1.
Reims Cathedral
Notre-Dame de Reims is a Roman Catholic church in Reims, France. It is the seat of the Archdiocese of Reims, where the kings of France were crowned. The cathedral replaced a church, destroyed by fire in 1211. That original structure had itself been erected on the site of some Roman baths, a major tourism destination, the cathedral receives about one million visitors annually. Excavations have shown that the present building occupies roughly the site as the original cathedral. That church was rebuilt during the Carolingian period and further extended in the 12th century, on 19 May 1051, King Henry I of France and Anne of Kiev were married in the cathedral. Whilst conducting the Council of Reims in 1131, Pope Innocent II anointed and crowned the future Louis VII in the cathedral, on May 6,1210 the cathedral was damaged by fire and reconstruction started shortly after, beginning at the eastern end. In 1233 a long-running dispute between the chapter and the townsfolk boiled over into open revolt.
Several clerics were killed or injured during the violence and the entire cathedral chapter fled the city. Work on the new cathedral was suspended for three years, only resuming in 1236 after the clergy returned to the city and the interdict was lifted following mediation by the King and the Pope. The area from the crossing eastwards was in use by 1241, work on the west facade took place in several phases, which is reflected in the very different styles of some of the sculptures. The upper parts of the facade were completed in the 14th century, unusually the names of the cathedrals original architects are known. The labyrinth itself was destroyed in 1779 but its details and inscriptions are known from 18th century drawings, the clear association here between a labyrinth and master masons adds weight to the argument that such patterns were an allusion to the emerging status of the architect. The cathedral contains evidence of the rising status of the architect in the tomb of Hugues Libergier.
Not only is he given the honor of a slab, he is shown holding a miniature model of his church. The towers,81 m tall, were designed to rise 120 m. The south tower holds just two great bells, one of them, named “Charlotte” by Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine in 1570, following the death of the infant King John I, his uncle Philip would be hurriedly crowned at Reims,9 January 1317. During the Hundred Years War the cathedral and city were under siege by the English from 1359 to 1360, but the siege failed
2.
Equestrian statue
An equestrian statue is a statue of a rider mounted on a horse, from the Latin eques, meaning knight, deriving from equus, meaning horse. A statue of a horse is strictly an equine statue. A full-sized equestrian statue is a difficult and expensive object for any culture to produce, Equestrian statuary in the West goes back at least as far as Archaic Greece. Found on the Athenian acropolis, the sixth century BC statue known as the Rampin Rider depicts a kouros mounted on horseback, a number of ancient Egyptian and Persian reliefs show mounted figures, usually rulers, though no free standing statues are known. The Chinese Terracotta Army has no mounted riders, though cavalrymen stand beside their mounts, the Regisole was a bronze classical or Late Antique equestrian monument of a ruler, highly influential during the Italian Renaissance but destroyed in 1796 in the wake of the French Revolution. It was originally erected at Ravenna, but removed to Pavia in the Middle Ages, a fragment of an equestrian portrait sculpture of Augustus has survived.
Equestrian statues were not very frequent in the Middle ages, there are some examples, like the Bamberg Horseman, located in Bamberg Cathedral. Another example is the Magdeburg Reiter, in the city of Magdeburg, there are a few roughly half-size statues of Saint George and the Dragon, including the famous ones in Prague and Stockholm. The Scaliger Tombs in Verona include Gothic statues at less than lifesize, a well-known small bronze in Paris may be a contemporary portrait of Charlemagne, although its date and subject are uncertain. Leonardo da Vinci had planned an equestrian monument to the Milanese ruler. The The Wax Horse and Rider is a model for an equestrian statue of Charles dAmboise. Titians equestrian portrait of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor of 1548 applied the form again to a ruler, taccas studio would produce such models for the rulers in France and Spain. His last public commission was the equestrian bronze of Philip IV, begun in 1634. The near life-size equestrian statue of Charles I of England by Hubert Le Sueur of 1633 at Charing Cross in London is the earliest large English example, which was followed by many.
The Bronze Horseman is an equestrian statue, on a huge base, of Peter the Great of 1782 by Étienne Maurice Falconet in Saint Petersburg. Mills was the first American sculptor to overcome the challenge of casting a rider on a rearing horse, the resulting sculpture was so popular he repeated it, for Washington, D. C. New Orleans and Nashville, cyrus Edwin Dallin made a specialty of equestrian sculptures of American Indians, his Appeal to the Great Spirit stands before the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The Robert Gould Shaw Monument in Boston, Massachusetts is a famous relief including an equestrian portrait, as the 20th century progressed, the popularity of the equestrian monument declined sharply, as monarchies fell, and the military use of horses virtually vanished
3.
Landscape architecture
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor public areas and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioral, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the investigation of existing social and soil conditions and processes in the landscape. A practitioner in the profession of architecture is called a landscape architect. The most valuable contribution can be made at the first stage of a project to generate ideas with technical understanding and creative flair for the design and use of spaces. The landscape architect can conceive the concept and prepare the master plan, from which detailed design drawings. They can review proposals to authorize and supervise contracts for the construction work, other skills include preparing design impact assessments, conducting environmental assessments and audits, and serving as an expert witness at inquiries on land use issues. e. They often work in forestry, nature conservation and agriculture, Landscape scientists have specialist skills such as soil science, geomorphology or botany that they relate to the practical problems of landscape work.
Their projects can range from surveys to the ecological assessment of broad areas for planning or management purposes. They may report on the impact of development or the importance of species in a given area. Landscape planners are concerned with planning for the location, scenic and recreational aspects of urban. Some may apply an additional specialism such as landscape archaeology or law to the process of landscape planning, green roof designers design extensive and intensive roof gardens for storm water management, evapo-transpirative cooling, sustainable architecture and habitat creation. An example is the work by André Le Nôtre at Vaux-le-Vicomte for King Louis XIV of France at the Palace of Versailles. The first person to write of making a landscape was Joseph Addison in 1712, the term landscape architecture was invented by Gilbert Laing Meason in 1828, and John Claudius Loudon was instrumental in the adoption of the term landscape architecture by the modern profession. He took up the term from Meason and gave it publicity in his Encyclopedias and in his 1840 book on the Landscape Gardening, the practice of landscape architecture spread from the Old to the New World.
IFLA was founded at Cambridge, England, in 1948 with Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe as its first president, representing 15 countries from Europe, later, in 1978, IFLAs Headquarters were established in Versailles. Through the 19th century, urban planning became a focal point, the combination of the tradition of landscape gardening and the emerging field of urban planning offered Landscape Architecture an opportunity to serve these needs. In the second half of the century, Frederick Law Olmsted completed a series of parks which continue to have an influence on the practices of Landscape Architecture today. Among these were Central Park in New York City, Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York, jens Jensen designed sophisticated and naturalistic urban and regional parks for Chicago and private estates for the Ford family including Fair Lane and Gaukler Point
4.
Europe
Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania.
The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it.
For the second part the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
5.
McMillan Plan
The McMillan Plan is a comprehensive planning document for the development of the monumental core and the park system of Washington, D. C. the capital of the United States. It was written in 1902 by the Senate Park Commission, the commission is popularly known as the McMillan Commission after its chairman, Senator James McMillan of Michigan. The plan proposed tearing down the railroad passenger station on the National Mall. Major new parkways would connect these parks as well as link the city to nearby attractions, never formally adopted by the United States government, the McMillan Plan was implemented piecemeal in the decades after its release. The location of the Lincoln Memorial, Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, Union Station, proposals to construct Arlington Memorial Bridge received a major boost from the plan as well. The plan presented at that meeting by Washington-based architect Paul J, McMillan Commission members included architect Daniel Burnham, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.
and architect Charles F. McKim. Charles Moore, Senator McMillans chief aide, became secretary of the commission, sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens joined the commission as its last member in August 1901 at the suggestion of McKim. The commission members and Moore departed for Europe on June 13,1901, to tour the continents great manor homes, gardens, by the time the commission returned to the United States on August 1, Moore had become a de facto member of the commission. The commission sponsored an exhibit about their proposals at the Corcoran Gallery of Art on January 15,1902. President Theodore Roosevelt attended the exhibits opening, the exhibit was dominated by two vast models of the District of Columbia, one showing it as it existed in 1901 and the other showing the changes proposed by the Senate Park Commission. Seventy-one of the reports pages discussed proposals for the National Mall, while the remaining 100 pages discussed improvements for the system in. The proposals for the National Mall received the greatest attention from the commission, the proposals for the citys parks and recreational facilities were treated in more general ways.
The report proposed turning the National Mall into the core of the growing city, a cruciform design for the Mall was proposed. The United States Capitol building anchored the east end of the east–west axis, in the center was the Washington Monument. The recently completed West Potomac Park would be the anchor for the west end of the east–west axis. The recently created East Potomac Park would anchor the end of the north–south axis. The width of the Mall, determined after extensive on-site measurements, the north and south sides of the National Mall were to be lined with low public office buildings and cultural attractions. The plan suggested constructing a low, Beaux-Arts bridge linking West Potomac Park with Arlington National Cemetery, around the base of the Washington Monument, new formal gardens and terraces would help to frame the base of the monument
6.
Angela Davis
Angela Yvonne Davis is an American political activist and author. Davis was prosecuted for conspiracy involving the 1970 armed take-over of a Marin County, California and she was acquitted in a federal trial. She was a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in its History of Consciousness Department and her research interests are feminism, African-American studies, critical theory, popular music, social consciousness, and the philosophy and history of punishment and prisons. She co-founded Critical Resistance, a working to abolish the prison-industrial complex. Daviss membership in the CPUSA led California Governor Ronald Reagan in 1969 to attempt to have her barred from teaching at any university in the State of California, during the 1980s, she was twice a candidate for Vice President on the CPUSA ticket. She supported the governments of the Soviet Bloc for several decades, Angela Davis was born in Birmingham, Alabama. Davis occasionally spent time on her uncles farm and with friends in New York City and her family included brothers Ben and Reginald and sister Fania.
Ben played defensive back for the Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions in the late 1960s, Davis attended Carrie A. Tuggle School, a segregated black elementary school, she attended Parker Annex, a middle-school branch of Parker High School in Birmingham. During this time Davis mother, Sallye Bell Davis, was an officer and leading organizer of the Southern Negro Youth Congress. It was trying to build alliances among African Americans in the South, Davis grew up surrounded by communist organizers and thinkers who significantly influenced her intellectual development. Davis was involved in her church as a child, she was a member in her church youth group. Davis attributes much of her involvement to her involvement as a young girl in Birmingham with the Girl Scouts of the United States of America. She earned many badges and certificates, she participated in Girl Scouts 1959 national roundup in Colorado. As a Girl Scout she marched and picketed to protest racial segregation in Birmingham, by her junior year in high school, Davis had applied to and was accepted at an American Friends Service Committee program that placed black students from the South in integrated schools in the North.
She chose Elisabeth Irwin High School in Greenwich Village, there she was introduced to socialism and communism, and recruited by a Communist youth group, Advance. Davis was awarded a scholarship to Brandeis University in Waltham and she initially felt alienated by the isolation of the campus, but she soon made friends with foreign students. She encountered the Frankfurt School philosopher Herbert Marcuse at a rally during the Cuban Missile Crisis, in a 2007 television interview, she said, Herbert Marcuse taught me that it was possible to be an academic, an activist, a scholar, and a revolutionary. She worked part-time to earn money to travel to France and Switzerland before she attended the eighth World Festival of Youth and Students in Helsinki
7.
Washington meridians
The Washington meridians are four meridians that were used as prime meridians in the United States and pass through Washington, D. C. The four which have been specified are, through the Capitol through the White House through the old Naval Observatory through the new Naval Observatory. NAD83 longitude of the Capitol is about 1.1 arc seconds less than its NAD27 longitude, pierre Charles LEnfant specified the first meridian in his 1791 Plan of the city intended for the permanent seat of the government of the United States. His plan stated near its side that the longitude of the Congress house, now called the Capitol, was 0. LEnfants plan contained the following note, In order to execute the above plan. These lines were measured, and made the basis on which the whole plan was executed. He ran all the lines by an instrument, and determined the acute angles by actual measurement. The longitude of the center of the Capitols dome is now given by the National Geodetic Survey as 77°0032. 6W, the west side of LEnfants triangle forms a natural prime meridian passing through the Presidents house.
The following nine features on and near this Washington Meridian are listed south to north, The center of the Jefferson Memorial. The wooden post was replaced by the Jefferson Pier in 1804, after removal and replacement several times, it was permanently replaced in 1889 by a 2-foot-square, 2-foot-tall, granite pier, now 390 feet WNW of the center of the Washington Monument. NGS gives its longitude as 77°0211. 56258W as of 2002, azimuth to the Capitol is 89.98 degrees, a discrepancy of just under a meter. In 1890 the Meridian Stone was set at the center of the Ellipse and it is an 18-inch-square granite post set flush with the ground. NGS gives its longitude as 77°0211. 55880W as of 2002, in 1923, the Zero Milestone was set on the north side of the Ellipse, intended to be on the same meridian and to be the zero mileage point for all United States roads. It is a granite pillar about 18 inches square and about 3.5 feet tall, NGS gives its longitude as 77°0211. 57375W as of 2002. The center of the White House, clark Mills equestrian statue of President Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Park, erected on the meridian in 1853.
16th Street Northwest, which extends due north from the White House, the meridian is sometimes identified as the 16th Street Meridian because of the location of this street. The following feature on this meridian no longer exists and it was a small freestone obelisk placed in 1804 on top of a hill 1.5 miles north of the Presidents House, hence the name Meridian Hill. It was at the end of 16th Street, just north of Florida Avenue, before 16th Street was extended northward about 1890
8.
Serenity (Clara)
Serenity is a public artwork by Spanish artist Josep Clarà, located at Meridian Hill Park in Washington, D. C. Serenity was originally surveyed as part of the Smithsonians Save Outdoor Sculpture and this large sculpture is of an allegorical woman wearing long, flowing classical robes which are tied at her waist. She has long hair and stares intensely in front of her, serenity sits on a rocky ledge with her arms casually resting on the rocks behind her. Her left foot rested on a broken sword, clara was a Spanish sculptor, born in Olot in 1878, who died in Barcelona in 1958. After studying fine art in Toulouse, he met Auguste Rodin during a visit to Paris which led to him deciding to become a sculptor, a student of Barrias Louse-Ernest, his primary model was Isadora Duncan until her death in 1927. With world-wide recognition, he worked and lived the rest of his life in Barcelona, serenity was bought by Charles Deering at the Paris Exhibition of 1900 as a tribute to his friend and classmate from the U. S.
Naval Academy - William Henry Scheutze. The sculpture was dedicated on March 12,1924, the sculpture is identical to the sculpture Serenidad, which sits in Luxembourg and is by the same artist. Scheutze was an officer from the academy who graduated in 1873. Iowa during the Spanish American War and he was active in the U. S. Naval White Squadron in Chicago. Before his death in 1927 he became president of the International Harvester Company, in 1960 the piece was reported as having a missing nose. This sculpture was surveyed in 1993 for its condition and it was described as needing treatment, by 2009, press reports indicate it was missing her left hand and a big toe
9.
Adams Morgan
Adams Morgan is a culturally diverse neighborhood in Northwest Washington, D. C. centered at the intersection of 18th Street and Columbia Road. Much of the neighborhood is composed of 19th- and early 20th-century row houses, adjacent to Adams Morgan is Dupont Circle to the south, Kalorama-Sheridan to the southwest, Mount Pleasant to the north, and Columbia Heights to the east. The neighborhood is bounded by Connecticut Avenue to the southwest, Rock Creek Park to the west, Harvard Street to the north, 16th Street to the east, pursuant to the 1954 Bolling v. Sharpe Supreme Court ruling, District schools were desegregated in 1955. The Adams-Morgan Community Council, comprising both Adams and Morgan schools and the neighborhoods they served, was formed in 1958, throughout the 20th century, the Adams Morgan community has stood on behalf of social justice, political activism, and inclusive, progressive values. The development was named the Marie H. Reed Learning Center after Bishop Reed and it featured a daycare center and basketball courts, a solar-heated swimming pool, health clinic, athletic field and outdoor chess tables.
From 2010 to 2012, one of the main commercial corridors, 18th Street NW, was reconstructed with wider sidewalks, more crosswalks. As part of the all of the mature trees on the street were cut down. Along with its adjacent sister communities to the north and east, Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights, since the 1960s, the predominant international presence in both communities has been Latino, with the majority of immigrants coming from El Salvador and other Central American countries. Since the early 1970s, like areas of the nation, Adams Morgan had seen a growing influx of immigrants from Africa, Asia. Adams Morgan has become a spot for night life, with a number of bars. Over 90 establishments possess liquor licenses, putting it on level with other popular nightlife areas like Georgetown, the moratorium was renewed in 2004, but eased to allow new restaurant licenses. Adjacent Mt. Pleasant hosts a number of enterprises, social service agencies. Another barometer of the pull of Adams Morgan for immigrants is the linguistic.
Many of the families served live beyond the established for routine student enrollment, Adams, Reed. Cooke elementary schools all have populations, with children from well over 30 nations in attendance. Latino and African-American children comprise the majority of students in the public schools, the second Sunday of September, the neighborhood hosts the Adams Morgan Day Festival, a multicultural street celebration with live music and food and crafts booths. In the 1960s, the attractions included the Avignon Freres bakery and restaurant, the Café Don restaurant, the Ontario motion picture theater. In the 1980s, Hazels featured live blues and jazz and its soul food offerings made it a favorite of black jazz musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie when they came to town
10.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D. C. formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D. C. is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on July 16,1790, Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any state. The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, named in honor of President George Washington, the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land ceded by Virginia, in 1871. Washington had an population of 681,170 as of July 2016. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, of which the District is a part, has a population of over 6 million, the centers of all three branches of the federal government of the United States are in the District, including the Congress and Supreme Court.
Washington is home to national monuments and museums, which are primarily situated on or around the National Mall. The city hosts 176 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of international organizations, trade unions, non-profit organizations, lobbying groups. A locally elected mayor and a 13‑member council have governed the District since 1973, the Congress maintains supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. D. C. residents elect a non-voting, at-large congressional delegate to the House of Representatives, the District receives three electoral votes in presidential elections as permitted by the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961. Various tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway people inhabited the lands around the Potomac River when Europeans first visited the area in the early 17th century, One group known as the Nacotchtank maintained settlements around the Anacostia River within the present-day District of Columbia.
Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes forced the relocation of the Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland. 43, published January 23,1788, James Madison argued that the new government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance. Five years earlier, a band of unpaid soldiers besieged Congress while its members were meeting in Philadelphia, known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, the event emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security. However, the Constitution does not specify a location for the capital, on July 9,1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River. The exact location was to be selected by President George Washington, formed from land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring 10 miles on each side, totaling 100 square miles.
Two pre-existing settlements were included in the territory, the port of Georgetown, founded in 1751, many of the stones are still standing
11.
George Oakley Totten Jr.
George Oakley Totten, Jr. was one of Washington D. C. ’s most prolific and skilled architects in the Gilded Age. His international training and interest in architectural decoration led to a career of continuous experimentation, the mansions he designed were located primarily on or near Dupont and Kalorama circles and along 16th Street, N. W. near Meridian Hill. Totten was born in New York City on December 5,1866, a son of George Oakley and Mary Elizabeth Totten. After receiving his education at public schools in Newark, New Jersey and the Newark Technical School, he graduated from Columbia University with a Ph. B in 1891. He was awarded Columbias McKim travelling fellowship in 1893, and for the two years studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and Atelier Daumet-Esquie. He returned to the United States and in 1896, was appointed designer in the Office of the Supervising Architect. He continued in that position until 1898, when he established an independent architectural practice in Washington D. C. which he continued until his demise and he was an advisor when the U. S.
Capitol Building was remodelled. He designed many city and country dwellings in Washington, including a group of houses in the 2600 block of 16th Street. He designed homes in Vermont and New Jersey, in 1923, he rescued architect H. H. Richardsons Warder Mansion, at 1515 K Street NW, from demolition. He disassembled the stonework and some of the interiors, transported them about 1.5 miles from downtown to Meridan Hill, the Warder Mansion is the only surviving building by Richardson in Washington, D. C. He was active in professional architecture related associations, from 1897 to 1939, he served as secretary and vice president of the American section of the permanent committee of the International Congress of Architects. During World War I, he served as a major with the Army Corps of Engineers, in 1926, he authored Maya Architecture. On August 22,1921, he married noted sculptor and artist Vicken von Post-Börjesson of Sweden and they had two sons, George Oakley Totten III, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science from the University of Southern California, and Gilbert von Post Totten.
He died at Washington, D. C. on February 1,1939, nRHP-listed Langley Park, Langley Park, Maryland -1924 Meridian Hall,2401 15th St. NW, Washington, D. C. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Residential Architecture of Washington, D. C. and its Suburbs, who Was Who in America, 1897–1942, p.1247. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. XLI, p.496, photograph of the Residence of the Ambassador of Turkey. Embassy. org website, The Turkish Embassy Ambassadors Residence
12.
Franklin W. Smith
Franklin Waldo Smith was an American idealistic reformer who made his fortune as a Boston hardware merchant. Franklin Smith was born into a prominent Beacon Hill family in Boston and his father, was the Tax Collector for the Port of Boston, and his great-grandfather was president of Harvard University. Mary O. Smith was his mother, and he was the brother of Mary O. and Benjamin O. Smith, who became his partner in Smith Brothers & Company. Smith was a moral and religious man and served as Sunday-school superintendent at his Baptist church, Tremont Temple, when Smith was young, his familys wealth permitted him to travel abroad. At age 25, he attended The Great Exhibition in London, upon his return home, he was asked to raise funds for a new organization, the Young Mens Christian Association. With the memory of his trip still fresh, he planned a world bazaar, facades of famous buildings around the world were constructed and staffed by well-known local residents who dressed in authentic costumes and sold items imported for the event.
The function was spectacularly successful, and the YMCA of Boston was the first chapter of the organization in the United States, Smith was elected their first president in 1855. Smith joined other abolitionists including Anson Burlingame to organize the Republican Party in Massachusetts and he supported the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln, and attended the inauguration on March 4,1861, with his wife on their honeymoon. Laura Bevan had been born in Baltimore and was several years younger than he and they had two children who lived to adulthood, George Stuart, born in 1863, and Lillian, born in 1865. Smith Brothers did considerable trade with the military, whenever Franklin observed dishonesty, he felt compelled to report it to authorities, wrote an account of each offense, had it printed, and distributed the pamphlets throughout the city. Smith identified the names of clerks who accepted bribes and created an Analysis of Certain Contracts for the United States Secretary of the Navy, the report showed how specific contractors were able to consistently bid low.
The naval bureau chiefs were angered that a civilian contractor questioned their integrity and embarrassed them by appearing before Congress, instead of eliminating the dishonesty in their subordinates, they targeted the Smith Brothers. Every transaction with the company was examined, and justification was demanded for every error or imperfect item supplied by the company, despite the scrutiny, Smith was always able to provide a convincing explanation. In January 1864, a Senate committee chaired by John Parker Hale formed to investigate naval contract fraud, the Navy brass despised Hale since he helped convince Congress to ban flogging in 1850 and grog rations in 1862. Hearings lasted almost four months, with the Smith brothers providing key testimony, the committee’s report was not released until June 29, but it was obvious from testimony that it would confirm Smiths accusations and dismiss the Navys allegations against the Smith brothers. On June 17,1864, two weeks after the conclusion of the Hale hearings and two weeks before the report was to be public, both the Smith brothers were arrested.
The timing was not an accident, having the principal witnesses in jail would tend to discredit the Senate report when it was released. Early in the morning, a detail of marines grabbed Franklin and dragged him to a waiting boat and they had no warrant, only a telegraphed order from Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy
