1.
Tall tale
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A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some stories such as these are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories such as, That fish was so big, why I tell ya, it nearly sank the boat when I pulled it in. Things are often told in a way makes the narrator seem to have been a part of the story. The tall tale is an element of American folk literature. The tall tales origins are seen in the contests that often occurred when the rough men of the American frontier gathered. The tales of legendary figures of the Old West, some listed below, the semi-annual speech contests held by Toastmasters International public speaking clubs may include a Tall Tales contest. Each and every participating speaker is given three to five minutes to give a speech of a tall tale nature, and is then judged according to several factors. The winner proceeds to the level of competition. The contest does not proceed beyond any participating district in the organization to the International level and he is known for the Bowie knife which he used to disembowel his opponent. Daniel Boone – Blazed a trail across Cumberland Gap to found the first English-speaking colonies west of the Appalachian Mountains Aylett C, strap Buckner – An Indian fighter of colonial Texas Davy Crockett – A pioneer and U. S. Congressman from Tennessee who later died at the Battle of the Alamo Mike Fink – The toughest boatman on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, for instance, The Australian frontier similarly inspired the types of tall tales that are found in American folklore. The Australian versions typically concern a mythical station called The Speewah, juho Nätti, known as Nätti-Jussi, was a Finnish lumberjack known for telling tall tales, his stories have also circulated as folk tales and been collected in books. The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel by the French writer Rabelais told the tale of two giants, father and son, the many farfetched adventures of the fictional German nobleman Baron Munchausen, some of which may have had a folklore basis. The Cumbrian Liars, a United Kingdom association who follow in the footsteps of Will Ritson. Arlo Guthries Motorcycle Song is often accompanied by a tale about the origin of the song. Early 20th century postcards became a vehicle for tall tale telling in the US, creators of these cards, such as the prolific Alfred Stanley Johnson, Jr. and William H. The common theme was gigantism, fishing for leviathans, hunting for or riding oversized animals, an homage to the genre can be found on the cover of the Eat a Peach album by The Allman Brothers Band. The Tall Tale in American Folklore and Literature, knoxville, Tennessee, University of Tennessee Press
2.
Folk music
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Folk music includes both traditional music and the genre that evolved from it during the 20th century folk revival. The term originated in the 19th century, but is applied to music older than that. Some types of music are also called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways, as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers and it has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. Starting in the century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is called contemporary folk music or folk revival music to distinguish it from earlier folk forms. Smaller, similar revivals have occurred elsewhere in the world at other times and this type of folk music also includes fusion genres such as folk rock, folk metal, electric folk, and others. Even individual songs may be a blend of the two, a consistent definition of traditional folk music is elusive. The terms folk music, folk song, and folk dance are comparatively recent expressions and they are extensions of the term folklore, which was coined in 1846 by the English antiquarian William Thoms to describe the traditions, customs, and superstitions of the uncultured classes. Traditional folk music also includes most indigenous music, however, despite the assembly of an enormous body of work over some two centuries, there is still no certain definition of what folk music is. Some do not even agree that the term Folk Music should be used, Folk music may tend to have certain characteristics but it cannot clearly be differentiated in purely musical terms. One meaning often given is that of old songs, with no known composers, the fashioning and re-fashioning of the music by the community that give it its folk character. Such definitions depend upon processes rather than abstract musical types, one widely used definition is simply Folk music is what the people sing. For Scholes, as well as for Cecil Sharp and Béla Bartók, Folk music was already. seen as the authentic expression of a way of life now past or about to disappear, particularly in a community uninfluenced by art music and by commercial and printed song. In these terms folk music may be seen as part of a schema comprising four types, primitive or tribal, elite or art, folk. Music in this genre is often called traditional music. Although the term is only descriptive, in some cases people use it as the name of a genre
3.
Sheep
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The sheep is a quadrupedal, ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, although the name sheep applies to many species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it almost always refers to Ovis aries. Numbering a little over one billion, domestic sheep are also the most numerous species of sheep. An adult female sheep is referred to as a ewe, a male as a ram or occasionally a tup, a castrated male as a wether. Sheep are most likely descended from the wild mouflon of Europe, one of the earliest animals to be domesticated for agricultural purposes, sheep are raised for fleece, meat and milk. A sheeps wool is the most widely used animal fiber, and is harvested by shearing. Ovine meat is called lamb when from younger animals and mutton when from older ones, Sheep continue to be important for wool and meat today, and are also occasionally raised for pelts, as dairy animals, or as model organisms for science. Sheep husbandry is practised throughout the majority of the inhabited world, in the modern era, Australia, New Zealand, the southern and central South American nations, and the British Isles are most closely associated with sheep production. Sheepraising has a lexicon of unique terms which vary considerably by region. Use of the sheep began in Middle English as a derivation of the Old English word scēap. A group of sheep is called a flock, herd or mob, many other specific terms for the various life stages of sheep exist, generally related to lambing, shearing, and age. Being a key animal in the history of farming, sheep have a deeply entrenched place in human culture, as livestock, sheep are most often associated with pastoral, Arcadian imagery. Sheep figure in many mythologies—such as the Golden Fleece—and major religions, in both ancient and modern religious ritual, sheep are used as sacrificial animals. Domestic sheep are relatively small ruminants, usually with a crimped hair called wool, domestic sheep differ from their wild relatives and ancestors in several respects, having become uniquely neotenic as a result of selective breeding by humans. A few primitive breeds of sheep retain some of the characteristics of their wild cousins, depending on breed, domestic sheep may have no horns at all, or horns in both sexes, or in males only. Most horned breeds have a pair, but a few breeds may have several. Another trait unique to domestic sheep as compared to wild ovines is their variation in color. Wild sheep are largely variations of brown hues, and variation within species is extremely limited, colors of domestic sheep range from pure white to dark chocolate brown, and even spotted or piebald
4.
Butcher
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A butcher is a person who may slaughter animals, dress their flesh, sell their meat or do any combination of these three tasks. They may prepare standard cuts of meat and poultry for sale in retail or wholesale food establishments, a butcher may be employed by supermarkets, grocery stores, butcher shops and fish markets, slaughter house, or may be self-employed. An ancient trade, whose duties may date back to the domestication of livestock, today, many jurisdictions offer trade certifications for butchers. Some areas expect a three-year apprenticeship followed by the option of becoming a master butcher, butchery is a traditional line of work. In the industrialized world, slaughterhouses use butchers to slaughter the animals, the steps include stunning, exsanguination, skinning or scalding and dehairing, evisceration and splitting. Secondary butchery involves boning and trimming primal cuts in preparation for sale, historically, primary and secondary butchery were performed in the same establishment, but the advent of methods of preservation and low cost transportation has largely separated them. In parts of the world, it is common for butchers to perform many or all of the butchers duties, where refrigeration is less common, these skills are required to sell the meat of slaughtered animals. Some butchers sell their goods in specialized stores, commonly termed a butcher shop, butchers at a butcher shop may perform primary butchery, but will typically perform secondary butchery to prepare fresh cuts of meat for sale. These shops may also sell related products, such as food supplies, baked goods. Butcher shops can have a variety of animal types, meat cuts. Additionally, butcher shops may focus on a culture, or nationality. Some butcher shops, termed meat delis, may include a delicatessen. In the United States and Canada, butcher shops are becoming common because of the increasing popularity of supermarkets. A primal cut is a piece of meat initially separated from the carcass during butchering, different countries and cultures make these cuts in different ways, and primal cuts also differ between type of carcass. The British, American and French primal cuts all differ in some respects, a notable example is fatback, which in Europe is an important primal cut of pork, but in North America is regarded as trimmings to be used in sausage or rendered into lard. The primal cuts may be complete or cut further. See also Butcher In various periods and cultures, the butcher has been applied to people who act cruelly to other human beings or slaughter them
5.
Tanning (leather)
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Tanning is the process of treating skins and hides of animals to produce leather. A tannery is the place where the skins are processed, Tanning hide into leather involves a process which permanently alters the protein structure of skin, making it more durable and less susceptible to decomposition, and also possibly coloring it. Before tanning, the skins are unhaired, degreased, desalted and soaked in water over a period of 6 hours to 2 days, historically this process was considered a noxious or odoriferous trade and relegated to the outskirts of town. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, a chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name. The use of a solution was adopted by tanners in the Industrial Revolution. The English word for tanning is from medieval Latin tannāre, deriv. of tannum and this refers to use of the bark of oaks in some kinds of hide preservation. Ancient civilizations used leather for waterskins, bags, harnesses and tack, boats, armour, quivers, scabbards, boots, Tanning was being carried out by the inhabitants of Mehrgarh in India between 7000 and 3300 BC. Around 2500 BC, the Sumerians began using leather, affixed by copper studs, formerly, tanning was considered a noxious or odoriferous trade and relegated to the outskirts of town, amongst the poor. Indeed, tanning by ancient methods is so foul smelling, tanneries are still isolated from those towns today where the old methods are used, Skins typically arrived at the tannery dried stiff and dirty with soil and gore. First, the ancient tanners would soak the skins in water to clean, then they would pound and scour the skin to remove any remaining flesh and fat. Next, the tanner needed to remove the hair from the skin and this was done by either soaking the skin in urine, painting it with an alkaline lime mixture, or simply allowing the skin to putrefy for several months then dipping it in a salt solution. After the hairs were loosened, the tanners scraped them off with a knife, once the hair was removed, the tanners would bate the material by pounding dung into the skin, or soaking the skin in a solution of animal brains. Bating was a process which relied on enzymes produced by bacteria found in the dung. Among the kinds of dung commonly used were those of dogs or pigeons, sometimes, the dung was mixed with water in a large vat, and the prepared skins were kneaded in the dung water until they became supple from bacterial enzyme action, but not too soft. The ancient tanner might use his feet to knead the skins in the dung water. This combination of urine, animal feces, and decaying flesh made ancient tanneries malodorous, children employed as dung gatherers were a common sight in ancient cities. Also common were piss-pots located on street corners, where human urine could be collected for use in tanneries or by washerwomen, historically the actual tanning process used vegetable tanning. In some variations of the process, cedar oil, alum, as the skin was stretched, it would lose moisture and absorb the agent
6.
George Washington
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George Washington was an American politician and soldier who served as the first President of the United States from 1789 to 1797 and was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He served as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and he is popularly considered the driving force behind the nations establishment and came to be known as the father of the country, both during his lifetime and to this day. Washington was widely admired for his leadership qualities and was unanimously elected president by the Electoral College in the first two national elections. Washingtons incumbency established many precedents still in use today, such as the system, the inaugural address. His retirement from office two terms established a tradition that lasted until 1940 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term. The 22nd Amendment now limits the president to two elected terms and he was born into the provincial gentry of Colonial Virginia to a family of wealthy planters who owned tobacco plantations and slaves, which he inherited. In his youth, he became an officer in the colonial militia during the first stages of the French. In 1775, the Second Continental Congress commissioned him as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in the American Revolution, in that command, Washington forced the British out of Boston in 1776 but was defeated and nearly captured later that year when he lost New York City. After crossing the Delaware River in the middle of winter, he defeated the British in two battles, retook New Jersey, and restored momentum to the Patriot cause and his strategy enabled Continental forces to capture two major British armies at Saratoga in 1777 and Yorktown in 1781. In battle, however, Washington was repeatedly outmaneuvered by British generals with larger armies, after victory had been finalized in 1783, Washington resigned as commander-in-chief rather than seize power, proving his opposition to dictatorship and his commitment to American republicanism. Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787, which devised a new form of government for the United States. Following his election as president in 1789, he worked to unify rival factions in the fledgling nation and he supported Alexander Hamiltons programs to satisfy all debts, federal and state, established a permanent seat of government, implemented an effective tax system, and created a national bank. In avoiding war with Great Britain, he guaranteed a decade of peace and profitable trade by securing the Jay Treaty in 1795 and he remained non-partisan, never joining the Federalist Party, although he largely supported its policies. Washingtons Farewell Address was a primer on civic virtue, warning against partisanship, sectionalism. He retired from the presidency in 1797, returning to his home, upon his death, Washington was eulogized as first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen by Representative Henry Lee III of Virginia. He was revered in life and in death, scholarly and public polling consistently ranks him among the top three presidents in American history and he has been depicted and remembered in monuments, public works, currency, and other dedications to the present day. He was born on February 11,1731, according to the Julian calendar, the Gregorian calendar was adopted within the British Empire in 1752, and it renders a birth date of February 22,1732. Washington was of primarily English gentry descent, especially from Sulgrave and his great-grandfather John Washington emigrated to Virginia in 1656 and began accumulating land and slaves, as did his son Lawrence and his grandson, Georges father Augustine
7.
Oliver Ellsworth
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While at the Federal Convention, Ellsworth moved to strike the word National from the motion made by Edmund Randolph of Virginia. Randolph had moved successfully to call the government the National Government of United States, Ellsworth moved that the government should continue to be called the United States Government. Ellsworth was born in Windsor, Connecticut, to Capt. David and he entered Yale in 1762, but transferred to the College of New Jersey at the end of his second year. He continued to study theology and, while attending, helped found the American Whig–Cliosophic Society along with Aaron Burr and he received his A. B. degree, Phi Beta Kappa after 2 years. Soon afterward, however, Ellsworth turned to the law, after four years of study, he was admitted to the bar in 1771 and later became a successful lawyer and politician. Oliver Ellsworth was the grandfather of Henry L. Ellsworths son Henry W. Ellsworth, from a slow start, Ellsworth built up a prosperous law practice. In 1777, he became Connecticuts state attorney for Hartford County and that same year, he was chosen as one of Connecticuts representatives in the Continental Congress. He served on various committees until 1783, including the Marine Committee, the Board of Treasury, Ellsworth was also active in his states efforts during the Revolution, having served as a member of the Committee of the Pay Table that supervised Connecticuts war expenditures. In 1777 he joined the Committee of Appeals, which can be described as a forerunner of the Federal Supreme Court, while serving on it, he participated in the Olmstead case that first brought state and federal authority into conflict. In 1779, he assumed duties as a member of the Council of Safety. His first judicial service was on the Supreme Court of Errors when it was established in 1785, in May 1787, Ellsworth joined the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia as a delegate from Connecticut along with Roger Sherman and William Samuel Johnson. More than half of the 55 delegates were lawyers, eight of whom, the words United States had already been used in the Declaration of Independence and Articles of Confederation as well as Thomas Paines The American Crisis. It was Ellsworths proposal to retain the earlier wording to sustain the emphasis on a rather than a single national entity. Three weeks earlier, on May 30,1787, Edmund Randolph of Virginia had moved to create a government consisting of a supreme legislative, an executive. Ellsworth accepted Randolphs notion of a division, but moved to strike the phrase national government. From this day forward the United States was the title used in the Convention to designate the government. Ellsworth played a role in the passage of the Connecticut Plan. Ellsworths version of the compromise was adopted by the Convention, to gain the passage of the Connecticut Plan its proponents needed support of three southern states, Georgia and the two Carolinas, complementing the small state coalition of the North
8.
William W. Ellsworth
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William Wolcott Ellsworth was a Yale-educated attorney who served as the 30th Governor of Connecticut, a three-term United States Congressman, a Justice on the State Supreme Court. Born in Windsor on November 10,1791, Ellsworth was the son of Founding Father Oliver Ellsworth, and son-in-law of Noah Webster and his twin brother was Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, first Commissioner of the United States Patent Office. He completed preparatory studies, and graduated from Yale College in 1810 and he studied law at Tapping Reeves Litchfield Law School in Litchfield, was afterwards admitted to the bar in 1811. Among Ellsworths Yale classmates was Samuel F. B, morse, whose idea of the telegraph would later be championed by Ellsworths twin brother Henry Leavitt Ellsworth during his term as the first Commissioner of the U. S. On September 14,1813, he was married to Emily S. Webster, eldest daughter of Rebecca Greenleaf, Noah Webster named Ellsworth as one of the executors of his will of 1843. Ellsworth was appointed professor of law at Trinity College in 1827, aged 26, Ellsworth took up the reins of Congressman Williams law practice, the largest in the state. As an Anti-Jacksonian Ellsworth was elected to the Twenty-first, Twenty-second, Ellsworth was elected Governor of Connecticut 1838-1842. During his tenure, a method for voter registration was constituted. In 1847, Elsworth became judge of the Connecticut Supreme Court and served from 1847 to 1861 and he twice declined to accept the nomination to the United States Senate, and retired from public life. Ellsworth died in Hartford on January 15,1868, the former Congressman and Governor is interred at the Old North Cemetery in Hartford. Oliver Ellsworth, Henry Leavitt Ellsworth United States Congress, biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Litchfield Historical Society William W. Ellsworth at Find a Grave National Governors Association The Political Graveyard Govtrack US Congress
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Henry Leavitt Ellsworth
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Henry Leavitt Ellsworth was a Yale-educated attorney who became the first Commissioner of the U. S. Patent Office, where he encouraged innovation by inventors Samuel F. B, Ellsworth was born in Windsor, Connecticut, son of Founding Father and Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth and Abigail Wolcott. Ellsworth graduated from Yale University in 1810, and studied law at Tapping Reeves Litchfield Law School in 1811, on June 22,1813, he married Nancy Allen Goodrich with whom Ellsworth had three children, including son Henry W. Ellsworth. Later in life, he had two subsequent wives, Marietta Mariana Bartlett and Catherine Smith, Ellsworth was named in part for his grandmothers family, the Leavitts of Suffield, Connecticut. After studying law under Judge Gould in Litchfield, Connecticut, he settled first at Windsor and then at Hartford, in 1811, when he was 19 years old and a freshly minted Yale graduate, Ellsworth undertook the first of several western trips during his lifetime. Ellsworth traveled by horseback to the Connecticut Western Reserve in present-day Ohio to investigate family lands in the region, Ellsworth wrote a small, uneven book about his experiences entitled A Tour to New Connecticut in 1811. Ellsworths mission was straightening out irregularities in land sales by the family agent, along the way Ellsworth made note of attractive vistas, rowdy drunks, solicitous innkeepers and his disappointment in places of which he had heard, like Erie. The journeys rigors were relieved by a meeting with his old friend Margaret Dwight, daughter of Yale president Timothy Dwight IV, here too, wrote Ellsworth, I met with my good old friend Margaret Dwight, we sat down and passed a few hours in social chat. Dwight wrote her own account of her Western Reserve trip, A Journey to Ohio in 1810, over twenty years later, in 1832, Ellsworth traveled west again, this time as U. S. Commissioner of Indian Tribes in Arkansas and Oklahoma, Ellsworth travelled to Fort Gibson to investigate the situation. Louis magnates of the Midwestern fur trade, in 1835, Ellsworth was elected mayor of Hartford, Connecticut, but had served only a month when he was appointed the first Commissioner of the U. S. Patent Office, an office he held for ten years, from 1835 until 1845 and his twin brother William W. Ellsworth was Governor of Connecticut from 1838 to 1842, and served as a U. S. William Wolcott Ellsworth was married to the daughter of Noah Webster, when he arrived at the Patent Office, Ellsworth found one third of the floor-space in his office occupied by over 60 models of inventions, he moved them to a separate room. He also found that no list of patent applicants had ever drawn up. Acting as Patent Commissioner, Ellsworth made a decision that profoundly affected the future of Hartford, the young Samuel Colt was struggling to establish a firm to manufacture his new revolver. Ellsworth became interested in Colts invention, and in 1836 made the decision to issue Colt U. S, in todays world Ellsworth would be described as an early technology adapter. From Ellsworths exposure to the West and knowledge of inventions, he prophesied late in life that the lands of the West would be cultivated by means of steam plows. This prophecy was introduced in the probate of his will in an attempt to prove that he was of unsound mind, by 1845 Ellsworths patent office was performing the functions of a full-fledged agricultural bureau
