century,101 Portrait Masterpieces 1900–2000 Virtual Collection of Masterpieces Masterpieces at the Louvre
7.
The Green Pastures
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The Green Pastures is a play written in 1930 by Marc Connelly adapted from Ol Man Adam an His Chillun, a collection of stories written by Roark Bradford. The play was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1930, the play portrays episodes from the Old Testament as seen through the eyes of a young African-American child in the Depression-era South, who interprets The Bible in terms familiar to her. Following Bradfords lead, Connelly set the stories in New Orleans. He diverged from Bradfords work, however, in enlarging the role of the character De Lawd, the Green Pastures also featured numerous African American spirituals arranged by Hall Johnson and performed by The Hall Johnson Choir. The cast also included singer Mabel Ridley, connolly later collaborated with William Keighley in the direction of a Hollywood film adaptation of the play, which was made in 1936, starring Rex Ingram as De Lawd. At the time the film caused some controversy and it was banned in Australia, Finland, and Hungary on the grounds that it was blasphemous to portray Biblical characters in this way. The play was adapted for television, and presented twice during the days of live TV on the Hallmark Hall of Fame in 1957 and 1959, both productions starred William Warfield as De Lawd, in the largest dramatic acting role he ever had on television. Ol Man Adam an His Chillun, New York, London, Harper & Brothers. Voices Offstage, A Book of Memoirs
8.
Tall Story
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Tall Story is a 1960 American romantic comedy film made by Warner Bros. directed by Joshua Logan and starring Anthony Perkins with Jane Fonda, in her first screen role, at the age of 22. Tall Story is a social satire of American campus life. Fonda portrays a character who is the complete opposite of the independent liberated woman she later personified, at Custer University, Ray Blent is an honor student and college basketball star. June Ryder has come to the university to study home economics, both students and faculty are scandalized by Ryders unashamed pursuit of Blent. She joins the girls and attends all the classes taken by Blent to ensure she has maximum contact with him. Everyone is aware of her designs on the sexually naive Blent and she succeeds in convincing him that she has an intelligent, inquiring mind that he admires, although this is all done through deception. She eventually gets Blent to fall for her and propose marriage, however, they need several thousand dollars to set up a home. Blent is secretly propositioned, via a message, by a gambling syndicate to lose a key game with a visiting Russian team. He refuses to do this, but is unable to return the money as he not know who is behind the bribe. Rather than deliberately throw the game, he decides to fail an ethics exam. He is the best student in class and the way he can fail is by copying Ryders paper. Too late he realizes that his not playing is tantamount to ensuring his team lose. Meanwhile, his ethics professor, Leo Sullivan, is coming under extreme student and faculty pressure to reverse the failure and he refuses to do this on principle, but finally consents to give Blent an oral retest while the game is in progress. Blent passes and plays for the last few minutes, achieving a one-point victory for the school and this was his last acting role in a Hollywood film. Cast member Tom Laughlin was all but absent from motion-picture screens after this until late in the decade, the films working title was The Way the Ball Bounces. Fonda had hated the Broadway play, but was pleased that her part in the script had been expanded. Logan was a friend of her father, Henry Fonda. Campus scenes were filmed at Occidental College in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles California, on its release in 1960, the film was neither a commercial nor a critical success
9.
George S. Kaufman
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George Simon Kaufman was an American playwright, theatre director and producer, humorist, and drama critic. In addition to comedies and political satire, he wrote several musicals, One play and one musical that he wrote won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, You Cant Take It with You, and Of Thee I Sing. He also won the Tony Award as a Director, for the musical Guys, Kaufman then began his career as a journalist and drama critic, he was the drama editor for The New York Times from 1917 through 1930. Kaufman took his editorial responsibilities very seriously, according to legend, on one occasion a press agent asked, How do I get our leading ladys name in the Times. He worked with Moss Hart in 1930 on the Broadway hit Once in a Lifetime and also with Hart, wrote You Cant Take it With You, Kaufmans Broadway debut was September 4,1918 at the Knickerbocker Theatre, with the premiere of the melodrama Someone in the House. He coauthored the play with Walter C, percival, based on a magazine story written by Larry Evans. The play opened on Broadway during that years serious flu epidemic, with dour glee, Kaufman suggested that the best way to avoid crowds in New York City was to attend his play. In every Broadway season from 1921 through 1958, there was a written or directed by Kaufman. Since Kaufmans death in 1961, there have been revivals of his work on Broadway in the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s, the 2000s, Kaufman wrote only one play alone, The Butter and Egg Man in 1925. Marquand he wrote an adaptation of Marquands novel The Late George Apley. According to his biography on PBS, he wrote some of the American theaters most enduring comedies with Moss Hart. Their work includes Once in a Lifetime, Merrily We Roll Along, The Man Who Came to Dinner and You Cant Take It with You, for a period, Kaufman lived at 158 West 58th Street in New York City. The building later would be the setting for Stage Door and it is now the Park Savoy Hotel and for many years was considered a single room occupancy hotel. Musical theatre Despite his claim that he knew nothing about music and hated it in the theatre, according to Charlotte Chandler, By the time Animal Crackers opened. The Marx Brothers were becoming famous enough to interest Hollywood, paramount signed them to a contract. Kaufman was one of the writers who excelled in writing intelligent nonsense for Groucho Marx, though the Marx Brothers were notoriously critical of their writers, Groucho and Harpo Marx expressed admiration and gratitude towards Kaufman. Dick Cavett, introducing Groucho onstage at Carnegie Hall in 1972, while The Cocoanuts was being developed in Atlantic City, Irving Berlin was hugely enthusiastic about a song he had written for the show. Kaufman was less enthusiastic, and refused to rework the libretto to include this number, the discarded song was Always, ultimately a huge hit for Berlin, recorded by many popular performers
