1.
Song of the South (song)
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Song of the South is a song written by Bob McDill. First recorded by American country music artist Bobby Bare on his 1980 album Drunk & Crazy, another cover by Tom T. Hall and Earl Scruggs peaked at number 72 in 1982 from the album Storyteller and the Banjo Man. A cover released in November 1988 by American country music group Alabama, from their album Southern Star, the song tells the story of a poor Southern cotton farm-family during the Great Depression. Cotton on the roadside, cotton in the ditch and we all picked the cotton but we never got rich. Well, somebody told us Wall Street fell, but we was so poor that we couldnt tell, the song references President Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal in the line, The cotton was short and the weeds was tall, but Mr. Roosevelts gonna save us all. The father of the family is a Southern Democrat, Daddy was a veteran and they oughta get a rich man to vote like that. The family loses the farm after the mother becomes ill, the county got the farm and they moved to town. In the end, the ends up living comfortably well, having sought a life in a more urban location, Well, papa got a job with the TVA, we bought a washing machine. The content of the video follows the song lyrics, such as the footage of President Roosevelt during the lines in the song where he is referenced. The video turns to color during the chorus, showing a large crowd fronted by the band members marching down the street of a small town. At the end, the video is also in color and shows Alabama playing at a concert, song of the South at AllMusic Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
2.
Chu Ci
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The traditional version of the Chu Ci contains 17 major sections, anthologized with its current contents by Wang Yi, a 2nd-century AD librarian who served under Emperor Shun of Han. The early Classical Chinese poetry is known through the two anthologies, the Chu Ci and the Shi Jing. Chu Ci was named after a form of poetry that originated in the State of Chu, which was located in what is now central China, but was then in the southern fringe of the Chinese cultural area. The territory of Chu was known for its blend of culture from the Chinese heartland, or north, with cultural influences. Thus, in the north of China, Chu had a reputation for various features. A Chinese form of shamanism was prominent in Chu, and a number of the Chu Ci verses describe spirit journeys. The Book of Han noted 106 Chu poets with 1,318 compositions, other chu ci style verses were written, including some which survive, but are not generally included in the standard anthology. Wang Yi made a commentary on the Chu Ci, as well as appending his own Nine Longings, as the seventeenth. Although Chu Ci is an anthology of poems by poets, Qu Yuan was its central figure. There are various other authors which are thought to have written various sections of the Chu Ci. Various scholarly sources propose solutions for who wrote what, in the Chu Ci, besides the authorship of the actual content, much commentary has been written in regard to the Chu Ci, some of which is traditionally incorporated into the printed editions. The name Qu Yuan does not occur in any prior to the Han dynasty. It is also said that it is in remembrance of the circumstances of Qu Yuans death that the annual Dragon boat races are held. During his days of exile, Qu Yuan is thought to have written Li Sao, his magnum opus, the authorship, as in many a case of ancient literature, can be neither confirmed nor denied. Written in 373 verses containing 2490 characters, Li Sao is the earliest Chinese long poem and is acclaimed as the representative of Qu Yuans high moral conduct. Also, among the other Chu Ci works sometimes attributed to Qu Yuan, modern scholars have devoted long studies to the question of the Chu ci pieces authorship, but there is no consensus on which may actually be by Qu Yuan himself. Sima Qians Records of the Grand Historian mentions five of Qu Yuans works, Li Sao, Tian Wen, Zhao Hun, Ai Ying, Huai Sha. According to Wang Yi of the Eastern Han dynasty, a total of 25 works can be attributed to Qu Yuan, Li Sao, Jiu Ge, Heavenly Questions, Jiu Zhang, Yuan You, Pu Ju, and Yu Fu
3.
Walt Disney
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Walter Elias Walt Disney was an American entrepreneur, animator, voice actor and film producer. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons, as a film producer, Disney holds the record for most Academy Awards earned by an individual, having won 22 Oscars from 59 nominations. He was presented with two Golden Globe Special Achievement Awards and an Emmy Award, among other honors, several of his films are included in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. Born in Chicago in 1901, Disney developed an early interest in drawing and he took art classes as a boy and got a job as a commercial illustrator at the age of 18. He moved to California in the early 1920s and set up the Disney Brothers Studio with his brother Roy, with Ub Iwerks, Walt developed the character Mickey Mouse in 1928, his first highly popular success, he also provided the voice for his creation in the early years. As the studio grew, Disney became more adventurous, introducing synchronized sound, full-color three-strip Technicolor, feature-length cartoons, the results, seen in features such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Pinocchio, Dumbo and Bambi, furthered the development of animated film. New animated and live-action films followed after World War II, including the critically successful Cinderella and Mary Poppins, in the 1950s, Disney expanded into the amusement park industry, and in 1955 he opened Disneyland. In 1965, he began development of theme park, Disney World, the heart of which was to be a new type of city. Disney was a smoker throughout his life, and died of lung cancer in December 1966 before either the park or the EPCOT project were completed. Disney was a shy, self-deprecating and insecure man in private and he had high standards and high expectations of those with whom he worked. Although there have been accusations that he was racist or anti-semitic and his reputation changed in the years after his death, from a purveyor of homely patriotic values to a representative of American imperialism. Nevertheless, Disney is considered an icon, particularly in the United States. Walt Disney was born on December 5,1901, at 1249 Tripp Avenue and he was the fourth son of Elias Disney—born in the Province of Canada, to Irish parents—and Flora, an American of German and English descent. Aside from Disney, Elias and Calls sons were Herbert, Raymond and Roy, in 1906, when Disney was four, the family moved to a farm in Marceline, Missouri, where his uncle Robert had just purchased land. In Marceline, Disney developed his interest in drawing when he was paid to draw the horse of a neighborhood doctor. Elias was a subscriber to the Appeal to Reason newspaper, Disney also began to develop an ability to work with watercolors and crayons. He lived near the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway line and he and his younger sister Ruth started school at the same time at the Park School in Marceline in late 1909. In 1911, the Disneys moved to Kansas City, Missouri, before long, he was spending more time at the Pfeiffers house than at home
4.
Maurice Rapf
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Maurice Harry Rapf was an American screenwriter and professor of film studies. He was a co-founder of the Screen Writers Guild and he was blacklisted in 1947 due to his association with the Communist Party USA. He later taught film studies at Dartmouth College, Rapf was Jewish, the son of Harry Rapf, an executive and film producer at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, and worked briefly for his father as a child actor. In 1934, while majoring in English at Dartmouth, Rapf visited the Soviet Union as an exchange student and he graduated in 1935, and moved to Hollywood. In 1947, he married actress Louise Seidel, with whom he had two daughters and a son and he became an advocate for the rights of creative professionals, and helped found the Screen Writers Guild. He entered the business of filmmaking, and co-wrote screenplays for We Went to College, They Gave Him a Gun. He went on to work on films such as Sharpshooters. When F. Scott Fitzgerald became incapacitated by drinking, Rapf replaced him co-scripting Winter Carnival, a film about the Dartmouth traditional event, which Rapf later described as a clinker. In 1944 Rapf was recruited by Walt Disney to work on the screenplay for Song of the South, thats exactly why I want you to work on it, Walt told him, because I know that you dont think I should make the movie. Youre against Uncle Tomism, and youre a radical, Rapf initially hesitated, but when he found out that most of the film would be live-action and was told that he could make extensive changes, he accepted the offer. Rapf worked on the project for seven weeks, but when he got into a personal dispute with Reymond. In July 1946, Rapf was one of people listed in a column by The Hollywood Reporter publisher William Wilkerson, identifying them as Communists. His work on Cinderella, which he tried to imbue with a sense of the struggle, was not credited. He did some writing for film and television using fronts and pseudonyms. In 1949 he moved with his family to Sergeantsville, New Jersey, in 1951 he moved to Norwich, Vermont, where he helped establish the Dartmouth Film Society. In the early 50s he relocated to New York, where he pursued a career as a critic, and worked at Dynamic Films as a writer, director. In 1967 he returned to Darthmouth to teach film studies, becoming a member of the faculty in 1976. He had one additional screenwriting credit in 1980, the 45-minute made-for-television animated film Gnomes which was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program
5.
Ralph Wright
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Ralph Waldo Wright was a Disney animator and story/storyboard writer who provided the gloomy, sullen voice of Eeyore from the popular Winnie-the-Pooh franchise. Wright came to the studio in the 1940s, and became known throughout the ensuing decades for his endearingly gloomy. He turned out to be a model for Eeyore when the studio began development on Winnie the Pooh. Early on, with Goofys Glider and other How To cartoons and this technique is still in use today in most major animation studios. Warner Brothers later would incorporate this premise into Roadrunner, Sylvester and Tweety and this highly reusable format proved to be wildly successful. He came down, and his pants were twelve inches too short for him, but he had a crazy, crazy mind, almost as wild as Roy Williams, who is the best of all. Ralph did the first story of type for Jack Kinney. The Goof tried to stay on the horse—boom, off, another joke and that was the beginning of what still seems to be going on today. Then he and Kinney made more—a series of jokes, just one problem and its like a symphony, with a theme and then the development of that theme. He spent the last 30 years of his life in San Luis Obispo County in Los Osos and he died at his home in Los Osos from a heart attack. Everything that Ralph Wright worked on are by Walt Disney Productions except as noted, Eeyore Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. Eeyore The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore. Eeyore Siam Perri The Art of Self Defense Perri The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh Ralph Wright at the Internet Movie Database
6.
Uncle Remus
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Uncle Remus is the fictional title character and narrator of a collection of African-American folktales adapted and compiled by Joel Chandler Harris, published in book form in 1881. A journalist in post-Reconstruction Atlanta, Georgia, Harris produced seven Uncle Remus books, Uncle Remus is a collection of animal stories, songs, and oral folklore, collected from southern African-Americans. Many of the stories are didactic, much like those of Aesops Fables, Uncle Remus is a kindly old former slave who serves as a storytelling device, passing on the folktales to children gathered around him. The stories are written in an eye dialect devised by Harris to represent a Deep South Gullah dialect, the genre of stories is the trickster tale. At the time of Harriss publication, his work was praised for its ability to capture plantation Negro dialect, Brer Rabbit is the main character of the stories, a likable character, prone to tricks and trouble-making, who is often opposed by Brer Fox and Brer Bear. In one tale, Brer Fox constructs a lump of tar, when Brer Rabbit comes along, he addresses the tar baby amiably but receives no response. Brer Rabbit becomes offended by what he perceives as Tar Babys lack of manners, punches it, the animal stories were conveyed in such a manner that they were not seen as racist by many among the audiences of the time. Providing additional controversy is the context, as they are set on a former slave-owning plantation and portrayed in a passive, even docile. Nevertheless, Harriss work was, according to himself, an account of the stories he heard from the slaves when he worked on a plantation as a young man. He claimed to have listened to, and memorized, the African American animal stories told by Uncle George Terrell, Old Harbert and he acknowledged his debt to these storytellers in his fictionalized autobiography, On the Plantation. Many of the stories that he recorded have direct equivalents in the African oral tradition. Harris himself said, in the introduction to Uncle Remus, that he hoped his book would be considered. a sympathetic supplement to Mrs. Stowes wonderful defense of slavery as it existed in the South. Mrs. Stowe, let me hasten to say, attacked the possibilities of slavery with all the eloquence of genius, but the same genius painted the portrait of the Southern slave-owner, and defended him. Mark Twain read the Uncle Remus stories to his children, who were awed to meet Harris himself, in his Autobiography Twain describes Harris thus, He was the bashfulest grown person I have ever met. When there were people about he stayed silent, and seemed to suffer until they were gone. But he was lovely, nevertheless, for the sweetness and benignity of the immortal Remus looked out from his eyes, Twain wrote, It may be that Jim Wolf was as bashful as Harris. Jim Wolf is a character from the first humorous story Twain ever told, Jim Wolf, an Uncle Remus and His Tales of Brer Rabbit newspaper strip ran from October 14,1945 through December 31,1972. The stories have inspired at least three films, The first and best known is Walt Disneys Song of the South
7.
Joel Chandler Harris
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Joel Chandler Harris was an American journalist, fiction writer, and folklorist best known for his collection of Uncle Remus stories. Harris was born in Eatonton, Georgia, where he served as an apprentice on a plantation during his teenage years and he spent the majority of his adult life in Atlanta working as an associate editor at the Atlanta Constitution. As Joel Chandler Harris, fiction writer and folklorist, he wrote many Brer Rabbit stories from the African-American oral tradition, Joel Chandler Harris was born in Eatonton, Georgia in 1848 to Mary Ann Harris, an Irish immigrant. His father, whose identity remains unknown, abandoned Mary Ann, the parents had never married, the boy was named Joel after his mothers attending physician, Dr. Joel Branham. Chandler was the name of his mothers uncle, Harris remained self-conscious of his illegitimate birth throughout his life. A prominent physician, Dr. Andrew Reid, gave the Harris family a small cottage to use behind his mansion, Mary Harris worked as a seamstress and helped neighbors with their gardening to support herself and her son. She was a reader and instilled in her son a love of language. Dr. Reid also paid for Harris school tuition for several years, in 1856, Joe Harris briefly attended Kate Davidsons School for Boys and Girls, but transferred to Eatonton School for Boys later that year. He had an academic record and a habit of truancy. Harris excelled in reading and writing, but was known for his pranks, mischief. Practical jokes helped Harris cloak his shyness and insecurities about his red hair, Irish ancestry, in March 1862, Joseph Addison Turner, owner of Turnwold Plantation nine miles east of Eatonton, hired the 16-year-old to work as a printers devil for his newspaper The Countryman. Harris worked for clothing, room, and board, the newspaper reached subscribers throughout the Confederacy during the American Civil War, it was considered one of the larger newspapers in the South, with a circulation of about 2,000. Harris learned to set type for the paper, and Turner allowed him to publish his own poems, book reviews, Turners instruction and technical expertise exerted a profound influence on Harris. During his four-year tenure at Turnwold Plantation, Joe Harris consumed the literature in Turners library and he had access to Chaucer, Dickens, Sir Thomas Browne, Arabian Nights, Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Thackeray, and Edgar Allan Poe. Turner, a fiercely independent Southern loyalist and eccentric intellectual, emphasized the work of southern writers, in The Countryman Turner insisted that Harris not shy away from including humor in his journalism. While at Turnwold Plantation, Harris spent hundreds of hours in the quarters during time off. He was less self-conscious there and felt his background as an illegitimate. He absorbed the stories, language, and inflections of people like Uncle George Terrell, Old Harbert, the African-American animal tales they shared later became the foundation and inspiration for Harriss Uncle Remus tales
8.
James Baskett
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James Baskett was an American actor known for his portrayal of Uncle Remus, singing the song Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah in the 1946 Disney feature film Song of the South. In recognition of his portrayal of the famous black storyteller he was given an Honorary Academy Award. As Jimmie Baskette, he appeared on Broadway with Louis Armstrong in the musical revue Hot Chocolates in 1929. Mr. Baskett also acted in several films made in the New York area. He went to Los Angeles, California and had a role in Straight to Heaven, starring Nina Mae McKinney. He was invited by Freeman Gosden to join the cast of the Amos n Andy radio show as lawyer Gabby Gibson, whom he portrayed from 1944 to 1948. In 1945, he auditioned for a bit part voicing one of the animals in the new Disney feature film Song of the South, walt Disney was impressed with Basketts talent and hired him on the spot for the lead role of Uncle Remus. Baskett was also given the role of Brer Fox, one of the films animated antagonists. This was one of the first Hollywood portrayals of an actor as a non-comic character in a leading role in a film meant for general audiences. Baskett was not allowed to attend the premiere in Atlanta. On March 20,1948, Baskett received an Honorary Academy Award for his performance as Uncle Remus and he was the first African-American male actor to win an Academy Award. Baskett had been in poor health around 1946 during the filming of Song Of the South due to diabetes and his health continued to decline, and he was often unable to attend the Amos and Andy show he was in. On July 9,1948 during the summer hiatus, Baskett died of heart failure resulting from the diabetes at age 44 and was survived by his wife. He is buried at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis, list of African American firsts James Baskett at the Internet Movie Database James Baskett at Find a Grave
9.
Bobby Driscoll
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Robert Cletus Bobby Driscoll was an American child actor and artist known for a large body of cinema and TV performances from 1943 to 1960. He starred in some of the Walt Disney Studios most popular pictures of that period, such as Song of the South, So Dear to My Heart. He served as model and provided the voice for the title role in Peter Pan. In 1950, he received an Academy Juvenile Award for outstanding performance in films of 1949, for his roles in So Dear to My Heart and The Window. In the mid-1950s, Driscolls acting career began to decline, and he became addicted to narcotics, and was sentenced to prison for illicit drug use. After his release he focused his attention on the art scene. In ill health due to his abuse, and with his funds completely depleted, he died in 1968. He was born Robert Cletus Driscoll in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the child of Cletus, an insulation salesman, and Isabelle. Shortly after his birth, the moved to Des Moines. When a doctor advised the father to relocate to balmy California due to pulmonary ailments he was suffering from his handling of asbestos. Driscolls parents were encouraged to try to get Bobby into films and their barbers son, an actor, got Bobby an audition at MGM for a bit role in the 1943 family drama Lost Angel, which starred then up-and-coming Margaret OBrien. While on a tour across the lot, five-year-old Driscoll noticed a mock-up ship. The director was impressed by the curiosity and intelligence. With his natural acting and talent for memorizing lines at that young age, Driscoll and Luana Patten were the first two actors Walt Disney put under contract. Driscoll then played the character in 1946s Song of the South. Driscoll played Eddie Cantors screen son in the 1948 RKO Studios musical comedy If You Knew Susie, in which he teamed up with former Our Gang member Margaret Kerry. He and Patten appeared with Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers in the teaser for the Pecos Bill segment of Disneys cartoon compilation Melody Time. Driscoll was loaned to RKO to star in The Window, based on Cornell Woolrichs short story The Boy Cried Murder
10.
Luana Patten
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Luana Patten was an American film actress. Luana Patten was born in Long Beach, California to Harvey T. Patten and Alma Patten, natives of Enid, at the age of 3 she was a young model and later was hired by Walt Disney. Patten made her first film appearance in Joel Chandler Harriss 1946 musical Song of the South with Bobby Driscoll and they also appeared together in Song of the Souths sister film So Dear to My Heart. She appeared again with Bobby Driscoll in the Pecos Bill segment of Disneys Melody Time, in 1947, she appeared with Edgar Bergen, Charlie McCarthy, and Mortimer Snerd during the live action scenes in Fun and Fancy Free. She played the role of Priscilla Lapham in Disneys 1957 production of Johnny Tremain, in 1958, Patten played the part of Elizabeth Buckley in the episode Twelve Guns of NBCs Cimarron City western television series. It was on Cimarron City that she met her second husband, John Smith. In 1960, she played Libby Halstead in Vincente Minnellis Home from the Hill, in 1966, she played a saloon girl named Lorna Medford in the episode Credit for a Kill of Bonanza. In 1966, she had a part as Nora White. She also appeared in Fun and Fancy Free, A Thunder of Drums, and that year she also appeared on Perry Mason as defendant Cynthia Perkins in The Case of the Scarlet Scandal. She retired from the industry in 1968. Luana Patten died from respiratory failure in her home at Long Beach, California and she is interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Long Beach, California. As Nora White They Ran for Their Lives as Barbara Collins Grotesque as Old Lady Luana Patten at the Internet Movie Database Luana Patten at Find a Grave
11.
Ruth Warrick
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At the time of her death she was twenty-second on the all-time list of longest-serving soap opera actors in the United States. She made her debut in Citizen Kane, and years later celebrated her 80th birthday by attending a special screening of the film to a packed. Over the years, she collected several books about Orson Welles and Citizen Kane, in which she wrote Property of Ruth Warrick, Ruth Warrick was born June 29,1916, in Saint Joseph, Missouri, to Fred R. and Annie L. Warrick. By writing an essay in high school called Prevention and Cure of Tuberculosis, Warrick won a contest to be Miss Jubilesta, there she began her career as a radio singer, and met her first husband Eric Rolf. Warricks first big break was being hired by a young Orson Welles for Citizen Kane, in which she played Emily Monroe Norton, niece of the President of the United States and Kanes first wife. Welles pulled her photograph from the hundreds he had been sent by agents and he spoke with her in New York, Im not looking for an actress that can play a lady, he said, I want an actress who is a lady. She was in California within days, making several screen tests including one with Welles and she appeared in The Corsican Brothers, The Iron Major, Mr. Winkle Goes to War, and Guest in the House. After playing Betty Huttons sister-in-law in Lets Dance, she starred as a troubled wife looking back at her life in the religious drama Second Chance, in the 1950s, she befriended soap opera executives Irna Phillips and Agnes Nixon. Warrick became a cast member on the soap opera The Guiding Light, playing Janet Johnson, Phillips was impressed by Warricks performance and hired her for her new soap opera, As the World Turns when the show debuted in 1956. Her character, Edith Hughes, was madly in love with a married man, Phillips wanted the characters to live happily ever after, but Procter & Gamble, which owned the show, demanded that the characters not endorse adultery, so Jim died. She stayed on the show until 1960, from 1959-60, she understudied for Una Merkel and Eileen Herlie in the Broadway musical, Take Me Along. During the 1961-62 television season, she starred in Father of the Bride television series, then, in 1965, she joined the cast of the primetime serial, Peyton Place, playing Hannah Cord. While there had been previous primetime serials, none had enjoyed the success of Peyton Place. Warrick received an Emmy Award nomination for her work on show in 1967. In 1969, she made her last major film, Disneys The Great Bank Robbery, during this time, Nixon had been moving up the daytime television ranks. She had created her own show, One Life to Live, ABC approved her new show, All My Children, in 1969. When All My Children debuted on January 5,1970, Warrick was among the contracted cast, the show was an instant hit and Phoebe became a popular character. Warrick received Daytime Emmy Award nominations in 1975 and 1977, in 1985, she played Hannah Cord in the television film Peyton Place, The Next Generation
12.
Lucile Watson
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Lucile Watson was a Canadian-American actress. She was famous for her roles of formidable dowagers, Watson was Canadian-born, raised in Ottawa after having been born in Quebec, the daughter of an officer in the British Army. Despite his wishes, she traveled to New York City and enrolled in a dramatic school, Watson began her career on the stage debuting on Broadway in the play Hearts Aflame in 1902. Her next play was The Girl With Green Eyes, the first of several Clyde Fitch stories, at the end of 1903, Watson appeared in Fitchs Glad of It. For the rest of the decade, she appeared in several more Fitch stories into the 1910s, Watson was primarily a stage actress, appearing in 39 Broadway plays. She starred in plays as Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, Heartbreak House, Ghosts, The Importance of Being Earnest. Watsons first film role was in the 1916 silent film The Girl with Green Eyes and she did not appear in another movie until 1930, when she had an uncredited role in The Royal Family of Broadway. In 1939, she played a role as Norma Shearers wise mother in the multi-Academy-Award-winning cultural comedy/drama from the Clare Booth Luce play, The Women. Watson reached the height of her acting career in playwright Lillian Hellmans anti-fascist dramatic stage play Watch on the Rhine on Broadway in 1941. Two years later in Hollywood, she and Lukas reprised their roles in the film adaptation, Lucile Watson played Aunt March in the 1949 film version of Little Women, whose stars included Elizabeth Taylor as Amy. Watsons first name, Lucile, is misspelled in her movie credits as Lucille. Watson in her youth had a beauty but with a stern expression on her face. Photos taken during her Broadway years show a look to which audiences would become accustomed. It is not known if she cultivated this look for films or if she wanted to ward off a lot of attention to her subtle beauty. Sometime in the 1910s, she was married to silent film star Rockliffe Fellowes. Her second husband was playwright Louis E. Shipman, whom she married in 1928, Watson died on June 25,1962, after suffering a heart attack at age 83. She is buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, no More Ladies as Mrs. Fanny Townsend Watch on the Rhine as Fanny Farrelly Lucile Watson biography by Film historian T. R
13.
Hattie McDaniel
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Hattie McDaniel was an African American stage actress, professional singer-songwriter, and comedian. She is best known for her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, the first Academy Award won by an African American entertainer. In addition to acting in films, McDaniel was a radio performer and television star. She appeared in over 300 films, although she received screen credits for only 80 or so. McDaniel has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood, one at 6933 Hollywood Boulevard for her contributions to radio and one at 1719 Vine Street for acting in motion pictures. In 1975, she was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, McDaniel was born June 10,1895, in Wichita, Kansas, to former slaves. She was the youngest of 13 children and her father, Henry McDaniel, fought in the Civil War with the 122nd United States Colored Troops and her mother, Susan Holbert, was a singer of religious music. In 1900, the moved to Colorado, living first in Fort Collins and then in Denver. Her brother, Sam McDaniel, played the butler in the 1948 Three Stooges’ short film Heavenly Daze and her sister Etta McDaniel was also an actress. McDaniel was not only a performer but was also a songwriter and she honed her songwriting skills while working with her brothers minstrel show. After the death of her brother Otis in 1916, the troupe began to lose money, from 1920 to 1925, she appeared with Professor George Morrisons Melody Hounds, a black touring ensemble. In the mid-1920s, she embarked on a career, singing with the Melody Hounds on station KOA in Denver. From 1926 to 1929, she recorded many of her songs for Okeh Records, after the stock market crashed in 1929, the only work McDaniel could find was as a washroom attendant and waitress at Club Madrid in Milwaukee. Despite the owners reluctance to let her perform, she was allowed to take the stage. In 1931, McDaniel moved to Los Angeles to join her brother Sam and her sisters Etta, when she could not get film work, she took jobs as a maid or cook. Sam was working on a KNX radio program, The Optimistic Do-Nut Hour and she performed on radio as Hi-Hat Hattie, a bossy maid who often forgets her place. Her show became popular, but her salary was so low that she had to continue working as a maid and her first film appearance was in The Golden West, in which she played a maid. Her second was in the highly successful Mae West film Im No Angel and she received several other uncredited film roles in the early 1930s, often singing in choruses
14.
Gregg Toland
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Toland was born in Charleston, Illinois on May 29,1904 to Jennie, a housekeeper, and Frank Toland. His mother moved to California several years after his parents divorced in 1910, during the 1930s, Toland became the youngest cameraman in Hollywood but soon one of its most sought-after cinematographers. Over a seven-year span, he was nominated five times for the Best Cinematography Oscar and he worked with many of the top directors of his era, including John Ford, Howard Hawks, Erich von Stroheim, King Vidor, Orson Welles, and William Wyler. He died in Los Angeles, California on September 28,1948 of coronary thrombosis at age 44 and he is interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California. Just before his death, he was concentrating on the ultimate focus lens, just before he died he had worked out a new lens with which he had made spectacular shots. He carried in his wallet a strip of film taken with this lens and it was a shot of a face three inches from the lens, filling one-third of the left side of the frame. Three feet from the lens, in the center of the foreground, was another face, everything was in focus, from three inches to infinity. Some film historians believe Citizen Kanes visual brilliance was due primarily to the contributions of Toland, however, many Welles scholars maintain that the visual style of Kane is similar to many of Welless other films, and hence should be considered the directors work. Nevertheless, the Welles movies that most resemble Citizen Kane were shot by Toland collaborators Russell Metty, at the time Kane was produced and released, Welles and Toland insisted that Welles gave lighting instructions that fall normally under the director of photographys responsibility. Many of the transitions in the film are done as lighting cues on set, different areas of the frame dissolve at different times, based on the lighting cue. However, the visuals were truly a collaboration, as Toland contributed great amounts of expertise that Welles needed so that he could achieve his vision. Years later, Welles acknowledged, Toland was advising him on camera placement, Tolands techniques were revolutionary in the art of cinematography. According to Toland, this style was more comparable with what the eyes see in real life since vision blurs what is not looked at rather than what is. He continued to develop the technologies that would allow for him to create his images in Citizen Kane and he also modified the Mitchell Camera to allow a wider range of movement, especially from low angles. ″It was Toland who devised a system for focusing his camera lens without having to get in the way of the camera operator who would now be free to pan. The main way to deep focus was closing down the aperture, which required increasing the lighting intensity, lenses with better light transmission. On Citizen Kane, the cameras and coated lenses used were of Tolands own design working in conjunction with engineers from Caltech and his lenses were treated with Vard Opticoat to reduce glare and increase light transmission. He used the Kodak Super XX film stock, which was, at the time, Toland had worked closely with a Kodak representative during the stocks creation before its release in October of 1938, and was one of the first cinematographers using it heavily on set
15.
Walt Disney Pictures
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Walt Disney Pictures, Inc. is an American film production company and a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, owned by The Walt Disney Company. The subsidiary is based at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California and it took on its current name in 1983. Today, in conjunction with the units of Walt Disney Studios. Animated films such as those by Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios are released under this brand. Pirates of the Caribbean series is the corporations most successful franchise, the studios predecessor was founded as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, by filmmaker Walt Disney and his business partner and brother, Roy, in 1923. The creation of Mickey Mouse and subsequent short films and merchandise generated revenue for the studio which was renamed as The Walt Disney Studio at the Hyperion Studio in 1926, in 1929, it was renamed again to Walt Disney Productions. With the profits from Snow White, Walt relocated to a studio in Burbank. In the 1940s, Disney began experimenting with full-length live-action films, with the introduction of hybrid live action-animated films such as The Reluctant Dragon and Song of the South. By 1953, the company ended their agreements with such third-party distributors as RKO Radio Pictures and United Artists and formed their own distribution company, Buena Vista Distribution. The Walt Disney Productions in April 1983 incorporated its film division as Walt Disney Pictures, Inc. Touchstone Films banner was used by then new Disney CEO Michael Eisner in the 1984–85 television season with the short lived western, Wildside. The next TV season, Touchstone produced a hit with The Golden Girls, David Hoberman was promoted to president of production, Walt Disney Pictures in April 1988. In April 1994, Hoberman was promoted to president of motion pictures at Walt Disney Studios and was replaced as Disney President by David Vogel. Vogel added the position of Hollywood Pictures in 1997, then was promoted in 1998 to head up all live action motion picture units as president of Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group, Pirates of the Caribbean launched a film series and made the ride into a franchise. After four Pirates sequels, the franchise took in more than $5.4 billion worldwide, so, the corporation was looking for addition of the ride adaptations. In 2010, Disney released Alice in Wonderland, an adaptation of the 1951 animated film of the name that became the second $1 billion-grossing film in the studios history. The film began a trend of fantasy genre films being green-lit. With sister units Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm successfully targeting the male market, with the success of Maleficent and Cinderella, the studio announced a whole series of live-action adaptations of animated films as being in early stages. The Jungle Book cemented this trend with a global near billion-dollar box office, some adaptations are sequels to existing adaptations, origin stories and prequels
16.
RKO Pictures
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RKO Pictures Inc. also known as RKO Radio Pictures and in its later years RKO Teleradio Pictures, was an American film production and distribution company. It was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywoods Golden Age, RCA chief David Sarnoff engineered the merger to create a market for the companys sound-on-film technology, RCA Photophone. By the mid-1940s, the studio was under the control of investor Floyd Odlum, RKO has long been celebrated for its series of musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the mid-to-late 1930s. Actors Katharine Hepburn and, later, Robert Mitchum had their first major successes at the studio, cary Grant was a mainstay for years. The work of producer Val Lewtons low-budget horror unit and RKOs many ventures into the now known as film noir have been acclaimed, largely after the fact, by film critics. The studio produced two of the most famous films in motion picture history, King Kong and Citizen Kane, RKO Pictures is also a member of Motion Picture Association of America. Maverick industrialist Howard Hughes took over RKO in 1948, after years of turmoil and decline under his control, Hughes sold the troubled studio to General Tire and Rubber Company in 1955. The original RKO Pictures ceased production in 1957 and was dissolved two years later. In 1981, broadcaster RKO General, the heir, revived it as a production subsidiary. In October 1927, Warner Bros. released The Jazz Singer and its success prompted Hollywood to convert from silent to sound film production en masse. The Radio Corporation of America controlled an advanced optical sound-on-film system, RCA Photophone, the industrys two largest major studios, Paramount and Loews/MGM, with two other studios Universal and First National, were poised to contract with ERPI for sound conversion as well. Next on the agenda was securing a string of exhibition venues like those the leading Hollywood production companies owned, Kennedy began investigating the possibility of such a purchase. Around that time, the large Keith-Albee-Orpheum circuit of theaters, built around the medium of live vaudeville, was attempting a transition to the movie business. In mid-1927, the operations of Pathé Exchange and Cecil B. De Milles Producers Distributing Corporation had united under KAOs control, early in 1928, KAO general manager John J. Murdock, who had assumed the presidency of Pathé, turned to Kennedy as an adviser in consolidating the studio with De Milles company, PDC. This was the relationship Sarnoff and Kennedy sought, on October 23,1928, RCA announced the creation of the Radio-Keith-Orpheum holding company, with Sarnoff as chairman of the board. Kennedy, who withdrew from his positions in the merged companies, kept Pathé separate from RKO. RCA owned the governing stock interest in RKO,22 percent, in the early 1930s, the companys production and distribution arm, presided over by former FBO vice-president Joseph I
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Musical film
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The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline. The musical film was a development of the stage musical after the emergence of sound film technology. Typically, the biggest difference between film and stage musicals is the use of background scenery and locations that would be impractical in a theater. Musical films characteristically contain elements reminiscent of theater, performers often treat their song, in a sense, the viewer becomes the diegetic audience, as the performer looks directly into the camera and performs to it. The 1930s through the early 1950s are considered to be the age of the musical film. Musical short films were made by Lee de Forest in 1923–24, beginning in 1926, thousands of Vitaphone shorts were made, many featuring bands, vocalists and dancers. The Jazz Singer, released in 1927 by Warner Brothers, was the first to include a track including non-diegetic music and diegetic music. This feature-length film was also a musical, featuring Al Jolson singing Dirty Hands, Dirty Face, Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Blue Skies and My Mammy. Historian Scott Eyman wrote, As the film ended and applause grew with the houselights and she saw terror in all their faces, she said, as if they knew that the game they had been playing for years was finally over. Still, only isolated sequences featured live sound, most of the film had only a musical score. In 1928, Warner Brothers followed this up with another Jolson part-talkie, The Singing Fool, theaters scrambled to install the new sound equipment and to hire Broadway composers to write musicals for the screen. The first all-talking feature, Lights of New York, included a sequence in a night club. The enthusiasm of audiences was so great that in less than an all the major studios were making sound pictures exclusively. The Broadway Melody had a plot about two sisters competing for a charming song-and-dance man. Advertised by MGM as the first All-Talking, All-Singing, All-Dancing feature film, it was a hit, there was a rush by the studios to hire talent from the stage to star in lavishly filmed versions of Broadway hits. The Love Parade starred Maurice Chevalier and newcomer Jeanette MacDonald, written by Broadway veteran Guy Bolton, Warner Brothers produced the first screen operetta, The Desert Song in 1929. They spared no expense and photographed a large percentage of the film in Technicolor and this was followed by the first all-color, all-talking musical feature which was entitled On with the Show
18.
Southern United States
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The Southern United States, commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South, is a region of the United States of America. The South does not fully match the geographic south of the United States, arizona and New Mexico, which are geographically in the southern part of the country, are rarely considered part, while West Virginia, which separated from Virginia in 1863, commonly is. Some scholars have proposed definitions of the South that do not coincide neatly with state boundaries, while the states of Delaware and Maryland, as well as the District of Columbia permitted slavery prior to the start of the Civil War, they remained with the Union. However, the United States Census Bureau puts them in the South, usually, the South is defined as including the southeastern and south-central United States. The region is known for its culture and history, having developed its own customs, musical styles, and cuisines, the Southern ethnic heritage is diverse and includes strong European, African, and some Native American components. Since the late 1960s, black people have many offices in Southern states, especially in the coastal states of Virginia. Historically, the South relied heavily on agriculture, and was rural until after 1945. It has since become more industrialized and urban and has attracted national and international migrants, the American South is now among the fastest-growing areas in the United States. Houston is the largest city in the Southern United States, sociological research indicates that Southern collective identity stems from political, demographic, and cultural distinctiveness from the rest of the United States. The region contains almost all of the Bible Belt, an area of high Protestant church attendance and predominantly conservative, indeed, studies have shown that Southerners are more conservative than non-Southerners in several areas, including religion, morality, international relations and race relations. Apart from its climate, the experience in the South increasingly resembles the rest of the nation. The arrival of millions of Northerners and millions of Hispanics meant the introduction of cultural values, the process has worked both ways, however, with aspects of Southern culture spreading throughout a greater portion of the rest of the United States in a process termed Southernization. The question of how to define the subregions in the South has been the focus of research for nearly a century, as defined by the United States Census Bureau, the Southern region of the United States includes sixteen states. As of 2010, an estimated 114,555,744 people, or thirty-seven percent of all U. S. residents, lived in the South, the nations most populous region. Other terms related to the South include, The Old South, the New South, usually including the South Atlantic States. The Solid South, region largely controlled by the Democratic Party from 1877 to 1964, before that, blacks were elected to national office and many to local office through the 1880s, Populist-Republican coalitions gained victories for Fusionist candidates for governors in the 1890s. Includes at least all the 11 former Confederate States, Southeastern United States, usually including the Carolinas, the Virginias, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. The Deep South, various definitions, usually including Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, occasionally, parts of adjoining states are included
19.
Reconstruction Era
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Johnson followed a lenient policy toward ex-Confederates. Lincolns last speeches show that he was leaning toward supporting the enfranchisement of all freedmen, whereas Johnson was opposed to this. A Republican coalition came to power in all the southern states and set out to transform the society by setting up a free labor economy, using the U. S. Army. The Bureau protected the rights of freedmen, negotiated labor contracts. Thousands of Northerners came South as missionaries, teachers, businessmen, rebuilding the rundown railroad system was a major strategy, but it collapsed when a nationwide depression struck the economy. The Radicals in the House of Representatives, frustrated by Johnsons opposition to Congressional Reconstruction, filed impeachment charges, in early 1866, Congress passed the Freedmens Bureau and Civil Rights Bills and sent them to Johnson for his signature. Meanwhile, self-styled Conservatives strongly opposed reconstruction and they alleged widespread corruption by the Carpetbaggers, excessive state spending and ruinous taxes. Southern democrats and conservatives violently counterattacked and had regained power in each redeemed Southern state by 1877, meanwhile, public support for Reconstruction policies, requiring continued supervision of the South, faded in the North, as voters decided that the Civil War and years of conflict should stop. Reconstruction was a significant chapter in the history of civil rights in the United States, in the different states Reconstruction began and ended at different times, federal Reconstruction ended with the Compromise of 1877. In recent decades most historians follow Foner in dating the Reconstruction of the south as starting in 1863 rather than 1865, Reconstruction policies were debated in the North when the war began, and commenced in earnest after Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation, issued on January 1,1863. As Confederate states came back under control of the US Army, President Abraham Lincoln set up reconstructed governments in Tennessee, Arkansas and he experimented by giving land to blacks in South Carolina. By fall 1865, the new President Andrew Johnson declared the war goals of national unity, Republicans in Congress, refusing to accept Johnsons lenient terms, rejected new members of Congress, some of whom had been high-ranking Confederate officials a few months before. Johnson broke with the Republicans after vetoing two key bills that supported the Freedmens Bureau and provided federal civil rights to the freedmen and that same year, Congress removed civilian governments in the South, and placed the former Confederacy under the rule of the U. S. Army. In ten states, coalitions of freedmen, recent black and white arrivals from the North, Conservative opponents called the Republican regimes corrupt and instigated violence toward freedmen and whites who supported Reconstruction. Most of the violence was carried out by members of the Ku Klux Klan, Klan members attacked and intimidated blacks seeking to exercise their new civil rights, as well as Republican politicians in the south favoring those civil rights. One such politician murdered by the Klan on the eve of the 1868 presidential election was Republican Congressman James M. Hinds of Arkansas, widespread violence in the south led to federal intervention by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1871, which suppressed the Klan. Nevertheless, white Democrats, calling themselves Redeemers, regained control of the state by state, sometimes using fraud. The end of Reconstruction was a process, and the period of Republican control ended at different times in different states
20.
American Civil War
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The American Civil War was an internal conflict fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of America, the Union won the war, which remains the bloodiest in U. S. history. Among the 34 U. S. states in February 1861, War broke out in April 1861 when Confederates attacked the U. S. fortress of Fort Sumter. The Confederacy grew to eleven states, it claimed two more states, the Indian Territory, and the southern portions of the western territories of Arizona. The Confederacy was never recognized by the United States government nor by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal, including border states where slavery was legal, were known as the Union or the North, the war ended with the surrender of all the Confederate armies and the dissolution of the Confederate government in the spring of 1865. The war had its origin in the issue of slavery. The Confederacy collapsed and 4 million slaves were freed, but before his inauguration, seven slave states with cotton-based economies formed the Confederacy. The first six to declare secession had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, the first seven with state legislatures to resolve for secession included split majorities for unionists Douglas and Bell in Georgia with 51% and Louisiana with 55%. Alabama had voted 46% for those unionists, Mississippi with 40%, Florida with 38%, Texas with 25%, of these, only Texas held a referendum on secession. Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession, outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincolns March 4,1861 inaugural address declared that his administration would not initiate a civil war, speaking directly to the Southern States, he reaffirmed, I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists. I believe I have no right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. After Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy, efforts at compromise failed, the Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on King Cotton that they would intervene, but none did, and none recognized the new Confederate States of America. Hostilities began on April 12,1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, while in the Western Theater the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, the battle was inconclusive in 1861–62. The autumn 1862 Confederate campaigns into Maryland and Kentucky failed, dissuading British intervention, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal. To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy, then much of their western armies, the 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lees Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg, Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grants command of all Union armies in 1864
21.
Slavery in the United States
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Slavery had been practiced in British North America from early colonial days, and was legal in all Thirteen Colonies at the time of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. By the time of the American Revolution, the status of slave had been institutionalized as a racial caste associated with African ancestry, when the United States Constitution was ratified, a relatively small number of free people of color were among the voting citizens. During and immediately following the Revolutionary War, abolitionist laws were passed in most Northern states, most of these states had a higher proportion of free labor than in the South and economies based on different industries. They abolished slavery by the end of the 18th century, some with gradual systems that kept adults as slaves for two decades. But the rapid expansion of the industry in the Deep South after the invention of the cotton gin greatly increased demand for slave labor. Congress during the Jefferson administration prohibited the importation of slaves, effective in 1808, domestic slave trading, however, continued at a rapid pace, driven by labor demands from the development of cotton plantations in the Deep South. More than one million slaves were sold from the Upper South, which had a surplus of labor, New communities of African-American culture were developed in the Deep South, and the total slave population in the South eventually reached 4 million before liberation. As the West was developed for settlement, the Southern state governments wanted to keep a balance between the number of slave and free states to maintain a balance of power in Congress. The new territories acquired from Britain, France, and Mexico were the subject of major political compromises, by 1850, the newly rich cotton-growing South was threatening to secede from the Union, and tensions continued to rise. When Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election on a platform of halting the expansion of slavery, the first six states to secede held the greatest number of slaves in the South. Shortly after, the Civil War began when Confederate forces attacked the US Armys Fort Sumter, four additional slave states then seceded. In the early years of the Chesapeake Bay settlements, colonial officials found it difficult to attract and retain laborers under the frontier conditions. Most laborers came from Britain as indentured servants, having signed contracts of indenture to pay with work for their passage, their upkeep and training and these indentured servants were young people who intended to become permanent residents. In some cases, convicted criminals were transported to the colonies as indentured servants, the indentured servants were not slaves, but were required to work for four to seven years in Virginia to pay the cost of their passage and maintenance. Historians estimate that more than half of all immigrants to the English colonies of North America during the 17th and 18th centuries came as indentured servants. The number of indentured servants among immigrants was particularly high in the South, many Germans, Scots-Irish, and Irish came to the colonies in the 18th century, settling in the backcountry of Pennsylvania and further south. The planters in the South found that the problem with indentured servants was that many left after several years, just when they had become skilled. In addition, an economy in England in the late 17th
22.
Plantations in the American South
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A plantation is an area of land or water where one crop is specifically planted for widespread commercial sale. The crops grown include cotton, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar cane, sisal, oil seeds, oil palms, rubber trees, protectionist policies and natural comparative advantage have sometimes contributed to determining where plantations were located. Among the earliest examples of plantations were the latifundia of the Roman Empire, Plantation agriculture grew rapidly with the increase in international trade and the development of a worldwide economy that followed the expansion of European colonial empires. Like every economic activity, it has changed over time, Industrial plantations are established to produce a high volume of wood in a short period of time. Plantations are grown by state forestry authorities and/or the paper and wood industries, christmas trees are often grown on plantations as well. In southern and southeastern Asia, teak plantations have replaced the natural forest. Industrial plantations are managed for the commercial production of forest products. Individual blocks are usually even-aged and often consist of just one or two species and these species can be exotic or indigenous. Forest genetic resources are the basis for genetic alteration, selected individuals grown in seed orchards are a good source for seeds to develop adequate planting material. Wood production on a plantation is generally higher than that of natural forests. In 2000, while plantations accounted for 5% of global forest, in the first year, the ground is prepared usually by the combination of burning, herbicide spraying, and/or cultivation and then saplings are planted by human crew or by machine. The saplings are usually obtained in bulk from industrial nurseries, which may specialize in breeding in order to produce fast growing disease-. In the first few years until the canopy closes, the saplings are looked after, after the canopy closes, with the tree crowns touching each other, the plantation is becoming dense and crowded, and tree growth is slowing due to competition. This stage is termed pole stage, when competition becomes too intense, it is time to thin out the section. There are several methods for thinning, but where topography permits, the most popular is row-thinning, many trees are removed, leaving regular clear lanes through the section so that the remaining trees have room to expand again. The removed trees are delimbed, forwarded to the forest road, loaded onto trucks, a typical pole stage plantation tree is 7–30 cm in diameter at breast height. Such trees are not suitable for timber, but are used as pulp for paper and particleboard. As the trees grow and become dense and crowded again, the process is repeated
23.
Br'er Rabbit
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Brer Rabbit /ˈbrɛər/, also spelled Brer Rabbit or Brer Rabbit or Bruh Rabbit, is a central figure as Uncle Remus tells stories of the Southern United States. Brer Rabbit is a trickster who succeeds by his wits rather than by brawn, provoking authority figures, the Walt Disney Company later adapted this character for its 1946 animated motion picture Song of the South. In one tale, Brer Fox constructs a doll out of a lump of tar, when Brer Rabbit comes along he addresses the Tar-Baby amiably, but receives no response. Brer Rabbit becomes offended by what he perceives as the Tar-Babys lack of manners, punches it, the more Brer Rabbit punches and kicks the tar baby out of rage, the more he gets stuck. When Brer Fox reveals himself, the helpless but cunning Brer Rabbit pleads, please, Brer Fox, dont fling me in dat brier-patch, as rabbits are at home in thickets, the resourceful Brer Rabbit uses the thorns and briers to escape. The story was published in Harpers Weekly by Robert Roosevelt. The Brer Rabbit stories can be traced back to figures in Africa, particularly the hare that figures prominently in the storytelling traditions in West, Central. These tales continue to be part of the folklore of numerous peoples throughout those regions. In the Akan traditions of West Africa, the trickster is usually the spider Anansi, however, Anansi does encounter a tricky rabbit called Adanko in some stories. The Jamaican character with the same name Brer Rabbit, is an adaptation of the Ananse stories of the Akan people, though not always successful, the efforts of Brer Rabbit made him a folk hero. However, the trickster is a multidimensional character, while he can be a hero, his amoral nature and his lack of any positive restraint can make him into a villain as well. For both Africans and African Americans, the animal represents a extreme form of behavior that people may be forced to adopt in extreme circumstances in order to survive. The trickster is not to be admired in every situation and he is an example of what to do, but also an example of what not to do. The tricksters behavior can be summed up in the common African proverb, in other words, sometimes people must use extreme measures in extreme circumstances. Several elements in the Brer Rabbit Tar Baby story are reminiscent of those found in a Zimbabwe-Botswana folktale, the stories of Brer Rabbit were written down by Robert Roosevelt, an uncle of US President Theodore Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt wrote in his autobiography about his aunt from the State of Georgia, that She knew all the Brer Rabbit stories, and I was brought up on them. One of my uncles, Robert Roosevelt, was struck with them, and took them down from her dictation, publishing them in Harpers. This was a good many years before a genius arose who, in Uncle Remus, Harris also attributed the birth name Riley to Brer Rabbit
24.
Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear
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Brer Fox and Brer Bear are fictional characters from the Uncle Remus folktales adapted and compiled by Joel Chandler Harris. In the animated sequences of the 1946 Walt Disney-produced film Song of the South like in the tales, Brer Fox is the stories antagonist, while Brer Bear is his dim-witted henchman. Brer Fox was voiced by actor James Baskett, who portrayed the live-action character Uncle Remus. In later appearances of the characters, the two were voiced by J. D. Hall and James Avery, in contrast to the earlier illustrations of Frederick S. Church, A. B. Frost, and E. W. Kemble, the Disney animators depict the characters in a more slapstick, the cult film Coonskin, directed by Ralph Bakshi, focuses on a trio of characters inspired by the original folktales. Brer Rabbit, Brer Bear and Brer Fox all appear, Brer Fox and Brer Bear appear in the Splash Mountain attractions at Disneyland, Walt Disney Worlds Magic Kingdom and Tokyo Disneyland. They also appear with Brer Rabbit at the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts for meet-and-greets, parades, an entire segment dedicated to the pair is featured in the 1956 one-hour television special Our Unsung Villains. Brer Bear has made appearances in other Disney films. He can be frequently in various scenes in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Brer Bear has also made appearances in Disneys Gladstone comics. Both Brer Bear and Brer Fox make an appearance in the video game Disneyland Adventures, and both can be seen near Splash Mountain in Critter Country
25.
Phoenix, Arizona
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Phoenix is the capital and most populous city of the U. S. state of Arizona. Phoenix is the anchor of the Phoenix metropolitan area, also known as the Valley of the Sun, the metropolitan area is the 12th largest by population in the United States, with approximately 4.3 million people as of 2010. Settled in 1867 as a community near the confluence of the Salt and Gila Rivers. Located in the reaches of the Sonoran Desert, Phoenix has a subtropical desert climate. Despite this, its canal system led to a farming community, many of the original crops remaining important parts of the Phoenix economy for decades, such as alfalfa, cotton, citrus. The city averaged a four percent annual growth rate over a 40-year period from the mid-1960s to the mid-2000s. This growth rate slowed during the Great Recession of 2007–09, and has rebounded slowly, Phoenix is the cultural center of the Valley of the Sun, as well as the entire state. For more than 2,000 years, the Hohokam people occupied the land that would become Phoenix, the Hohokam created roughly 135 miles of irrigation canals, making the desert land arable. Paths of these canals would later used for the modern Arizona Canal, Central Arizona Project Canal. The Hohokam also carried out trade with the nearby Anasazi, Mogollon and Sinagua. It is believed that between 1300 and 1450, periods of drought and severe floods led to the Hohokam civilizations abandonment of the area. After the departure of the Hohokam, groups of Akimel Oodham, Tohono Oodham and Maricopa tribes began to use the area, as well as segments of the Yavapai and Apache. The Oodham were offshoots of the Sobaipuri tribe, who in turn were thought to be the descendants of the formerly urbanized Hohokam and their crops included corn, beans, and squash for food, while cotton and tobacco were also cultivated. Mostly a peaceful group, they did together with the Maricopa for their mutual protection against incursions by both the Yuma and Apache tribes. The Tohono Oodham lived in the region as well, but their concentration was to the south. Living in small settlements, the Oodham were seasonal farmers who took advantage of the rains and they also hunted local game such as deer, rabbit, and javalina for meat. When the Mexican–American War ended in 1848, Mexico ceded its northern zone to the United States, the Phoenix area became part of the New Mexico Territory. In 1863 the mining town of Wickenburg was the first to be established in what is now Maricopa County, at the time Maricopa County had not yet been incorporated, the land was within Yavapai County, which included the major town of Prescott to the north of Wickenburg
26.
Hollywood
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Hollywood is an ethnically diverse, densely populated neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. It is notable as the home of the U. S. film industry, including several of its studios, and its name has come to be a shorthand reference for the industry. Hollywood was a community in 1870 and was incorporated as a municipality in 1903. It was consolidated with the city of Los Angeles in 1910, in 1853, one adobe hut stood in Nopalera, named for the Mexican Nopal cactus indigenous to the area. By 1870, an agricultural community flourished, the area was known as the Cahuenga Valley, after the pass in the Santa Monica Mountains immediately to the north. According to the diary of H. J. Whitley, known as the Father of Hollywood, along came a Chinese man in a wagon carrying wood. The man got out of the wagon and bowed, the Chinese man was asked what he was doing and replied, I holly-wood, meaning hauling wood. H. J. Whitley had an epiphany and decided to name his new town Hollywood, Holly would represent England and wood would represent his Scottish heritage. Whitley had already started over 100 towns across the western United States, Whitley arranged to buy the 500-acre E. C. Hurd ranch and disclosed to him his plans for the land. They agreed on a price and Hurd agreed to sell at a later date, before Whitley got off the ground with Hollywood, plans for the new town had spread to General Harrison Gray Otis, Hurds wife, eastern adjacent ranch co-owner Daeida Wilcox, and others. Daeida Wilcox may have learned of the name Hollywood from Ivar Weid, her neighbor in Holly Canyon and she recommended the same name to her husband, Harvey. In August 1887, Wilcox filed with the Los Angeles County Recorders office a deed and parcel map of property he had sold named Hollywood, Wilcox wanted to be the first to record it on a deed. The early real-estate boom busted that year, yet Hollywood began its slow growth. By 1900, the region had a post office, newspaper, hotel, Los Angeles, with a population of 102,479 lay 10 miles east through the vineyards, barley fields, and citrus groves. A single-track streetcar line ran down the middle of Prospect Avenue from it, but service was infrequent, the old citrus fruit-packing house was converted into a livery stable, improving transportation for the inhabitants of Hollywood. The Hollywood Hotel was opened in 1902 by H. J. Whitley who was a president of the Los Pacific Boulevard, having finally acquired the Hurd ranch and subdivided it, Whitley built the hotel to attract land buyers. Flanking the west side of Highland Avenue, the structure fronted on Prospect Avenue, the hotel was to become internationally known and was the center of the civic and social life and home of the stars for many years. Whitleys company developed and sold one of the residential areas
27.
Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah
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Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah is a song composed by Allie Wrubel with lyrics by Ray Gilbert from the Disney 1946 live action and animated movie Song of the South, sung by James Baskett. For Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah, the won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and was the second in a long line of Disney songs to win this award. In 2004 it finished at number 47 in AFIs 100 Years.100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema. For many years the song was part of an opening medley for the Wonderful World of Disney television program and it has often been used in other TV. It is one of popular songs that features a bluebird, epitomized by the Bluebird of Happiness. The song is influenced by the chorus of the pre-Civil War folk song Zip Coon, the term Zip Coon is now considered racist as it plays on a derogatory slang term for African Americans. Soxx & the Blue Jeans, a Phil Spector-produced American rhythm and blues trio from Los Angeles, Phil Spector said, Leave it like that, its great. Some years later started to try to copy that sound. The song also marked the first time his Wall of Sound production formula was fully executed, soxx & the Blue Jeans took their version of the song to number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1963. Their song also peaked at number 45 in the UK Singles Chart the same year, the song was included on the only album the group ever recorded, Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah, issued on the Philles Records label. As a result, Mercer had to correct listeners who mistakenly assumed that he wrote it
28.
African Americans
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African Americans are an ethnic group of Americans with total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. The term may also be used to only those individuals who are descended from enslaved Africans. As a compound adjective the term is usually hyphenated as African-American, Black and African Americans constitute the third largest racial and ethnic group in the United States. Most African Americans are of West and Central African descent and are descendants of enslaved peoples within the boundaries of the present United States. On average, African Americans are of 73. 2–80. 9% West African, 18–24% European, according to US Census Bureau data, African immigrants generally do not self-identify as African American. The overwhelming majority of African immigrants identify instead with their own respective ethnicities, immigrants from some Caribbean, Central American and South American nations and their descendants may or may not also self-identify with the term. After the founding of the United States, black people continued to be enslaved, believed to be inferior to white people, they were treated as second-class citizens. The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited U. S. citizenship to whites only, in 2008, Barack Obama became the first African American to be elected President of the United States. The first African slaves arrived via Santo Domingo to the San Miguel de Gualdape colony, the ill-fated colony was almost immediately disrupted by a fight over leadership, during which the slaves revolted and fled the colony to seek refuge among local Native Americans. De Ayllón and many of the colonists died shortly afterwards of an epidemic, the settlers and the slaves who had not escaped returned to Haiti, whence they had come. The first recorded Africans in British North America were 20 and odd negroes who came to Jamestown, as English settlers died from harsh conditions, more and more Africans were brought to work as laborers. Typically, young men or women would sign a contract of indenture in exchange for transportation to the New World, the landowner received 50 acres of land from the state for each servant purchased from a ships captain. An indentured servant would work for years without wages. The status of indentured servants in early Virginia and Maryland was similar to slavery, servants could be bought, sold, or leased and they could be physically beaten for disobedience or running away. Africans could legally raise crops and cattle to purchase their freedom and they raised families, married other Africans and sometimes intermarried with Native Americans or English settlers. By the 1640s and 1650s, several African families owned farms around Jamestown and some became wealthy by colonial standards and purchased indentured servants of their own. In 1640, the Virginia General Court recorded the earliest documentation of slavery when they sentenced John Punch. One of Dutch African arrivals, Anthony Johnson, would own one of the first black slaves, John Casor
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Racism in the United States
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Racism and ethnic discrimination in the United States has been a major issue since the colonial era and the slave era. Legally or socially sanctioned privileges and rights were given to white Americans that were not granted to Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, East and South Asians have similarly faced racism in America. Formal racial discrimination was largely banned in the century. Racial politics remains a phenomenon, and racism continues to be reflected in socioeconomic inequality. Racial stratification continues to occur in employment, housing, education, lending, as the United States gained its independence from Great Britain it sought to keep distancing itself from Europe and its ideologies. The distinctions within the population came from the ideological and legal implementation of race within the newly formed America, as Jeffries argues the Western analytic concept of race allowed for a rhetorical smoothing over when it came to slavery. While the existence of slavery is arguably the root of subsequent conceptualizations of African-Americans, colonies were sources of mineral wealth and crops, to be used to the home countrys advantage. Using Native Americans for manpower was impractical, they were decimated by disease, using Europeans for labor proved unsustainably expensive, as well as harmful to the supply of labor in the home countries. However, African slaves were available in numbers at prices that made plantation agriculture in the Americas profitable. It is also argued that, along with the motives underlying slavery in the Americas. According to this view, the European in-group for humane behavior included the sub-continent, with the capability to spread their schematic representation of the world, Europeans could impose a social contract, morally permitting three centuries of African slavery. As a result of the above, the Atlantic slave trade prospered, according to estimates in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, between 1626 and 1860 more than 470,000 slaves were forcibly transported from Africa to what is now the United States. Furthermore, approximately one Southern family in four held slaves prior to the Civil War, according to the 1860 U. S. census, there were about 385,000 slaveowners out of a white population in the slave states of approximately 7 million. During the 1820s and 1830s the American Colonization Society was the vehicle for proposals to return black Americans to greater freedom and equality in Africa. Established the colony of Liberia, assisting thousands of former African-American slaves and it was desirable, therefore, as it respected them, and the residue of the population of the country, to drain them off. Although in 1820 the slave trade was equated with piracy, punishable by death, the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to areas loyal to, or controlled by, the Union. Slavery was not actually abolished in the United States until the passage of the 13th Amendment which was declared ratified on December 6,1865, about 4 million black slaves were freed in 1865. Ninety-five percent of blacks lived in the South, comprising one third of the population there as opposed to one percent of the population of the North, consequently, fears of eventual emancipation were much greater in the South than in the North
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Plantation
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A plantation is an area of land or water where one crop is specifically planted for widespread commercial sale. The crops grown include cotton, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar cane, sisal, oil seeds, oil palms, rubber trees, protectionist policies and natural comparative advantage have sometimes contributed to determining where plantations were located. Among the earliest examples of plantations were the latifundia of the Roman Empire, Plantation agriculture grew rapidly with the increase in international trade and the development of a worldwide economy that followed the expansion of European colonial empires. Like every economic activity, it has changed over time, Industrial plantations are established to produce a high volume of wood in a short period of time. Plantations are grown by state forestry authorities and/or the paper and wood industries, christmas trees are often grown on plantations as well. In southern and southeastern Asia, teak plantations have replaced the natural forest. Industrial plantations are managed for the commercial production of forest products. Individual blocks are usually even-aged and often consist of just one or two species and these species can be exotic or indigenous. Forest genetic resources are the basis for genetic alteration, selected individuals grown in seed orchards are a good source for seeds to develop adequate planting material. Wood production on a plantation is generally higher than that of natural forests. In 2000, while plantations accounted for 5% of global forest, in the first year, the ground is prepared usually by the combination of burning, herbicide spraying, and/or cultivation and then saplings are planted by human crew or by machine. The saplings are usually obtained in bulk from industrial nurseries, which may specialize in breeding in order to produce fast growing disease-. In the first few years until the canopy closes, the saplings are looked after, after the canopy closes, with the tree crowns touching each other, the plantation is becoming dense and crowded, and tree growth is slowing due to competition. This stage is termed pole stage, when competition becomes too intense, it is time to thin out the section. There are several methods for thinning, but where topography permits, the most popular is row-thinning, many trees are removed, leaving regular clear lanes through the section so that the remaining trees have room to expand again. The removed trees are delimbed, forwarded to the forest road, loaded onto trucks, a typical pole stage plantation tree is 7–30 cm in diameter at breast height. Such trees are not suitable for timber, but are used as pulp for paper and particleboard. As the trees grow and become dense and crowded again, the process is repeated
31.
Home video
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Home video is pre-recorded media that is either sold, rented or streamed for home entertainment. The home video business distributes films, telemovies and television series in the form of videos in various formats to the public and these are either bought or rented and then watched privately from the comfort of consumers homes. Most theatrically released films are now released on media, both optical and download-based, replacing the largely obsolete VHS medium. The VCD format remains popular in Asia, though DVDs are gradually gaining popularity, prior to the arrival of home video as a popular medium, most feature films were essentially inaccessible to the public after their original theatrical runs were over. During this era, it was also the norm that television programs could only be viewed at the time of broadcast, viewers were accustomed to the fact that there was no normal way to record TV shows at home and watch them whenever desired. It was possible to purchase a 16 mm or 8 mm film projector and rent or buy home-use prints of some cartoons, short comedies and brief highlights reels edited from feature films. In the case of the 16 mm format, most of these were available with an optical soundtrack,8 mm films almost never ran longer than ten minutes and only a few were available with a magnetic soundtrack late in the life of the format. The Super 8 film format, introduced in 1965, was marketed for making home movies, eventually, longer, edited-down versions of feature films were issued, increasingly with a magnetic soundtrack and in color. But, these were expensive and served only a small niche market of very dedicated or affluent film lovers. The Betamax and VHS home videocassette formats were introduced in 1975 and 1976 respectively, taking several years, film studios and video distributors assumed that consumers would not want to buy prerecorded videocassettes, just rent them. They also felt that all of the sales would be to video rental stores. The first company to duplicate and distribute home video was Magnetic Video in 1977, at that time, not many consumers owned a VCR, and those who did tended to rent rather than buy videos. Home video is a new area of opportunity for adventuresome publishers willing to produce new programs. Todays limitations within the marketplace may be gone tomorrow. More people are finding ways to create visually stimulating entertainment. It is a new form of publishing, a specialty line of products for vertical readership, six years ago, dog handling videos, back pain videos and cooking videos were suppositions on a drawing board. Three years ago these took life, now, along with golf and skiing tapes these S. I. videos are beginning to claim a marketshare. The wild part of new video publishing adventure is the wide diversity of support with which each product comes to the market
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Splash Mountain
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The plot behind Splash Mountain is a composite of several Uncle Remus stories. The different versions of Splash Mountain feature similar stories, albeit small differences. Each ride presents scenes taken from the segments of Song of the South, telling the story of Brer Rabbit, the protagonist. Brer Fox and Brer Bear, the antagonists of the story, are determined to catch him, the sharp-witted Brer Rabbit avoids a snare trap and uses it to trap Brer Bear instead. Brer Rabbit continues on his journey to find his laughing place, out of curiosity, his foes follow but only for Brer Rabbit to lead them into a cavern of bees. Brer Fox eventually catches Brer Rabbit in a beehive and threatens to roast him, Brer Rabbit uses reverse psychology on Brer Fox, begging the fox not to throw him into the briar patch. Naturally, Brer Fox throws Brer Rabbit into the patch, Brer Rabbit escapes uninjured, remarking, I was born. The other animals rejoice to have Brer Rabbit back home, while Brer Fox, the idea for Splash Mountain was originally conceived in the summer of 1983 by Imagineer Tony Baxter while stuck in rush hour traffic on his way to work. While trying to solve the problems of including a log flume, bringing people into Bear Country and reusing the America Sings characters, construction began at Disneyland in April 1987. By that time, Splash Mountain, whose budget had risen greatly to $75 million, had one of the most expensive projects created by Walt Disney Imagineering. According to Alice Davis, when America Sings closed in April 1988, the only way to recover was to close down America Sings and use the characters from that attraction. Baxter and his team developed the concept of Zip-a-Dee River Run, the name was later changed to Splash Mountain after then-CEO Michael Eisners mostly-ignored suggestion that the attraction be used to help market the film Splash. The characters from America Sings were used in scenes, though all of the main characters were specifically designed for Splash Mountain. Dave Feiten was then brought in to animate and fix story, Feiten then moved nearly all of the animatronics to new locations and then took out 10 animatronic figures and removed them from the ride completely to improve the show. A version of the attraction was planned for Disneyland Paris, but was scrapped due to budget reasons. The planned Grand Opening on July 17,1989, didnt go quite as hoped for, in 1991, construction began for the Splash Mountains at Walt Disney Worlds Magic Kingdom and Tokyo Disneyland. On July 17,1992, soft openings began at the Magic Kingdom, the two Splash Mountains officially opened within a day of each other in October 1992, the Tokyo attraction opened on October 1, and the Magic Kingdom attraction opened the next day. In January 2011, Splash Mountain at Magic Kingdom received lap bars for safety reasons and they received lap bars for the two or three people to share
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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
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Georgia (U.S. state)
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Georgia is a state in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1733, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies, named after King George II of Great Britain, Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2,1788. It declared its secession from the Union on January 19,1861 and it was the last state to be restored to the Union, on July 15,1870. Georgia is the 24th largest and the 8th most populous of the 50 United States, from 2007 to 2008,14 of Georgias counties ranked among the nations 100 fastest-growing, second only to Texas. Georgia is known as the Peach State and the Empire State of the South, Atlanta is the states capital, its most populous city and has been named a global city. Georgia is bordered to the south by Florida, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean and South Carolina, to the west by Alabama, the states northern part is in the Blue Ridge Mountains, part of the Appalachian Mountains system. Georgias highest point is Brasstown Bald at 4,784 feet above sea level, Georgia is the largest state entirely east of the Mississippi River in land area. Before settlement by Europeans, Georgia was inhabited by the mound building cultures, the British colony of Georgia was founded by James Oglethorpe on February 12,1733. The colony was administered by the Trustees for the Establishment of the Colony of Georgia in America under a charter issued by King George II. The Trustees implemented a plan for the colonys settlement, known as the Oglethorpe Plan. In 1742 the colony was invaded by the Spanish during the War of Jenkins Ear, in 1752, after the government failed to renew subsidies that had helped support the colony, the Trustees turned over control to the crown. Georgia became a colony, with a governor appointed by the king. The Province of Georgia was one of the Thirteen Colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution by signing the 1776 Declaration of Independence, the State of Georgias first constitution was ratified in February 1777. Georgia was the 10th state to ratify the Articles of Confederation on July 24,1778, in 1829, gold was discovered in the North Georgia mountains, which led to the Georgia Gold Rush and an established federal mint in Dahlonega, which continued its operation until 1861. The subsequent influx of white settlers put pressure on the government to land from the Cherokee Nation. In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law, sending many eastern Native American nations to reservations in present-day Oklahoma, including all of Georgias tribes. Despite the Supreme Courts ruling in Worcester v. Georgia that ruled U. S. states were not permitted to redraw the Indian boundaries, President Jackson and the state of Georgia ignored the ruling. In 1838, his successor, Martin Van Buren, dispatched troops to gather the Cherokee
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Atlanta
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Atlanta is the capital of and the most populous city in the U. S. state of Georgia, with an estimated 2015 population of 463,878. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, home to 5,710,795 people, Atlanta is the county seat of Fulton County, and a small portion of the city extends eastward into DeKalb County. In 1837, Atlanta was founded at the intersection of two lines, and the city rose from the ashes of the American Civil War to become a national center of commerce. Atlantas economy is considered diverse, with dominant sectors that include logistics, professional and business services, media operations, Atlanta has topographic features that include rolling hills and dense tree coverage. Revitalization of Atlantas neighborhoods, initially spurred by the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, has intensified in the 21st century, altering the demographics, politics. Prior to the arrival of European settlers in north Georgia, Creek Indians inhabited the area, standing Peachtree, a Creek village located where Peachtree Creek flows into the Chattahoochee River, was the closest Indian settlement to what is now Atlanta. As part of the removal of Native Americans from northern Georgia from 1802 to 1825, the Creek ceded the area in 1821. In 1836, the Georgia General Assembly voted to build the Western, the initial route was to run southward from Chattanooga to a terminus east of the Chattahoochee River, which would then be linked to Savannah. After engineers surveyed various possible locations for the terminus, the zero milepost was driven into the ground in what is now Five Points. A year later, the area around the milepost had developed into a settlement, first known as Terminus, and later as Thrasherville after a merchant who built homes. By 1842, the town had six buildings and 30 residents and was renamed Marthasville to honor the Governors daughter, later, J. Edgar Thomson, Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad, suggested the town be renamed Atlantica-Pacifica, which was shortened to Atlanta. The residents approved, and the town was incorporated as Atlanta on December 29,1847, by 1860, Atlantas population had grown to 9,554. During the American Civil War, the nexus of multiple railroads in Atlanta made the city a hub for the distribution of military supplies, in 1864, the Union Army moved southward following the capture of Chattanooga and began its invasion of north Georgia. On the next day, Mayor James Calhoun surrendered Atlanta to the Union Army, on November 11,1864, Sherman prepared for the Union Armys March to the Sea by ordering Atlanta to be burned to the ground, sparing only the citys churches and hospitals. After the Civil War ended in 1865, Atlanta was gradually rebuilt, due to the citys superior rail transportation network, the state capital was moved from Milledgeville to Atlanta in 1868. In the 1880 Census, Atlanta surpassed Savannah as Georgias largest city, by 1885, the founding of the Georgia School of Technology and the citys black colleges had established Atlanta as a center for higher education. In 1895, Atlanta hosted the Cotton States and International Exposition, during the first decades of the 20th century, Atlanta experienced a period of unprecedented growth. In three decades time, Atlantas population tripled as the city expanded to include nearby streetcar suburbs
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History of the Southern United States
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The history of the Southern United States reaches back hundreds of years and includes the Mississippian people, well known for their mound building. European history in the began in the very earliest days of the exploration and colonization of North America. Spain, France, and England eventually explored and claimed parts of what is now the Southern United States, in Pre-Columbian times, the only inhabitants of what is now the Southern United States were Native Americans. The Mississippian way of life began to develop around the 10th century in the Mississippi River Valley, notable Native American nations that developed in the South after the Mississippians include what are known as the Five Civilized Tribes, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole. Spain made frequent exploratory trips to the New World after its discovery in 1492, rumors of natives being decorated with gold and stories of a Fountain of Youth helped hold the interest of many Spanish explorers, and colonization eventually followed. Juan Ponce de León was the first European to come to the South when he landed in Florida in 1513. Hernando de Soto, a Spanish explorer and conquistador led the first European expedition deep into the territory of the modern-day southern United States searching for gold, de Sotos group were the first documented Europeans to cross the Mississippi River, on whose banks de Soto died in 1542. More successful was Pedro Menéndez de Aviléss St. Augustine, founded in 1565, spain also colonized parts of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Spain issued land grants in the South from Kentucky to Florida, there was also a Spanish colony location near King Powhatans ruling town in the Chesapeake Bay area of what is now Virginia and Maryland. It preceded Jamestown, the English colony, by as much as one hundred years, the first French settlement in what is now the Southern United States was Fort Caroline, located in what is now Jacksonville, Florida, in 1562. It was established as a haven for the Huguenots and was founded under the leadership of René Goulaine de Laudonnière and it was destroyed by the Spanish from the nearby colony of St. Augustine in 1565. Later French arrived from the north, having established agricultural colonies in Canada and built a fur trading network with Indians in the Great Lakes area, they began to explore the Mississippi River. The French called their territory Louisiana, in honor of their King Louis, France claimed Texas and set up several short-lived forts there, such as the one in Red River County, built in 1718. In 1817 the French pirate Jean Lafitte settled on Galveston Island, the most important French settlements were established at New Orleans and Mobile. Only a few came from France directly, with others arriving from Haiti. Just before they defeated the Spanish Armada, the English began exploring the New World, in 1585 an expedition organized by Walter Raleigh established the first English settlement in the New World, on Roanoke Island, North Carolina. The colony failed to prosper, however, and the colonists were retrieved the following year by English supply ships, in 1587, Raleigh again sent out a group of colonists to Roanoke. From this colony, the first recorded European birth in North America and that group of colonists disappeared and is known as the Lost Colony
37.
1870s in Western fashion
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1870s fashion in European and European-influenced clothing is characterized by a gradual return to a narrow silhouette after the full-skirted fashions of the 1850s and 1860s. By 1870, fullness in the skirt had moved to the rear and this fashion required an underskirt, which was heavily trimmed with pleats, flounces, rouching, and frills. Day dresses had high necklines that were closed, squared. Sleeves of morning dresses were narrow throughout the period, with a tendency to flare slightly at the wrist early on, women often draped overskirts to produce an apronlike effect from the front. Evening gowns had low necklines and very short, off-the-shoulder sleeves, other characteristic fashions included a velvet ribbon tied high around the neck and trailing behind for evening. Under the influence of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and other artistic reformers, newly fashionable tea gowns, an informal fashion for entertaining at home, combined Pre-Raphaelite influences with the loose sack-back styles of the 18th century. Leisure dress was becoming an important part of a womans wardrobe, seaside dress in England had its own distinct characteristics but still followed the regular fashions of the day. Seaside dress was seen as more daring, frivolous, eccentric, even though the bustle was extremely cumbersome, it was still a part of seaside fashion. With the narrower silhouette, emphasis was placed on the bust, waist, a corset was used to help mold the body to the desired shape. This was achieved by making the longer than before. To increase rigidity, they were reinforced with strips of whalebone, cording. Steam-molding, patented in 1868, helped create a curvaceous contour, skirts were supported by a hybrid of the bustle and crinoline or hooped petticoat sometimes called a crinolette. The cage structure was attached around the waist and extended down to the ground, the crinolette itself was quickly superseded by the true bustle, which was sufficient for supporting the drapery and train at the back of the skirt. In keeping with the emphasis, hair was pulled back at the sides and worn in a high knot or cluster of ringlets. Bonnets were smaller to allow for the elaborately piled hairstyles and resembled hats except for their ribbons tied under the chin, smallish hats, some with veils, were perched on top of the head, and brimmed straw hats were worn for outdoor wear in summer. The main kind of wrap that dominated in the 1870s were capes, some examples are the pelisse and the paletot coat. Walking dress of 1870 has a tiered and ruffled skirt back,1870 fashion plate shows jacket-bodices with draped and trimmed skirts in back. Ruffles and pleated frills are characteristic trimmings of the 1870s, french morning dress of 1871 features a narrow red ribbon at the low neckline and a large matching bow with streamers at the back waist
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Sharecropping
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Sharecropping is a form of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on their portion of land. Sharecropping has a history and there are a wide range of different situations. Some are governed by tradition, and others by law, legal contract systems such as the Italian mezzadria, the French métayage, the Spanish mediero, or the Islamic system of muqasat, occur widely. Sharecropping has benefits and costs for both the owners and the tenant and it encourages the cropper to remain on the land, solving the harvest rush problem. At the same time, since the cropper pays in shares of his harvest, owners and croppers share the risks of harvests being large or small and of prices being high or low. Because tenants benefit from larger harvests, they have an incentive to work harder, however, by dividing the working force into many individual workers, large farms no longer benefit from economies of scale. On the whole, sharecropping was not as efficient as the gang agriculture of slave plantations. In the U. S. tenant farmers own their own mules and equipment, and sharecroppers do not, Sharecropping occurred extensively in Scotland, Ireland and colonial Africa, and came into wide use in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction era. The South had been devastated by war - planters had ample land, at the same time, most of the former slaves had labor but no money and no land - they rejected the kind of gang labor that typified slavery. A solution was the system focused on cotton, which was the only crop that could generate cash for the croppers, landowners, merchants. Poor white farmers, who previously had done little cotton farming, needed cash as well, jeffery Paige made a distinction between centralized sharecropping found on cotton plantations and the decentralized sharecropping with other crops. The former is characterized by political conservatism and long lasting tenure, tenants are tied to the landlord through the plantation store. Their work is heavily supervised as slave plantations were and this form of tenure tends to be replaced by wage slavery as markets penetrate. Decentralized sharecropping involves virtually no role for the landlord, plots are scattered, peasants manage their own labor, leases are very short which leads to peasant radicalism. This form of tenure becomes more common when markets penetrate, use of the sharecropper system has also been identified in England. It is still used in many poor areas today, notably in Pakistan. It has therefore been seen as an issue of reform in contexts such as the Mexican Revolution. Sharecropping agreements can however be made fairly, as a form of tenant farming or sharefarming that has a variable rental payment, there are three different types of contracts
39.
Bindle
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A bindle is the bag, sack, or carrying device stereotypically used by the American sub-culture of hobos. A bindlestiff was another name for a hobo who carried a bindle, the bindle is colloquially known as the blanket stick, particularly within the Northeastern hobo community. Particularly in cartoons, the bindles sacks usually have a polka-dotted or bandanna design, however, in actual use the bindle can take many forms. Though bindles are rarely used anymore, they are widely seen in popular culture as a prevalent anachronism. The term bindle may descend from the German/Yiddish word Bündel, meaning something wrapped up in a blanket and bound by cord for carrying, or have arisen as a portmanteau of bind and spindle. More recently, the term has come to be used to define packages of illegal drugs stored by large scale drug dealers
40.
Br'er Rabbit Earns a Dollar a Minute
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Brer Rabbit Earns a Dollar a Minute is a traditional African American folktale, featuring Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox and Brer Bear. It is famous for its inclusion among Joel Chandler Harris Uncle Remus stories, like many short stories featuring Brer Rabbit, the tale describes one of the tricksters successful attempts to talk his way out of a difficult situation. Brer Rabbit is sneaking into Brer Foxs garden to steal goober peas when he caught in a snare trap laid by Brer Fox. Suspended awkwardly in mid-air, unable to free himself, he worries what will happen when Brer Fox finds him caught in his trap and he then sees the notoriously slow-witted Brer Bear approaching and quickly thinks of a way to trick Brer Bear into freeing him. Feigning a cheerful complacency, he tells Brer Bear that he is hanging there because Brer Fox has been paying him a dollar a minute to act as a scarecrow for the garden and he offers to let Brer Bear take over the job. Excited by the promise of wealth, Brer Bear gladly helps free Brer Rabbit. Brer Rabbit laughs and scampers away before Brer Bear realizes that he has been tricked, the story was used in the movie Song of the South along with The Tar Baby and The Laughing Place. It is also referenced in the first dark ride scene of Splash Mountain, full text of Uncle Remus, His Songs and Sayings from Project Gutenberg Brer Rabbit Stories at AmericanFolklore. net
