1.
Library of Congress
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The Library of Congress is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the de facto national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States, the Library is housed in three buildings on Capitol Hill in Washington, D. C. it also maintains the Packard Campus in Culpeper, Virginia, which houses the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center. The Library of Congress claims to be the largest library in the world and its collections are universal, not limited by subject, format, or national boundary, and include research materials from all parts of the world and in more than 450 languages. Two-thirds of the books it acquires each year are in other than English. The Library of Congress moved to Washington in 1800, after sitting for years in the temporary national capitals of New York. John J. Beckley, who became the first Librarian of Congress, was two dollars per day and was required to also serve as the Clerk of the House of Representatives. The small Congressional Library was housed in the United States Capitol for most of the 19th century until the early 1890s, most of the original collection had been destroyed by the British in 1814, during the War of 1812. To restore its collection in 1815, the bought from former president Thomas Jefferson his entire personal collection of 6,487 books. After a period of growth, another fire struck the Library in its Capitol chambers in 1851, again destroying a large amount of the collection. The Library received the right of transference of all copyrighted works to have two copies deposited of books, maps, illustrations and diagrams printed in the United States. It also began to build its collections of British and other European works and it included several stories built underground of steel and cast iron stacks. Although the Library is open to the public, only high-ranking government officials may check out books, the Library promotes literacy and American literature through projects such as the American Folklife Center, American Memory, Center for the Book, and Poet Laureate. James Madison is credited with the idea for creating a congressional library, part of the legislation appropriated $5,000 for the purchase of such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress. And for fitting up an apartment for containing them. Books were ordered from London and the collection, consisting of 740 books and 3 maps, was housed in the new Capitol, as president, Thomas Jefferson played an important role in establishing the structure of the Library of Congress. The new law also extended to the president and vice president the ability to borrow books and these volumes had been left in the Senate wing of the Capitol. One of the only congressional volumes to have survived was a government account book of receipts and it was taken as a souvenir by a British Commander whose family later returned it to the United States government in 1940. Within a month, former president Jefferson offered to sell his library as a replacement
2.
Independence Avenue (Washington, D.C.)
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Independence Avenue is a major east-west street in the southwest and southeast quadrants of the city of Washington, D. C. in the United States, running just south of the United States Capitol. Originally named South B Street, Independence Avenue SW was constructed between 1791 and 1823, Independence Avenue SE was constructed in pieces as residential development occurred east of the United States Capitol and east of the Anacostia River. Independence Avenue SW received its current name after Congress renamed the street in legislation approved on April 13,1934, Independence Avenue SW originally had its western terminus at 14th Street SW, but was extended west to Ohio Drive SW in 1941 and 1942. The government of the District of Columbia renamed the portion of the road in the southeast quadrant of the city in 1950, in the District of Columbias Cartesian-coordinate-based street-naming system, Independence Avenue was originally known as South B Street. The street began construction sometime after 1791, by October 1803, it existed definitively between New Jersey Avenue and 1st Street East, and in 1809 it was opened between New Jersey Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue. By 1816, the length of the avenue appears to have been opened. At the time, South B Streets western terminus was on the shore of the Potomac River and this reclaimed land — which today includes West Potomac Park, East Potomac Park, the Tidal Basin — was largely complete by 1890, and designated Potomac Park by Congress in 1897. But South B Street was not extended through the reclaimed land. In 1925, Congress authorized the construction of Arlington Memorial Bridge, the legislation specified that North B Street be treated as a major approach to Arlington Memorial Bridge. The National Capital Park and Planning Commission approved the significant widening of North B Street into a ceremonial avenue, on February 25,1931, President Herbert Hoover signed legislation which renamed North B Street as Constitution Avenue. Planning for the creation of a ceremonial avenue to take the place of South B Street began in 1930. That year, the National Capital Park and Planning Commission advocated turning the roadway into a ceremonial avenue as a counterpart to North B Street. The following year, the NCPPC proposed widening South B Street to 60 feet between New Jersey Avenue SE and 12th Street SW, all along the route, the north curb would remain in place, while the south curb moved to accommodate the new widths. The NCPPC had already won the support of the Architect of the Capitol for the plan, the renaming of North B Street and the actions of the NCPPC encouraged local citizens to seek to rename South B Street as well. The idea was conceived by the federations past president, Fred A. Emery, but no action was taken in the 72nd United States Congress. Instead, Senate Joint Resolution 258 was introduced Arthur Capper in the United States Senate to change the name to Independence Avenue, the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia favorably reported the bill on February 28,1933. But Congress adjourned on March 3 without further action, the NCPPC had not given up on the idea, however. In November 1933, it approved changing the width of South B Street between 12th and 14th Streets SW to 80 feet, which helped cement in place its plan for a future Independence Avenue
3.
Washington, D.C.
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Washington, D. C. formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D. C. is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on July 16,1790, Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any state. The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, named in honor of President George Washington, the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land ceded by Virginia, in 1871. Washington had an population of 681,170 as of July 2016. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, of which the District is a part, has a population of over 6 million, the centers of all three branches of the federal government of the United States are in the District, including the Congress, President, and Supreme Court. Washington is home to national monuments and museums, which are primarily situated on or around the National Mall. The city hosts 176 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of international organizations, trade unions, non-profit organizations, lobbying groups. A locally elected mayor and a 13‑member council have governed the District since 1973, However, the Congress maintains supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. D. C. residents elect a non-voting, at-large congressional delegate to the House of Representatives, the District receives three electoral votes in presidential elections as permitted by the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961. Various tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway people inhabited the lands around the Potomac River when Europeans first visited the area in the early 17th century, One group known as the Nacotchtank maintained settlements around the Anacostia River within the present-day District of Columbia. Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes forced the relocation of the Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland. 43, published January 23,1788, James Madison argued that the new government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance. Five years earlier, a band of unpaid soldiers besieged Congress while its members were meeting in Philadelphia, known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, the event emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security. However, the Constitution does not specify a location for the capital, on July 9,1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River. The exact location was to be selected by President George Washington, formed from land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring 10 miles on each side, totaling 100 square miles. Two pre-existing settlements were included in the territory, the port of Georgetown, Maryland, founded in 1751, many of the stones are still standing
4.
Beaux-Arts architecture
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Beaux-Arts architecture expresses the academic neoclassical architectural style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The style of instruction that produced Beaux-Arts architecture continued without interruption until 1968. The Beaux-Arts style heavily influenced the architecture of the United States in the period from 1880 to 1920, in contrast, many European architects of the period 1860–1914 outside France gravitated away from Beaux-Arts and towards their own national academic centers. American architects of the Beaux-Arts generation often returned to Greek models, for the first time, repertories of photographs supplemented meticulous scale drawings and on-site renderings of details. Beaux-Arts training emphasized the production of quick conceptual sketches, highly finished perspective presentation drawings, close attention to the program, site considerations tended toward social and urbane contexts. In the façade shown to the right, Diana grasps the cornice she sits on in an action typical of Beaux-Arts integration of sculpture with architecture. A sense of appropriate idiom at the craftsman level supported the teams of the first truly modern architectural offices. The prestige of the École gave the style Beaux-Arts a second wind in combining the new manner with the traditional training and they were followed by an entire generation. Henry Hobson Richardson absorbed Beaux-Arts lessons in massing and spatial planning and his Beaux-Arts training taught him to transcend slavish copying and recreate in the essential fully digested and idiomatic manner of his models. Richardson evolved a personal style freed of historicism that was influential in early Modernism. The White City of the Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago was a triumph of the movement, the Beaux-Arts curriculum was subsequently begun at Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. From 1916, the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York City schooled architects, painters, bosworth, Carnegie Mellon University, designed by Henry Hornbostel, and the University of Texas, designed by Paul Philippe Cret. Beaux-Arts architecture also brought a civic face to the railroad, two of the best American examples of the Beaux-Arts tradition stand within a few blocks of each other, Grand Central Terminal and the New York Public Library. Another prominent U. S. example of the style is the largest academic dormitory in the world, in the late 1800s, during the years when Beaux-Arts architecture was at a peak in France, Americans were one of the largest groups of foreigners in Paris. Many of them were architects and students of architecture who brought this back to America. Beaux-Arts was very prominent in public buildings in Canada in the early 20th century, notably all three prairie provinces legislative buildings are in this style. Buenos Aires is a center of Beaux-Arts architecture which continued to be built as late as the 1950s, national Theatre, Melbourne General Post Office building, Forrest Place, Perth Argus Building. Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York, A Photographic Guide United States, sixteenth Street Architecture – profiles of Beaux-Arts architecture in Washington D. C
5.
Facade
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A façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. It is a loan word from the French façade, which means frontage or face. In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important aspect from a design standpoint, from the engineering perspective of a building, the façade is also of great importance due to its impact on energy efficiency. For historical façades, many local zoning regulations or other laws restrict or even forbid their alteration. The word comes from the French foreign loan word façade, which in turn comes from the Italian facciata, from faccia meaning face, the earliest usage recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is 1656. It was quite common in the Georgian period for existing houses in English towns to be given a fashionable new façade, in modern highrise building, the exterior walls are often suspended from the concrete floor slabs. Examples include curtain walls and precast concrete walls, the façade can at times be required to have a fire-resistance rating, for instance, if two buildings are very close together, to lower the likelihood of fire spreading from one building to another. In general, the systems that are suspended or attached to the precast concrete slabs will be made from aluminium or stainless steel. In recent years more lavish materials such as titanium have sometimes been used, whether rated or not, fire protection is always a design consideration. The melting point of aluminium,660 °C, is reached within minutes of the start of a fire. Firestops for such building joints can be qualified, too, putting fire sprinkler systems on each floor has a profoundly positive effect on the fire safety of buildings with curtain walls. Some building codes also limit the percentage of area in exterior walls. When the exterior wall is not rated, the slab edge becomes a junction where rated slabs are abutting an unrated wall. For rated walls, one may also choose rated windows and fire doors, on a film set and within most themed attractions, many of the buildings are only façades, which are far cheaper than actual buildings, and not subject to building codes. In film sets, they are held up with supports from behind. Within theme parks, they are usually decoration for the interior ride/attraction/restaurant, by Ulrich Knaack, Tillmann Klein, Marcel Bilow and Thomas Auer. ISBN 978-3-7643-7961-2 ISBN 978-3-7643-7962-9 Giving buildings an illusion of grandeur Poole, the article outlines the development of the façade in ecclesiastical architecture from the early Christian period to the Renaissance
6.
Paul J. Pelz
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Paul Johannes Pelz was a German-American architect, best known as the main architect of the Library of Congress in Washington DC. Paul J. Pelz was born November 18,1841 in Seitendorf, Waldenburg, Silesia and his father, Eduard Pelz, was elected as a representative of Silesia to the Frankfurt Parliament in 1848. Subsequent political repression led him to emigrate to the U. S. in 1851 while the rest of the family stayed in Breslau. In 1858, Paul Pelz joined his father in New York City, in 1864, he was employed as chief draftsman by Jewish architect Henry Fernbach, best known for his later design of New Yorks Central Synagogue. In 1866, Pelz became a member of the American Institute of Architects, in 1867 he moved to Washington DC and was engaged as a civil engineer for the United States Lighthouse Board, where from 1872 to 1877 he served as chief draftsman. His work won a prize for the Lighthouse Board at the 1873 Universal Exhibition in Vienna, in 1873, Pelz and John L. Smithmeyer, another Washington-based architect, together won the competition for the architectural plans for the Library of Congress. Their winning design proposal was based on notes Pelz had taken on prominent public libraries when he traveled to Europe to collect the prize in Vienna. In the ensuing years Pelz also partnered with Smithmeyer on other projects, however, the difficulties experienced on the Library of Congress project, with many delays from congressional dithering, eventually strained their collaboration. In 1888 Pelz became the architect for the Library of Congress as Smithmeyer was dismissed, Pelz in turn was dismissed in 1892. Pelzs offices were in the Corcoran Building on 15th and F Street NW and he designed churches, public buildings, private houses and commercial buildings, and also participated in key debates of the time on Washingtons urban design. In 1898, at the request of socialite Mary Foote Henderson, pelzs first wife, Louise Dorothea Kipp, died in 1894. In 1895, he remarried with Mary Eastbourne Meem, on 30 March 1918, he died in Washington, D. C. He is buried together with his wife in Oak Hill Cemetery. Like other architects of his time, Pelz mastered a range of styles and was willing to switch across them depending on program. St. Augustine Lighthouse, St. Smithmeyer, Washington D. C,1873, 1886-92 Beautification of the Wisconsin Avenue Reservoir built in 1859 by Montgomery C. Meigs, Washington D. C.1875 Healy Hall and Riggs Memorial Library, Georgetown University, with John L. Smithmeyer, elkins,1626 K Street NW, Washington D. C. 1894–96 House on 3440 34th Place, Washington D. C. with Frederick W. C.1896 Mansion for Senator Joseph B. C, 1900–01 Townhouse on 2238 Q Street NW, Washington DC,1901 Grace Reformed Church, Washington DC, with A. A. 1907-08 Grace Reformed Church Sunday School, Washington D. C, 1911-1912 Works by or about Paul J. Pelz at Internet Archive Paul J. Pelz at Find a Grave
7.
Edward Pearce Casey
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Edward Pearce Casey was an American designer and architect, noted for his work in Washington, D. C. and New York City. Edward Pearce Casey was born June 18,1864, in Portland, Maine, where his father, Brigadier-General Thomas Lincoln Casey, served during the Civil War. Edward was educated at the Emerson Institute of Washington, D. C. and graduated from the School of Mines of Columbia University, he received the degree of C. E. in 1886 and he studied also at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, France. Prior to completion of his schooling, Casey served in the 7th Regiment of the New York National Guard, in 1892, Casey replaced Paul J. Pelz as architect of the Library of Congress, whose construction his father directed until his death in 1896. In 1893, he was one of the six equal prize winners in the New York City Hall competition, in 1901, he won another design competition, for a design for the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D. C. Soon after completion of the Grant Memorial, Casey moved to New York City, in 1905 and 1906, Casey designed a new façade for a rebuild of the rectory at the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation in Manhattan. Casey died on January 2,1940, and is buried in the plot at the Casey Farm in Rhode Island
8.
National Historic Landmark
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A National Historic Landmark is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Of over 85,000 places listed on the countrys National Register of Historic Places, a National Historic Landmark District may include contributing properties that are buildings, structures, sites or objects, and it may include non-contributing properties. Contributing properties may or may not also be separately listed, prior to 1935, efforts to preserve cultural heritage of national importance were made by piecemeal efforts of the United States Congress. The first National Historic Site designation was made for the Salem Maritime National Historic Site on March 17,1938. In 1960, the National Park Service took on the administration of the data gathered under this legislation. Because listings often triggered local preservation laws, legislation in 1980 amended the procedures to require owner agreement to the designations. On October 9,1960,92 properties were announced as designated NHLs by Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton, more than 2,500 NHLs have been designated. Most, but not all, are in the United States, there are NHLs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Three states account for nearly 25 percent of the nations NHLs, three cities within these states all separately have more NHLs than 40 of the 50 states. In fact, New York City alone has more NHLs than all but five states, Virginia, California, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, there are 74 NHLs in the District of Columbia. Some NHLs are in U. S. commonwealths and territories, associated states, and foreign states. There are 15 in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and other U. S. commonwealths and territories,5 in U. S. -associated states such as Micronesia, over 100 ships or shipwrecks have been designated as NHLs. About half of the National Historic Landmarks are privately owned, the National Historic Landmarks Program relies on suggestions for new designations from the National Park Service, which also assists in maintaining the landmarks. A friends group of owners and managers, the National Historic Landmark Stewards Association, works to preserve, protect, if not already listed on the National Register of Historic Places, an NHL is automatically added to the Register upon designation. About three percent of Register listings are NHLs, american Water Landmark List of U. S
9.
Thomas Lincoln Casey Sr.
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Thomas Lincoln Casey Sr. was a soldier and engineer. Thomas Lincoln Casey was a military and civil engineer of the late 19th Century. He served as Chief of Engineers for the United States Army Corps of Engineers, Casey was born in Sackets Harbor, New York. He graduated first in his class from West Point in 1852 and was assigned to the Corps of Engineers and he taught engineering at West Point from 1854 to 1859. Casey headed the division the Office of the Chief of Engineers responsible for military engineers, equipment, from 1877 to 1881, Casey headed the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds, District of Columbia. He had design responsibility for the State, War, and Navy Building and he re-designed and completed the Washington Monument after problems arose with the original design. He was promoted to general as assigned as Chief of Engineers on July 6,1888. He retired from the Army on May 10,1895 having reached the retirement age of 64. He worked on the design of the Thomas Jefferson Building, which houses the Library of Congress, upon his death, responsibility for the project passed to his son, architect Edward Pearce Casey. Another son, Colonel Thomas Lincoln Casey Jr. had a 33-year career in the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and was a noted entomologist, Casey was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and an officer of the Legion of Honor of France. In 1882 he succeeded his father as a member of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati and he was also a First Class Companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. Thomas Lincoln Casey was buried with his father and other members at the Casey Farm in Saunderstown. Portraits and Profiles of Chief Engineers, archived from the original on March 6,2005. National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir
10.
American Renaissance
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The American preoccupation with national identity in this period was expressed by modernism and technology as well as academic classicism. It expressed its self-confidence in new technologies, such as the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. It found its cultural outlets in both Prairie School houses and in Beaux-Arts architecture and sculpture, in the City Beautiful movement, americans felt that their civilization was uniquely the modern heir, and that it had come of age. Politically and economically, this era coincides with the Gilded Age, in the dome of the reading room at the new Library of Congress, Edwin Blashfields murals were on the given theme, The Progress of Civilization. The exhibition American Renaissance, 1876–1917 at the Brooklyn Museum,1979, the dates chosen for this era coincide with the Centennial Exposition, the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the United States entry into World War I. A stained glass window was designed and executed by Frederick Wilson, howard Mumford Jones, The Renaissance and American origins, Ideas in America 1945. Richard Guy Wilson, The great civilization, forward essay to The American Renaissance 1876–1917, exhibition catalogue, The Brooklyn Museum, 1979–1980. Henry Hope Reed, The Golden City,1971, Ch.3, beneath the American Renaissance, The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville. New York, Oxford University Press,2011
11.
Gilded Age
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The Gilded Age in United States history is the late 19th century, from the 1870s to about 1900. The early half of the Gilded Age roughly coincided with the portion of the Victorian era in Britain. It began as the US Reconstruction Era ended in 1877, the Gilded Age was an era of rapid economic growth, especially in the North and West. As American wages were higher than those in Europe, especially for skilled workers. The rapid expansion of industrialization led to real wage growth of 60% between 1860 and 1890, spread across the ever-increasing labor force, the average annual wage per industrial worker rose from $380 in 1880 to $564 in 1890, a gain of 48%. Railroads were the growth industry, with the factory system, mining. Immigration from Europe and the eastern states led to the growth of the West. Labor unions became important in the rapidly growing industrial cities. Two major nationwide depressions—the Panic of 1873 and the Panic of 1893—interrupted growth, the South after the Civil War remained economically devastated, its economy became increasingly tied to cotton and tobacco production, which suffered from low prices. With the end of the Reconstruction era in 1877, African-American people in the South were stripped of political power, the political landscape was notable in that despite some corruption, turnout was very high and national elections saw two evenly matched parties. The dominant issues were cultural, and economic, with the rapid growth of cities, political machines increasingly took control of urban politics. In business, massive, powerful and wealthy trusts formed, unions crusaded for the 8-hour working day and the abolition of child labor, middle class reformers demanded civil service reform, prohibition, and womens suffrage. Local governments across the North and West built public schools chiefly at the elementary level, the numerous religious denominations were growing in membership and wealth, the Catholics moving to the largest totals. They all expanded their missionary activity to the world arena, Catholics and Lutherans set up parochial schools and the larger denominations set up numerous colleges, hospitals and charities. Many of the problems faced by society, especially the poor, the term Gilded age was applied to the era by historians in the 1920s, who took the term from one of Mark Twains lesser known novels, The Gilded Age, A Tale of Today. The book satirized the promised golden age after the American Civil War, in the 1920s and 30s Gilded Age became a designated period in American history, with the term applied to the post Civil War period up to 1900. For them, Gilded Age was a term used to describe a time of materialistic excesses combined with extreme poverty. The early half of the Gilded Age roughly coincided with the portion of the Victorian era in Britain
12.
Ainsworth Rand Spofford
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Ainsworth Rand Spofford was an American journalist and publisher. He was the sixth Librarian of the United States Congress from 1864 to 1897, Spofford was born in Gilmanton, New Hampshire. Ill health prevented him from attending Amherst College and he instead, at age 19, moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he became a bookseller, publisher, and newspaper man. In 1849 Spofford founded the Literary Club of Cincinnati, which still exists, readers included Ralph Waldo Emerson, who shared Spoffords antislavery principles. In 1859 Spofford became associate editor of the Cincinnati Commercial and he was also active in Republican party politics and was a delegate to the nominating convention of John Charles Frémont in 1856. While in Washington D. C. in 1861, shortly after reporting on the First Battle of Bull Run for The Cincinnati Commercial, the Library of Congress began as a comprehensive collection under the donation of Thomas Jefferson in 1814. However, the Library of Congress shifted to a domestic collection management program until the end of the Civil War. Spofford adhered to the Jeffersonian belief that a form of government depended on a comprehensive base of knowledge and information. ”That has been the legacy of Spofford. Spofford is generally credited with overseeing the expansion of the Library from a Congressional resource into a national institution, during Spoffords tenure, the Library expanded from over 60,000 items to more than one million. His hopes were to follow the great models of Europe. A model in which the library would be a collection of the literature of the nation. Beginning in the 1830s, the Library of Congress began to receive foreign governmental documents, during the late 1860s, Spofford convinced Congress to allow the Library of Congress to become the repository for international documents. Furthermore, the Smithsonian Library transferred their entire collection to the Library of Congress, Spoffords vision was to turn the Library of Congress into an American national library. He felt that Americans deserved a national collection because America was a Republic, one of Spoffords greatest feats was the copyright law of 1870. It further centralized the collection of the Library of Congress, Spofford knew that this massive influx of materials would also force Congress to appropriate funds for a new building, which they finally agreed to in 1886. This building became a national monument immediately, and is now known as the Thomas Jefferson Building. In 1897, Spofford stepped aside in favor of an administrator, John Russell Young, and returned to his old post of Chief Assistant Librarian. Spofford was also not listed in the cemeterys handout that noted the people buried there
13.
Palais Garnier
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The Palais Garnier is a 1, 979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. The Paris Opera now mainly uses the Palais Garnier for ballet, the Palais Garnier has been called probably the most famous opera house in the world, a symbol of Paris like Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, or the Sacré Coeur Basilica. This opinion is far from unanimous however, the 20th-century French architect Le Corbusier once described it as a lying art, the Palais Garnier is a building of exceptional opulence. The style is monumental and considered Second-Empire Beaux-Arts style with axial symmetry in plan and these include very elaborate multicolored marble friezes, columns, and lavish statuary, many of which portray deities of Greek mythology. The principal facade is on the side of the building, overlooking the Place de lOpéra. Fourteen painters, mosaicists and seventy-three sculptors participated in the creation of its ornamentation, the two gilded figural groups, Charles Gumerys LHarmonie and La Poésie, crown the apexes of the principal facades left and right avant-corps. They are both made of gilt copper electrotype, the facade also incorporates other work by Gumery, Alexandre Falguière, and others. On the left and right lateral returns of the front facade are busts of the librettists Eugène Scribe and Philippe Quinault, when the Empire fell, work stopped, leaving unfinished dressed stonework. It is covered by a 13.5 metre diameter dome, two pairs of obelisks marking the entrances of the Rotunda to the north and the south. The interior consists of interweaving corridors, stairwells, alcoves and landings allowing the movement of large numbers of people, rich with velvet, gold leaf, and cherubim and nymphs, the interior is characteristic of Baroque sumptuousness. The building features a ceremonial staircase of white marble with a balustrade of red and green marble. Its design was inspired by Victor Louiss grand staircase for the Théâtre de Bordeaux, the pedestals of the staircase are decorated with female torchères, created by Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse. When they were first fixed in two months before the opening of the building it was obvious to Garnier that they were too dark for the space. With the help of two of his students, Pils had to rework the canvases while they were in place overhead on the ceiling and, at the age of 61, he fell ill. His students had to finish the work, which was completed the day before the opening and this hall 18 meters high,154 meters long and 13 meters wide was designed to act as a drawing room for Paris society. Its ceiling was painted by Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry and represents various moments in the history of music, the foyer opens into an outside loggia at each end of which are the Salon de la Lune and Salon du Soleil. The auditorium has a traditional Italian horseshoe shape and can seat 1,979, the stage is the largest in Europe and can accommodate as many as 450 artists. The canvas house curtain was painted to represent a draped curtain, complete with tassels, the ceiling area, which surrounds the chandelier, was originally painted by Jules Eugène Lenepveu
14.
World's Columbian Exposition
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The Worlds Columbian Exposition was a worlds fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbuss arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, the water pool, represented the long voyage Columbus took to the New World. Chicago bested New York City, Washington, D. C. the Exposition was an influential social and cultural event and had a profound effect on architecture, sanitation, the arts, Chicagos self-image, and American industrial optimism. The layout of the Chicago Columbian Exposition was, in part, designed by John Wellborn Root, Daniel Burnham, Frederick Law Olmsted. It was the prototype of what Burnham and his colleagues thought a city should be and it was designed to follow Beaux Arts principles of design, namely French neoclassical architecture principles based on symmetry, balance, and splendor. The color of the generally used to cover the buildings facades gave the fairgrounds its nickname. Many prominent architects designed its 14 great buildings, artists and musicians were featured in exhibits and many also made depictions and works of art inspired by the exposition. The exposition covered more than 600 acres, featuring nearly 200 new buildings of predominantly neoclassical architecture, canals and lagoons, more than 27 million people attended the exposition during its six-month run. Dedication ceremonies for the fair were held on October 21,1892, the fair continued until October 30,1893. On October 9,1893, the day designated as Chicago Day, the debt for the fair was soon paid off with a check for $1.5 million. Chicago has commemorated the fair one of the stars on its municipal flag. Schwab, Chicago railroad and manufacturing magnate John Whitfield Bunn, and Connecticut banking, insurance, the fair was planned in the early 1890s during the Gilded Age of rapid industrial growth, immigration, and class tension. Worlds fairs, such as Londons 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition, had been successful in Europe as a way to bring together societies fragmented along class lines, the first American attempt at a worlds fair in Philadelphia in 1876, drew crowds but was a financial failure. Nonetheless, ideas about distinguishing the 400th anniversary of Columbus landing started in the late 1880s. Civic leaders in St. Louis, New York City, Washington DC and Chicago expressed an interest in hosting a fair to generate profits, boost real estate values, Congress was called on to decide the location. What finally persuaded Congress was Chicago banker Lyman Gage, who raised several million dollars in a 24-hour period, over. The exposition corporation and national exposition commission settled on Jackson Park, Daniel H. Burnham was selected as director of works, and George R. Davis as director-general. Burnham emphasized architecture and sculpture as central to the fair and assembled the periods top talent to design the buildings, the temporary buildings were designed in an ornate Neoclassical style and painted white, resulting in the fair site being referred to as the “White City”
15.
Racialism
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Racialism is the belief that the human species is naturally divided into races, ostensibly distinct biological categories, without considering variable values among the races. Most dictionaries define the term racialism as synonymous with racism, Du Bois said that racialism is the philosophical position that races existed, and that collective differences existed among such categories, the races. That racism required advancing the argument that one race is superior to other races of human beings, in my Father’s House, Kwame Anthony Appiah summarized Du Bois’s philosophical stance that racialism is value-neutral term and that racism is a value-charged term. Today, some anthropologists and geneticists point to studies that suggest racialist beliefs are both compatible and incompatible with modern population genetics, according to Oxford Dictionaries Online, racialism is another term for racism. In My Fathers House, Africa in the Philosophy of Culture, are racism and racialism the same. CS1 maint, Uses authors parameter Agustín Fuentes, race Is Real, But Not in the Way Many People Think, Busting the myth of biological race. Thomas Sowell discussing Racial Quotas with William F. Buckley, Jr. on Firing Line
16.
Demosthenes
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Demosthenes was a Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide an insight into the politics, Demosthenes learned rhetoric by studying the speeches of previous great orators. He delivered his first judicial speeches at the age of 20, for a time, Demosthenes made his living as a professional speech-writer and a lawyer, writing speeches for use in private legal suits. Demosthenes grew interested in politics during his time as a logographer and he went on to devote his most productive years to opposing Macedons expansion. He idealized his city and strove throughout his life to restore Athens supremacy, after Philips death, Demosthenes played a leading part in his citys uprising against the new king of Macedonia, Alexander the Great. However, his efforts failed and the revolt was met with a harsh Macedonian reaction, to prevent a similar revolt against his own rule, Alexanders successor in this region, Antipater, sent his men to track Demosthenes down. Demosthenes took his own life, in order to avoid being arrested by Archias, the Alexandrian Canon compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace recognised Demosthenes as one of the ten greatest Attic orators and logographers. Longinus likened Demosthenes to a thunderbolt, and argued that he perfected to the utmost the tone of lofty speech, living passions, copiousness, readiness. Quintilian extolled him as lex orandi, and Cicero said about him that inter omnis unus excellat, Demosthenes was born in 384 BC, during the last year of the 98th Olympiad or the first year of the 99th Olympiad. His father—also named Demosthenes—who belonged to the tribe, Pandionis. Aeschines, Demosthenes greatest political rival, maintained that his mother Kleoboule was a Scythian by blood—an allegation disputed by modern scholars. Demosthenes was orphaned at the age of seven, although his father provided well for him, his legal guardians, Aphobus, Demophon and Therippides, mishandled his inheritance. As soon as Demosthenes came of age in 366 BC, he demanded they render an account of their management, according to Demosthenes, the account revealed the misappropriation of his property. Although his father left an estate of nearly fourteen talents, Demosthenes asserted his guardians had left nothing except the house, and fourteen slaves and thirty silver minae. At the age of 20 Demosthenes sued his trustees in order to recover his patrimony and delivered five orations, the courts fixed Demosthenes damages at ten talents. When all the trials came to an end, he succeeded in retrieving a portion of his inheritance. According to Pseudo-Plutarch, Demosthenes was married once, the only information about his wife, whose name is unknown, is that she was the daughter of Heliodorus, a prominent citizen. Demosthenes also had a daughter, the one who ever called him father
17.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, following this work, he gave a speech entitled The American Scholar in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. considered to be Americas intellectual Declaration of Independence. Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures first and then revised them for print and his first two collections of essays, Essays, First Series and Essays, Second Series, represent the core of his thinking. They include the well-known essays Self-Reliance, The Over-Soul, Circles, The Poet, together with Nature, these essays made the decade from the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s Emersons most fertile period. Emersons nature was more philosophical than naturalistic, Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature, Emerson is one of several figures who took a more pantheist or pandeist approach by rejecting views of God as separate from the world. He remains among the linchpins of the American romantic movement, and his work has influenced the thinkers, writers. When asked to sum up his work, he said his doctrine was the infinitude of the private man. Emerson is also known as a mentor and friend of Henry David Thoreau. Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 25,1803, a son of Ruth Haskins and the Rev. William Emerson and he was named after his mothers brother Ralph and his fathers great-grandmother Rebecca Waldo. Ralph Waldo was the second of five sons who survived adulthood, the others were William, Edward, Robert Bulkeley. Three other children—Phebe, John Clarke, and Mary Caroline—died in childhood, Emerson was entirely of English ancestry, and his family had been in New England since the early colonial period. Emersons father died from cancer on May 12,1811. Emerson was raised by his mother, with the help of the women in the family. She lived with the family off and on and maintained a constant correspondence with Emerson until her death in 1863, Emersons formal schooling began at the Boston Latin School in 1812, when he was nine. In October 1817, at 14, Emerson went to Harvard College and was appointed freshman messenger for the president, requiring Emerson to fetch delinquent students and send messages to faculty. Midway through his year, Emerson began keeping a list of books he had read. He took outside jobs to cover his expenses, including as a waiter for the Junior Commons and as an occasional teacher working with his uncle Samuel in Waltham. By his senior year, Emerson decided to go by his middle name, Emerson served as Class Poet, as was custom, he presented an original poem on Harvards Class Day, a month before his official graduation on August 29,1821, when he was 18
18.
Washington Irving
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Washington Irving was an American short story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Irving served as the U. S. ambassador to Spain from 1842 to 1846. He made his debut in 1802 with a series of observational letters to the Morning Chronicle. After moving to England for the business in 1815, he achieved international fame with the publication of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon. He continued to publish regularly—and almost always successfully—throughout his life, and just eight months before his death, Irving was also admired by some European writers, including Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Thomas Campbell, Francis Jeffrey, and Charles Dickens. Washington Irvings parents were William Irving, Sr. originally of Quholm, Shapinsay, Orkney and they married in 1761 while William was serving as a petty officer in the British Navy. They had eleven children, eight of whom survived to adulthood and their first two sons, each named William, died in infancy, as did their fourth child, John. Their surviving children were, William, Jr. Ann, Peter, Catherine, Ebenezer, John Treat, Sarah, and Washington. At age six, with the help of a nanny, Irving met his namesake, the president blessed young Irving, an encounter Irving later commemorated in a small watercolor painting, which still hangs in his home today. The Irvings lived at 131 William Street at the time of Washington Irvings birth, the family later moved across the street to 128 William St. An uninterested student, Irving preferred adventure stories and drama and and it was in Tarrytown that Irving became familiar with the nearby town of Sleepy Hollow, with its quaint Dutch customs and local ghost stories. Irving made several trips up the Hudson as a teenager, including an extended visit to Johnstown, New York, where he passed through the Catskill mountain region. F all the scenery of the Hudson, Irving wrote later, the 19-year-old Irving began writing letters to the New York Morning Chronicle in 1802, submitting commentaries on the citys social and theater scene under the name of Jonathan Oldstyle. The name, which evoked the writers Federalist leanings, was the first of many pseudonyms Irving would employ throughout his career. The letters brought Irving some early fame and moderate notoriety, concerned for his health, Irvings brothers financed an extended tour of Europe from 1804 to 1806. Irving bypassed most of the sites and locations considered essential for the development of an upwardly mobile young man, William wrote that, though he was pleased his brothers health was improving, he did not like the choice to gallop through Italy. Leaving Florence on your left and Venice on your right, instead, Irving honed the social and conversational skills that would later make him one of the worlds most in-demand guests. I endeavor to take things as they come with cheerfulness, Irving wrote, while visiting Rome in 1805, Irving struck up a friendship with the American painter Washington Allston, and nearly allowed himself to be persuaded into following Allston into a career as a painter
19.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer and statesman. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters and he was an early participant in the Sturm und Drang literary movement. He also contributed to the planning of Weimars botanical park and the rebuilding of its Ducal Palace and his first major scientific work, the Metamorphosis of Plants, was published after he returned from a 1788 tour of Italy. During this period, Goethe published his novel, Wilhelm Meisters Apprenticeship, the verse epic Hermann and Dorothea, and, in 1808. Goethes comments and observations form the basis of several biographical works, Goethes father, Johann Caspar Goethe, lived with his family in a large house in Frankfurt, then an Imperial Free City of the Holy Roman Empire. Though he had studied law in Leipzig and had been appointed Imperial Councillor, Johann Caspar married Goethes mother, Catharina Elizabeth Textor at Frankfurt on 20 August 1748, when he was 38 and she was 17. All their children, with the exception of Johann Wolfgang and his sister, Cornelia Friederica Christiana and his father and private tutors gave Goethe lessons in all the common subjects of their time, especially languages. Goethe also received lessons in dancing, riding and fencing, Johann Caspar, feeling frustrated in his own ambitions, was determined that his children should have all those advantages that he had not. Although Goethes great passion was drawing, he became interested in literature, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. He also took pleasure in reading works on history and religion. He writes about this period, Goethe became also acquainted with Frankfurt actors, among early literary attempts, he was infatuated with Gretchen, who would later reappear in his Faust and the adventures with whom he would concisely describe in Dichtung und Wahrheit. He adored Caritas Meixner, a wealthy Worms traders daughter and friend of his sister, Goethe studied law at Leipzig University from 1765 to 1768. He detested learning age-old judicial rules by heart, preferring instead to attend the lessons of Christian Fürchtegott Gellert. In Leipzig, Goethe fell in love with Anna Katharina Schönkopf, in 1770, he anonymously released Annette, his first collection of poems. His uncritical admiration for many contemporary poets vanished as he became interested in Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, already at this time, Goethe wrote a good deal, but he threw away nearly all of these works, except for the comedy Die Mitschuldigen. The restaurant Auerbachs Keller and its legend of Fausts 1525 barrel ride impressed him so much that Auerbachs Keller became the real place in his closet drama Faust Part One. As his studies did not progress, Goethe was forced to return to Frankfurt at the close of August 1768, Goethe became severely ill in Frankfurt. During the year and a half that followed, because of several relapses, during convalescence, Goethe was nursed by his mother and sister
20.
Benjamin Franklin
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Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Franklin was a polymath and a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, freemason, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman. As a scientist, he was a figure in the American Enlightenment. As an inventor, he is known for the rod, bifocals. He facilitated many civic organizations, including Philadelphias fire department and the University of Pennsylvania, Franklin earned the title of The First American for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity, initially as an author and spokesman in London for several colonies. As the first United States Ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American nation, in the words of historian Henry Steele Commager, In a Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without its defects, the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat. To Walter Isaacson, this makes Franklin the most accomplished American of his age, Franklin became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the leading city in the colonies, publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette at the age of 23. He became wealthy publishing this and Poor Richards Almanack, which he authored under the pseudonym Richard Saunders, after 1767, he was associated with the Pennsylvania Chronicle, a newspaper that was known for its revolutionary sentiments and criticisms of the British policies. He pioneered and was first president of The Academy and College of Philadelphia which opened in 1751 and he organized and was the first secretary of the American Philosophical Society and was elected president in 1769. Franklin became a hero in America as an agent for several colonies when he spearheaded an effort in London to have the Parliament of Great Britain repeal the unpopular Stamp Act. An accomplished diplomat, he was widely admired among the French as American minister to Paris and was a figure in the development of positive Franco-American relations. His efforts proved vital for the American Revolution in securing shipments of crucial munitions from France, during the Revolution, he became the first US Postmaster General. He was active in community affairs and colonial and state politics, from 1785 to 1788, he served as governor of Pennsylvania. He initially owned and dealt in slaves but, by the 1750s, he argued against slavery from an economic perspective, Franklins father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler, a soap-maker and a candle-maker. Josiah was born at Ecton, Northamptonshire, England on December 23,1657, the son of Thomas Franklin, a blacksmith-farmer, and Jane White. His mother, Abiah Folger, was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on August 15,1667, to Peter Folger, a miller and schoolteacher, and his wife, Mary Morrill, Josiah Franklin had seventeen children with his two wives. He married his first wife, Anne Child, in about 1677 in Ecton and emigrated with her to Boston in 1683, after her death, Josiah was married to Abiah Folger on July 9,1689 in the Old South Meeting House by Samuel Willard. Benjamin, their child, was Josiah Franklins fifteenth child and tenth
21.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
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Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, PC was a British historian and Whig politician. He wrote extensively as an essayist and reviewer, his books on British history have been hailed as literary masterpieces, Macaulay held political office as the Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841, and the Paymaster-General between 1846 and 1848. He played a role in introducing English and western concepts to education in India. He supported the replacement of Persian by English as the language, the use of English as the medium of instruction in all schools. In his view, Macaulay divided the world into civilised nations and barbarism and he was wedded to the Idea of Progress, especially in terms of the liberal freedoms. He opposed radicalism while idealising historic British culture and traditions, Macaulay was the son of Zachary Macaulay, a Scottish Highlander, who became a colonial governor and abolitionist, and Selina Mills of Bristol, a former pupil of Hannah More. They named their first child after his uncle Thomas Babington, a Leicestershire landowner and politician, Thomas Macaulay was born in Leicestershire, England, where he was noted as a child prodigy. As a toddler, gazing out of the window from his cot at the chimneys of a local factory and he was educated at a private school in Hertfordshire and at Trinity College, Cambridge. Whilst at Cambridge he wrote poetry and won several prizes. In 1825 he published a prominent essay on Milton in the Edinburgh Review and he studied law and in 1826 he was called to the bar but showed more interest in a political than a legal career. Macaulay, who never married and had no children, was rumoured to have fallen in love with Maria Kinnaird. But in fact, Macaulays strongest emotional ties were to his youngest sisters, Margaret who died while he was in India, as Hannah grew older, he formed the same close attachment to Hannahs daughter Margaret, whom he called Baba. Macaulay retained a passionate interest in literature throughout his life. He likely had an eidetic memory, while in India, he read every ancient Greek and Roman work that was available to him. In his letters, he describes reading the Aeneid whilst on vacation in Malvern in 1851 and he also taught himself German, Dutch, and Spanish, and remained fluent in French. In 1830 the Marquess of Lansdowne invited Macaulay to become Member of Parliament for the borough of Calne. His maiden speech was in favour of abolishing the civil disabilities of the Jews in the UK, Macaulay made his name with a series of speeches in favour of parliamentary reform. After the Great Reform Act of 1832 was passed, he became MP for Leeds, in the Reform, Calnes representation was reduced from two to one, Leeds had never been represented before, but now had two members
22.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist, dark romantic, and short story writer. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, to Nathaniel Hathorne and his ancestors include John Hathorne, the only judge involved in the Salem witch trials who never repented of his actions. Nathaniel later added a w to make his name Hawthorne in order to hide this relation and he entered Bowdoin College in 1821, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1824, and graduated in 1825. Hawthorne published his first work, a novel titled Fanshawe, in 1828, he tried to suppress it. He published several stories in periodicals, which he collected in 1837 as Twice-Told Tales. The next year, he engaged to Sophia Peabody. He worked at the Boston Custom House and joined Brook Farm, the couple moved to The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, later moving to Salem, the Berkshires, then to The Wayside in Concord. The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850, followed by a succession of other novels, a political appointment as consul took Hawthorne and family to Europe before their return to Concord in 1860. Hawthorne died on May 19,1864, and was survived by his wife, much of Hawthornes writing centers on New England, many works featuring moral allegories with a Puritan inspiration. His fiction works are considered part of the Romantic movement and, more specifically and his themes often center on the inherent evil and sin of humanity, and his works often have moral messages and deep psychological complexity. His published works include novels, short stories, and a biography of his college friend Franklin Pierce, Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4,1804, in Salem, Massachusetts, his birthplace is preserved and open to the public. William Hathorne, the authors great-great-great-grandfather, a Puritan, was the first of the family to emigrate from England, first settling in Dorchester, Massachusetts, before moving to Salem. There he became an important member of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and held political positions including magistrate and judge. Williams son and the authors great-great-grandfather, John Hathorne, was one of the judges who oversaw the Salem witch trials. Hawthornes father, Nathaniel Hathorne, Sr. was a sea captain who died in 1808 of yellow fever in Suriname, he had been a member of the East India Marine Society. After his death, young Nathaniel, his mother, and two sisters moved in with relatives, the Mannings, in Salem, where they lived for 10 years. In 1819, he was sent back to Salem for school and soon complained of homesickness and being too far from his mother and sisters. In spite of his homesickness, for the sake of having fun, he distributed seven issues of The Spectator to his family in August, the homemade newspaper was written by hand
23.
Walter Scott
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Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet, FRSE was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright and poet. Many of his works remain classics of both English-language literature and of Scottish literature, famous titles include Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, Old Mortality, The Lady of the Lake, Waverley, The Heart of Midlothian and The Bride of Lammermoor. A prominent member of the Tory establishment in Edinburgh, Scott was an member of the Highland Society. He survived a bout of polio in 1773 that left him lame. To cure his lameness he was sent in 1773 to live in the rural Scottish Borders at his grandparents farm at Sandyknowe, adjacent to the ruin of Smailholm Tower. Here he was taught to read by his aunt Jenny, and learned from her the speech patterns and many of the tales and legends that characterised much of his work. In January 1775 he returned to Edinburgh, and that went with his aunt Jenny to take spa treatment at Bath in England. In the winter of 1776 he went back to Sandyknowe, with another attempt at a cure at Prestonpans during the following summer. In 1778, Scott returned to Edinburgh for private education to him for school. In October 1779 he began at the Royal High School of Edinburgh and he was now well able to walk and explore the city and the surrounding countryside. His reading included chivalric romances, poems, history and travel books and he was given private tuition by James Mitchell in arithmetic and writing, and learned from him the history of the Church of Scotland with emphasis on the Covenanters. Scott began studying classics at the University of Edinburgh in November 1783, at the age of 12, in March 1786 he began an apprenticeship in his fathers office to become a Writer to the Signet. While at the university Scott had become a friend of Adam Ferguson, Scott met the blind poet Thomas Blacklock, who lent him books and introduced him to James Macphersons Ossian cycle of poems. During the winter of 1786–87 the 15-year-old Scott saw Robert Burns at one of these salons, for what was to be their only meeting. When Burns noticed a print illustrating the poem The Justice of the Peace and asked who had written the poem, only Scott knew that it was by John Langhorne, and was thanked by Burns. When it was decided that he would become a lawyer, he returned to the university to study law, first taking classes in Moral Philosophy, after completing his studies in law, he became a lawyer in Edinburgh. As a lawyers clerk he made his first visit to the Scottish Highlands directing an eviction and he was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1792. He had an unsuccessful love suit with Williamina Belsches of Fettercairn, as a boy, youth and young man, Scott was fascinated by the oral traditions of the Scottish Borders
24.
Dante Alighieri
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Durante degli Alighieri, simply called Dante, was a major Italian poet of the Late Middle Ages. In the late Middle Ages, the majority of poetry was written in Latin. In De vulgari eloquentia, however, Dante defended use of the vernacular in literature, as a result, Dante played an instrumental role in establishing the national language of Italy. In addition, the first use of the interlocking three-line rhyme scheme, Dante has been called the Father of the Italian language and one of the greatest poets of world literature. In Italy, Dante is often referred to as il Sommo Poeta and il Poeta, he, Petrarch, Dante was born in Florence, Republic of Florence, present-day Italy. The exact date of his birth is unknown, although it is believed to be around 1265. This can be deduced from autobiographic allusions in the Divine Comedy, in 1265, the sun was in Gemini between approximately May 11 and June 11. Dante claimed that his family descended from the ancient Romans, but the earliest relative he could mention by name was Cacciaguida degli Elisei, born no earlier than about 1100. Dantes father, Alaghiero or Alighiero di Bellincione, was a White Guelph who suffered no reprisals after the Ghibellines won the Battle of Montaperti in the middle of the 13th century. Dantes family had loyalties to the Guelphs, an alliance that supported the Papacy and which was involved in complex opposition to the Ghibellines. The poets mother was Bella, likely a member of the Abati family and she died when Dante was not yet ten years old, and Alighiero soon married again, to Lapa di Chiarissimo Cialuffi. When Dante was 12, he was promised in marriage to Gemma di Manetto Donati, daughter of Manetto Donati, contracting marriages at this early age was quite common and involved a formal ceremony, including contracts signed before a notary. But by this time Dante had fallen in love with another, Beatrice Portinari, years after his marriage to Gemma he claims to have met Beatrice again, he wrote several sonnets to Beatrice but never mentioned Gemma in any of his poems. The exact date of his marriage is not known, the certain information is that, before his exile in 1301. Dante fought with the Guelph cavalry at the Battle of Campaldino and this victory brought about a reformation of the Florentine constitution. To take any part in life, one had to enroll in one of the citys many commercial or artisan guilds, so Dante entered the Physicians. In the following years, his name is recorded as speaking or voting in the various councils of the republic. A substantial portion of minutes from meetings in the years 1298–1300 was lost, however
25.
Herbert Adams (sculptor)
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Samuel Herbert Adams was an American sculptor. Herbert Adams was born at West Concord, Vermont, in 1863, at the age of five, he moved to Fitchburg, Massachusetts, so his father could take a job at the Putnam Machine Co. His family purchased a home on 26 Chestnut Street and he attended the Fitchburg public schools, the Academy and was influenced by Fitchburg’s first Art teacher, Louise Haskell, to pursue a career in Art. He attended Mass Normal School in Boston and got teaching certificate, Herbert Adams taught Art in the Fitchburg Public schools from 1878–1882, but left Fitchburg for Paris France in 1885 to pursue his interest in sculpture. He was educated at the Massachusetts Normal Art School enrolling in 1877 at 18 years of age, in 1889 Rodney Wallace, James Phillips, and Henry Willis donated money for an ornamental fountain to grace the Upper Common of Fitchburg, MA and the City accepted the idea. This 26 foot in diameter granite and bronze fountain depicting two playful boys and a family of turtles was the first public commission awarded to Adams and was created in his Paris studio and this was the first, large sculpture, done in the “lost-wax” process, brought to America. During Adams lifetime he completed over 200 major public works of art, in 1890-1898 he was an instructor in the art school of Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York. He was elected into the National Academy of Design in 1898, Adams later served as President from 1917-1920. He experimented successfully with some polychrome busts and tinted marbles, notably in the Rabbis Daughter, and he was at his best in his portrait busts of women, the best example being the study, completed in 1887, of Miss Adeline Pond, whom he later married. He was a member of the U. S, commission of Fine Arts from 1915 to 1920, serving as vice chairman from 1918 to 1920. Adams died in New York City in 1945, works by Adams are held by numerous American museums, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. 1887-1889 – Bust of Adeline Valentine Pond, Hispanic Society of America, New York,1888 – Boys and Turtles Fountain, Fitchburg, Massachusetts. 1894 – The Rabbis Daughter, private collection, 1896-98 – Two bronze doors, Truth, Research, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. Begun by Olin Levi Warner in 1895,1897 – Bust of Professor Joseph Henry, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.1898 – Bust of Julia Marlowe as Juliet, Museum of the City of New York, New York, New York. 1898 – Memorial Tablets, Massachusetts State House, Boston, Massachusetts, 1898-1905 – Vanderbilt Memorial bronze doors, St. Bartholomews Church, New York, New York. 1899-1900 – La Jeunesse, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1899-1901 – Richard Smith, Smith Memorial Arch, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 1900 – Jonathan Edwards Memorial, First Congregational Church, Northampton,1902 – William Ellery Channing, Boston Public Garden, Boston, Massachusetts. 1902-05 – Matthias William Baldwin, City Hall, Philadelphia, Philadelphia,1912 – McMillan Fountain, Washington, D. C
26.
Jonathan Scott Hartley
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Jonathan Scott Hartley, American sculptor, was born at Albany, New York. Palmer, New York, and of the schools of the Royal Academy, London, he studied for a year in Berlin. His first important work was a statue of Miles Morgan, the Puritan, for Springfield, among his other works are the Daguerre Memorial in Washington, Thomas K. Beecher, Elmira, New York, and Alfred the Great, Appellate Division Courthouse of New York State. He devoted himself particularly to the making of portrait busts, in which he attained high rank, in 1881 he became a member of the National Academy of Design. He sculpted three of the nine busts around the front of the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. His Nathaniel Hawthorne, often mistaken for Mark Twain, has pride of place in the ornate west front gallery of the original Library of Congress building and he also sculpted the Washington Irving and the Ralph Waldo Emerson. The Emerson bust is a likeness, as Hartley, and especially his supervisor, Ainsworth Rand Spofford. Durante, Dianne, Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan, A Historical Guide, attribution Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Hartley, Jonathan Scott. Biography for Jonathan Scott Hartley This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
27.
Frederick Ruckstull
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Frederick Wellington Ruckstull was a French-born American sculptor and art critic. Born Ruckstuhl in Breitenbach, Alsace, France, his family moved to St. Louis, Missouri and he worked at a variety of unsatisfying jobs until his early twenties when an art exhibition in St. Louis inspired him to become a sculptor. He studied art locally, visited Paris and then worked for years as a toy store clerk to save enough to study in Paris for three years, in 1885, Ruckstull entered the Académie Julian, and studied under Gustave Boulanger, Camille Lefèvre, Jean Dampt and Antonin Mercié. He considered studying with Auguste Rodin, but claimed to be disgusted with his style, on returning to U. S. in 1892, Ruckstull opened a studio in New York City. His work Evening won the medal for sculpture at the 1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition. As a result of national exposure, he was commissioned to make an equestrian statue of Major-General John F. Hartranft for the Pennsylvania State University. In 1893, Ruckstull was appointed to teach modeling and marble carving at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Schools in New York City, Ruckstull was a founding member of the National Sculpture Society as well as the editor of the magazine Art World. In 1925 he wrote the book Great Works of Art and What Makes Them Great, a collection of essays he had published previously and his sculpture was in the figurative Beaux-Arts style, with its realism, and detailed modeling. He and other prominent sculptors of the era such as Daniel Chester French championed the French style of studio system teaching, art societies, following the Armory Show of 1913, he continued to represent the old guard of academic sculpture, a perspective clearly expressed in his book. Ruckstull married in 1896 and had one son and he died in New York at the age of 89 and was cremated. Capitol, Harrisburg Confederate Monument, Baltimore, Maryland Phoenicia New York Custom House Defense of the Flag, Little Rock, Arkansas Angels of the Confederacy, Columbia, frederick Ruckstull in American public collections, on the French Sculpture Census website
28.
The Court of Neptune Fountain
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The Court of Neptune Fountain is a group of bronze sculptures, by Roland Hinton Perry in 1897-1898. Jerome Connor may have assisted in the manufacture of the sculptures and they are located at the Library of Congress, at Independence Avenue and 1st St S. E. The god Neptune is flanked by figures of the Tritons, each blowing a conch shell, history of fountains in the United States List of public art in Washington, D. C. Ward 6
29.
Trevi Fountain
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The Trevi Fountain is a fountain in the Trevi district in Rome, Italy, designed by Italian architect Nicola Salvi and completed by Pietro Bracci. Standing 26.3 metres high and 49.15 metres wide, it is the largest Baroque fountain in the city, the fountain has appeared in several notable films, including Federico Fellinis La Dolce Vita. The fountain at the junction of three marks the terminal point of the modern Acqua Vergine, the revived Aqua Virgo. In 19 BC, supposedly with the help of a virgin, however, the eventual indirect route of the aqueduct made its length some 22 km. This Aqua Virgo led the water into the Baths of Agrippa and it served Rome for more than 400 years. Legend holds that in 19 BC thirsty Roman soldiers were guided by a girl to a source of pure water thirteen kilometres from the city of Rome. The aqueduct served the hot Baths of Agrippa, and Rome, in 1629 Pope Urban VIII, finding the earlier fountain insufficiently dramatic, asked Gian Lorenzo Bernini to sketch possible renovations, but the project was abandoned when the pope died. Though Berninis project was never constructed, there are many Bernini touches in the fountain as it exists today, competitions had become the rage during the Baroque era to design buildings, fountains and even the Spanish Steps. Work began in 1732 and the fountain was completed in 1762, long after Salvis death, the Trevi Fountain was finished in 1762 by Giuseppe Pannini, who substituted the present allegories for planned sculptures of Agrippa and Trivia, the Roman virgin. It was officially opened and inaugurated on May 22 by Pope Clemens XIII, the majority of the piece is made from Travertine stone, quarried near Tivoli, about 35 kilometres east of Rome. Restoration work began in June 2014 and was completed in November 2015, the fountain was reopened with an official ceremony on the evening of November 3,2015. The restoration included the installation of more than 100 LED lights to improve the illumination of the fountain. The backdrop for the fountain is the Palazzo Poli, given a new façade with a giant order of Corinthian pilasters that link the two main stories. Taming of the waters is the theme of the scheme that tumbles forward, mixing water and rockwork. Tritons guide Oceanus shell chariot, taming hippocamps, in the centre a robustly-modelled triumphal arch is superimposed on the palazzo façade. The centre niche or exedra framing Oceanus has free-standing columns for maximal light, in the niches flanking Oceanus, Abundance spills water from her urn and Salubrity holds a cup from which a snake drinks. Above, bas reliefs illustrate the Roman origin of the aqueducts, the tritons and horses provide symmetrical balance, with the maximum contrast in their mood and poses. Coins are purportedly meant to be using the right hand over the left shoulder
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Roland Hinton Perry
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Roland Hinton Perry was an American sculptor and painter. Perry was born in New York City to George and Ione Hinton Perry, at 21, he studied at the Académie Julian and Académie Delécluse in Paris and focused on sculpture, the medium in which he would achieve the most artistic success. After returning to the United States, Perry received a commission to sculpt a series of bas-reliefs for the Library of Congress in Washington, D. C. in 1894. The following year, he was commissioned to create the Court of Neptune Fountain in front of the Librarys main building, now known as the Thomas Jefferson Building. The success of work in Washington led to other commissions including a design for the statue of Commonwealth on top of the dome of Pennsylvanias new Capitol Building in 1905. Benjamin Rush in Washington and of General George S. Perry was a member of the Grand Central Art Galleries, many of his paintings are displayed at the Detroit Museum of Art. Perrys cousin was the sculptor Clio Hinton Bracken, and the two shared studio space for a time, Perry died in New York City on October 27,1941 at the age of 71. Roland Hinton Perry at Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Capitol, Capitol Artists R. H. Perry is Dead, The New York Times, roland Perry, Sculptor, Dies, The Washington Post, October 30,1941
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United States Congress
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The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States consisting of two chambers, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the Capitol in Washington, D. C, both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election, though vacancies in the Senate may be filled by a gubernatorial appointment. Members are usually affiliated to the Republican Party or to the Democratic Party, Congress has 535 voting members,435 Representatives and 100 Senators. The House of Representatives has six non-voting members in addition to its 435 voting members and these members can, however, sit on congressional committees and introduce legislation. Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the members of the House of Representatives serve two-year terms representing the people of a single constituency, known as a district. Congressional districts are apportioned to states by using the United States Census results. Each state, regardless of population or size, has two senators, currently, there are 100 senators representing the 50 states. Each senator is elected at-large in their state for a term, with terms staggered. The House and Senate are equal partners in the legislative process—legislation cannot be enacted without the consent of both chambers, however, the Constitution grants each chamber some unique powers. The Senate ratifies treaties and approves presidential appointments while the House initiates revenue-raising bills, the House initiates impeachment cases, while the Senate decides impeachment cases. A two-thirds vote of the Senate is required before a person can be forcibly removed from office. The term Congress can also refer to a meeting of the legislature. A Congress covers two years, the current one, the 115th Congress, began on January 3,2017, the Congress starts and ends on the third day of January of every odd-numbered year. Members of the Senate are referred to as senators, members of the House of Representatives are referred to as representatives, congressmen, or congresswomen. One analyst argues that it is not a solely reactive institution but has played a role in shaping government policy and is extraordinarily sensitive to public pressure. Several academics described Congress, Congress reflects us in all our strengths, Congress is the governments most representative body. Congress is essentially charged with reconciling our many points of view on the public policy issues of the day. —Smith, Roberts, and Wielen Congress is constantly changing and is constantly in flux, most incumbents seek re-election, and their historical likelihood of winning subsequent elections exceeds 90 percent
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Library
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A library is a collection of sources of information and similar resources, made accessible to a defined community for reference or borrowing. It provides physical or digital access to material, and may be a building or room, or a virtual space. Libraries range in size from a few shelves of books to several million items, in Latin and Greek, the idea of a bookcase is represented by Bibliotheca and Bibliothēkē, derivatives of these mean library in many modern languages, e. g. French bibliothèque. The first libraries consisted of archives of the earliest form of clay tablets in cuneiform script discovered in Sumer. Private or personal libraries made up of books appeared in classical Greece in the 5th century BC. In the 6th century, at the close of the Classical period. A library is organized for use and maintained by a body, an institution. In addition to providing materials, libraries also provide the services of librarians who are experts at finding and organizing information, Libraries often provide quiet areas for studying, and they also often offer common areas to facilitate group study and collaboration. Libraries often provide facilities for access to their electronic resources. Modern libraries are increasingly being redefined as places to get unrestricted access to information in many formats, the first libraries consisted of archives of the earliest form of writing—the clay tablets in cuneiform script discovered in temple rooms in Sumer, some dating back to 2600 BC. These archives, which consisted of the records of commercial transactions or inventories, mark the end of prehistory. Things were much the same in the government and temple records on papyrus of Ancient Egypt, the earliest discovered private archives were kept at Ugarit, besides correspondence and inventories, texts of myths may have been standardized practice-texts for teaching new scribes. There is also evidence of libraries at Nippur about 1900 BC, philosopher Laozi was keeper of books in the earliest library in China, which belonged to the Imperial Zhou dynasty. Also, evidence of catalogues found in some destroyed ancient libraries illustrates the presence of librarians, the Library of Alexandria, in Egypt, was the largest and most significant great library of the ancient world. It flourished under the patronage of the Ptolemaic dynasty and functioned as a center of scholarship from its construction in the 3rd century BC until the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC. The library was conceived and opened either during the reign of Ptolemy I Soter or during the reign of his son Ptolemy II, an early organization system was in effect at Alexandria. The Library of Celsus in Ephesus, Anatolia, now part of Selçuk, Turkey was built in honor of the Roman Senator Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus by Celsus’ son, the library was built to store 12,000 scrolls and to serve as a monumental tomb for Celsus. Private or personal libraries made up of books appeared in classical Greece in the 5th century BC
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United States Capitol
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The United States Capitol, often called the Capitol Building or Capitol Hill, is the home of the United States Congress, and the seat of the legislative branch of the U. S. federal government. It sits atop Capitol Hill at the end of the National Mall in Washington. Though not at the center of the Federal District, the Capitol forms the origin point for the Districts street-numbering system. The original building was completed in 1800 and was subsequently expanded, like the principal buildings of the executive and judicial branches, the Capitol is built in a distinctive neoclassical style and has a white exterior. Both its east and west elevations are referred to as fronts, though only the east front was intended for the reception of visitors. In 2014, scaffolding was erected around the dome for a project scheduled to be completed by early 2017. All exterior scaffolding was removed by the end of summer 2016, prior to establishing the nations capital in Washington, D. C. the United States Congress and its predecessors had met in Philadelphia, New York City, and a number of other locations. In September 1774, the First Continental Congress brought together delegates from the colonies in Philadelphia, followed by the Second Continental Congress, Congress requested that John Dickinson, the Governor of Pennsylvania, call up the militia to defend Congress from attacks by the protesters. In what became known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, Dickinson sympathized with the protesters and refused to remove them from Philadelphia. As a result, Congress was forced to flee to Princeton, New Jersey, on June 21,1783, and met in Annapolis, Maryland, the United States Congress was established upon ratification of the United States Constitution and formally began on March 4,1789. New York City remained home to Congress until July 1790, when the Residence Act was passed to pave the way for a permanent capital. As part of the legislation, Philadelphia was chosen as a capital for ten years, until the nations capital in Washington. Pierre Charles LEnfant was given the task of creating the city plan for the new capital city, in reviewing LEnfants plan, Thomas Jefferson insisted the legislative building be called the Capitol rather than Congress House. The word Capitol comes from Latin and is associated with the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on Capitoline Hill, the connection between the two is not, however, crystal clear. In spring 1792, United States Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson proposed a competition to solicit designs for the Capitol and the Presidents House. The prize for the competition was $500 and a lot in the Federal City, the most promising of the submissions was by Stephen Hallet, a trained French architect. However, Hallets designs were overly fancy, with too much French influence, a late entry by amateur architect William Thornton was submitted on January 31,1793, to much praise for its Grandeur, Simplicity, and Beauty by Washington, along with praise from Thomas Jefferson. Thornton was inspired by the east front of the Louvre, as well as the Paris Pantheon for the portion of the design
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Copyright
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Copyright is a legal right created by the law of a country that grants the creator of an original work exclusive rights for its use and distribution. This is usually only for a limited time, the exclusive rights are not absolute but limited by limitations and exceptions to copyright law, including fair use. A major limitation on copyright is that copyright protects only the expression of ideas. Copyright is a form of property, applicable to certain forms of creative work. Some, but not all jurisdictions require fixing copyrighted works in a tangible form and it is often shared among multiple authors, each of whom holds a set of rights to use or license the work, and who are commonly referred to as rights holders. These rights frequently include reproduction, control over derivative works, distribution, public performance, copyrights are considered territorial rights, which means that they do not extend beyond the territory of a specific jurisdiction. While many aspects of copyright laws have been standardized through international copyright agreements. Typically, the duration of a copyright spans the authors life plus 50 to 100 years, some countries require certain copyright formalities to establishing copyright, but most recognize copyright in any completed work, without formal registration. Generally, copyright is enforced as a matter, though some jurisdictions do apply criminal sanctions. Most jurisdictions recognize copyright limitations, allowing fair exceptions to the exclusivity of copyright. Copyright came about with the invention of the press and with wider literacy. As a legal concept, its origins in Britain were from a reaction to printers monopolies at the beginning of the 18th century, Copyright laws allow products of creative human activities, such as literary and artistic production, to be preferentially exploited and thus incentivized. Different cultural attitudes, social organizations, economic models and legal frameworks are seen to account for why copyright emerged in Europe and not, for example, however, with copyright laws, intellectual production comes to be seen as a product of an individual, with attendant rights. The most significant point is that patent and copyright laws support the expansion of the range of human activities that can be commodified. This parallels the ways in which led to the commodification of many aspects of social life that earlier had no monetary or economic value per se. Often seen as the first real copyright law, the 1709 British Statute of Anne gave the rights for a fixed period. The act also alluded to individual rights of the artist and it began, Whereas Printers, Booksellers, and other Persons, have of late frequently taken the Liberty of Printing. Books, and other Writings, without the Consent of the Authors. to their very great Detriment, and too often to the Ruin of them and their Families
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President of the United States
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The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. The president is considered to be one of the worlds most powerful political figures, the role includes being the commander-in-chief of the worlds most expensive military with the second largest nuclear arsenal and leading the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP. The office of President holds significant hard and soft power both in the United States and abroad, Constitution vests the executive power of the United States in the president. The president is empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves. The president is responsible for dictating the legislative agenda of the party to which the president is a member. The president also directs the foreign and domestic policy of the United States, since the office of President was established in 1789, its power has grown substantially, as has the power of the federal government as a whole. However, nine vice presidents have assumed the presidency without having elected to the office. The Twenty-second Amendment prohibits anyone from being elected president for a third term, in all,44 individuals have served 45 presidencies spanning 57 full four-year terms. On January 20,2017, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th, in 1776, the Thirteen Colonies, acting through the Second Continental Congress, declared political independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution. The new states, though independent of each other as nation states, desiring to avoid anything that remotely resembled a monarchy, Congress negotiated the Articles of Confederation to establish a weak alliance between the states. Out from under any monarchy, the states assigned some formerly royal prerogatives to Congress, only after all the states agreed to a resolution settling competing western land claims did the Articles take effect on March 1,1781, when Maryland became the final state to ratify them. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former colonies, with peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. Prospects for the convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washingtons attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia. It was through the negotiations at Philadelphia that the presidency framed in the U. S. The first power the Constitution confers upon the president is the veto, the Presentment Clause requires any bill passed by Congress to be presented to the president before it can become law. Once the legislation has been presented, the president has three options, Sign the legislation, the bill becomes law. Veto the legislation and return it to Congress, expressing any objections, in this instance, the president neither signs nor vetoes the legislation
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Thomas Jefferson
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Thomas Jefferson was an American Founding Father who was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and later served as the third President of the United States from 1801 to 1809. Previously, he was elected the second Vice President of the United States, Jefferson was primarily of English ancestry, born and educated in colonial Virginia. He graduated from the College of William & Mary and briefly practiced law and he became the United States Minister to France in May 1785, and subsequently the nations first Secretary of State in 1790–1793 under President George Washington. Jefferson and James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose the Federalist Party during the formation of the First Party System, as President, Jefferson pursued the nations shipping and trade interests against Barbary pirates and aggressive British trade policies. He also organized the Louisiana Purchase, almost doubling the countrys territory, as a result of peace negotiations with France, his administration reduced military forces. Jeffersons second term was beset with difficulties at home, including the trial of former Vice President Aaron Burr, American foreign trade was diminished when Jefferson implemented the Embargo Act of 1807, responding to British threats to U. S. shipping. In 1803, Jefferson began a process of Indian tribe removal to the newly organized Louisiana Territory. Jefferson mastered many disciplines, which ranged from surveying and mathematics to horticulture and he was a proven architect in the classical tradition. Jeffersons keen interest in religion and philosophy earned him the presidency of the American Philosophical Society and he shunned organized religion, but was influenced by both Christianity and deism. He was well versed in linguistics and spoke several languages and he founded the University of Virginia after retiring from public office. He was a letter writer and corresponded with many prominent and important people throughout his adult life. His only full-length book is Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson owned several plantations which were worked by hundreds of slaves. Most historians now believe that, after the death of his wife in 1782, he had a relationship with his slave Sally Hemings and fathered at least one of her children. Various modern scholars are more critical of Jeffersons private life, pointing out the discrepancy between his ownership of slaves and his political principles, for example. Presidential scholars, however, consistently rank Jefferson among the greatest presidents, Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13,1743, at the family home in Shadwell in the Colony of Virginia, the third of ten children. He was of English and possibly Welsh descent and was born a British subject and his father Peter Jefferson was a planter and surveyor who died when Jefferson was fourteen, his mother was Jane Randolph. Peter Jefferson moved his family to Tuckahoe Plantation in 1745 upon the death of a friend who had named him guardian of his children, the Jeffersons returned to Shadwell in 1752, where Peter died in 1757, his estate was divided between his sons Thomas and Randolph. Thomas inherited approximately 5,000 acres of land, including Monticello and he assumed full authority over his property at age 21
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United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was established as a sovereign state on 1 January 1801 by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland. The growing desire for an Irish Republic led to the Irish War of Independence, Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom, and the state was consequently renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Britain financed the European coalition that defeated France in 1815 in the Napoleonic Wars, the British Empire thereby became the foremost world power for the next century. The Crimean War with Russia and the Boer wars were relatively small operations in a largely peaceful century, rapid industrialisation that began in the decades prior to the states formation continued up until the mid-19th century. A devastating famine, exacerbated by government inaction in the century, led to demographic collapse in much of Ireland. It was an era of economic modernization and growth of industry, trade and finance. Outward migration was heavy to the colonies and to the United States. Britain also built up a large British Empire in Africa and Asia, India, by far the most important possession, saw a short-lived revolt in 1857. In foreign policy Britain favoured free trade, which enabled its financiers and merchants to operate successfully in many otherwise independent countries, as in South America. Britain formed no permanent military alliances until the early 20th century, when it began to cooperate with Japan, France and Russia, and moved closer to the United States. A brief period of limited independence for Ireland came to an end following the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the British governments fear of an independent Ireland siding against them with the French resulted in the decision to unite the two countries. This was brought about by legislation in the parliaments of both kingdoms and came into effect on 1 January 1801, however, King George III was bitterly opposed to any such Emancipation and succeeded in defeating his governments attempts to introduce it. When the Treaty of Amiens ended the war, Britain agreed to return most of the territories it had seized, in May 1803, war was declared again. In 1806, Napoleon issued the series of Berlin Decrees, which brought into effect the Continental System and this policy aimed to eliminate the threat from the British by closing French-controlled territory to foreign trade. Frances population and agricultural capacity far outstripped that of the British Isles, Napoleon expected that cutting Britain off from the European mainland would end its economic hegemony. The Spanish uprising in 1808 at last permitted Britain to gain a foothold on the Continent, after Napoleons surrender and exile to the island of Elba, peace appeared to have returned. The Allies united and the armies of Wellington and Blucher defeated Napoleon once, simultaneous with the Napoleonic Wars, trade disputes, arming hostile Indians and British impressment of American sailors led to the War of 1812 with the United States. The war was little noticed in Britain, which could devote few resources to the conflict until the fall of Napoleon in 1814, American frigates inflicted a series of defeats on the Royal Navy, which was short on manpower due to the conflict in Europe
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War of 1812
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Historians in the United States and Canada see it as a war in its own right, but the British often see it as a minor theatre of the Napoleonic Wars. By the wars end in early 1815, the key issues had been resolved, the view was shared in much of New England and for that reason the war was widely referred to there as Mr. Madison’s War. As a result, the primary British war goal was to defend their North American colonies, the war was fought in three theatres. Second, land and naval battles were fought on the U. S. –Canadian frontier, Third, large-scale battles were fought in the Southern United States and Gulf Coast. With the majority of its land and naval forces tied down in Europe fighting the Napoleonic Wars, early victories over poorly-led U. S. armies demonstrated that the conquest of the Canadas would prove more difficult than anticipated. Despite this, the U. S. was able to inflict serious defeats on Britains Native American allies, both governments were eager for a return to normality and peace negotiations began in Ghent in August 1814. This brought an Era of Good Feelings in which partisan animosity nearly vanished in the face of strengthened American nationalism, the war was also a major turning point in the development of the U. S. military, with militia being increasingly replaced by a more professional force. The U. S. also acquired permanent ownership of Spains Mobile District, the government of Canada declared a three-year commemoration of the War of 1812 in 2012, intended to offer historical lessons and celebrate 200 years of peace across the border. At the conclusion of the commemorations in 2014, a new national War of 1812 Monument was unveiled in Ottawa. The war is remembered in Britain primarily as a footnote in the much larger Napoleonic Wars occurring in Europe, historians have long debated the relative weight of the multiple reasons underlying the origins of the War of 1812. This section summarizes several contributing factors which resulted in the declaration of war by the United States, as Risjord notes, a powerful motivation for the Americans was the desire to uphold national honour in the face of what they considered to be British insults such as the Chesapeake–Leopard Affair. The approaching conflict was about violations of American rights, but it was also vindication of American identity. Americans at the time and historians since often called it the United States Second War of Independence, in 1807, Britain introduced a series of trade restrictions via a series of Orders in Council to impede neutral trade with France, with which Britain was at war. The United States contested these restrictions as illegal under international law, the American merchant marine had come close to doubling between 1802 and 1810, making it by far the largest neutral fleet. Britain was the largest trading partner, receiving 80% of U. S. cotton, the British public and press were resentful of the growing mercantile and commercial competition. The United States view was that Britains restrictions violated its right to trade with others, during the Napoleonic Wars, the Royal Navy expanded to 176 ships of the line and 600 ships overall, requiring 140,000 sailors to man. The United States believed that British deserters had a right to become U. S. citizens and this meant that in addition to recovering naval deserters, it considered any United States citizens who were born British liable for impressment. Aggravating the situation was the reluctance of the United States to issue formal naturalization papers and it was estimated by the Admiralty that there were 11,000 naturalized sailors on United States ships in 1805
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United States Senate
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The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress which, along with the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, composes the legislature of the United States. The composition and powers of the Senate are established by Article One of the United States Constitution. S. From 1789 until 1913, Senators were appointed by the legislatures of the states represented, following the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. The Senate chamber is located in the wing of the Capitol, in Washington. It further has the responsibility of conducting trials of those impeached by the House, in the early 20th century, the practice of majority and minority parties electing their floor leaders began, although they are not constitutional officers. This idea of having one chamber represent people equally, while the other gives equal representation to states regardless of population, was known as the Connecticut Compromise, there was also a desire to have two Houses that could act as an internal check on each other. One was intended to be a Peoples House directly elected by the people, the other was intended to represent the states to such extent as they retained their sovereignty except for the powers expressly delegated to the national government. The Senate was thus not designed to serve the people of the United States equally, the Constitution provides that the approval of both chambers is necessary for the passage of legislation. First convened in 1789, the Senate of the United States was formed on the example of the ancient Roman Senate, the name is derived from the senatus, Latin for council of elders. James Madison made the comment about the Senate, In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people. An agrarian law would take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation, landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority, the senate, therefore, ought to be this body, and to answer these purposes, the people ought to have permanency and stability. The Constitution stipulates that no constitutional amendment may be created to deprive a state of its equal suffrage in the Senate without that states consent, the District of Columbia and all other territories are not entitled to representation in either House of the Congress. The District of Columbia elects two senators, but they are officials of the D. C. city government. The United States has had 50 states since 1959, thus the Senate has had 100 senators since 1959. In 1787, Virginia had roughly ten times the population of Rhode Island, whereas today California has roughly 70 times the population of Wyoming and this means some citizens are effectively two orders of magnitude better represented in the Senate than those in other states. Seats in the House of Representatives are approximately proportionate to the population of each state, before the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, Senators were elected by the individual state legislatures
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United States House of Representatives
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The United States House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the United States Congress which, along with the Senate, composes the legislature of the United States. The composition and powers of the House are established by Article One of the United States Constitution, since its inception in 1789, all representatives are elected popularly. The total number of voting representatives is fixed by law at 435, the House is charged with the passage of federal legislation, known as bills, which, after concurrence by the Senate, are sent to the President for consideration. The presiding officer is the Speaker of the House, who is elected by the members thereof and is traditionally the leader of the controlling party. He or she and other leaders are chosen by the Democratic Caucus or the Republican Conferences. The House meets in the wing of the United States Capitol. Under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress of the Confederation was a body in which each state was equally represented. All states except Rhode Island agreed to send delegates, the issue of how to structure Congress was one of the most divisive among the founders during the Convention. The House is referred to as the house, with the Senate being the upper house. Both houses approval is necessary for the passage of legislation, the Virginia Plan drew the support of delegates from large states such as Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, as it called for representation based on population. The smaller states, however, favored the New Jersey Plan, the Constitution was ratified by the requisite number of states in 1788, but its implementation was set for March 4,1789. The House began work on April 1,1789, when it achieved a quorum for the first time, during the first half of the 19th century, the House was frequently in conflict with the Senate over regionally divisive issues, including slavery. The North was much more populous than the South, and therefore dominated the House of Representatives, However, the North held no such advantage in the Senate, where the equal representation of states prevailed. Regional conflict was most pronounced over the issue of slavery, One example of a provision repeatedly supported by the House but blocked by the Senate was the Wilmot Proviso, which sought to ban slavery in the land gained during the Mexican–American War. Conflict over slavery and other issues persisted until the Civil War, the war culminated in the Souths defeat and in the abolition of slavery. Because all southern senators except Andrew Johnson resigned their seats at the beginning of the war, the years of Reconstruction that followed witnessed large majorities for the Republican Party, which many Americans associated with the Unions victory in the Civil War and the ending of slavery. The Reconstruction period ended in about 1877, the ensuing era, the Democratic and the Republican Party held majorities in the House at various times. The late 19th and early 20th centuries also saw an increase in the power of the Speaker of the House
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Supreme Court of the United States
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The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest federal court of the United States. In the legal system of the United States, the Supreme Court is the interpreter of federal constitutional law. The Court normally consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight justices who are nominated by the President. Once appointed, justices have life tenure unless they resign, retire, in modern discourse, the justices are often categorized as having conservative, moderate, or liberal philosophies of law and of judicial interpretation. Each justice has one vote, and while many cases are decided unanimously, the Court meets in the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D. C. The Supreme Court is sometimes referred to as SCOTUS, in analogy to other acronyms such as POTUS. The ratification of the United States Constitution established the Supreme Court in 1789 and its powers are detailed in Article Three of the Constitution. The Supreme Court is the court specifically established by the Constitution. The Court first convened on February 2,1790, by which five of its six initial positions had been filled. According to historian Fergus Bordewich, in its first session, he Supreme Court convened for the first time at the Royal Exchange Building on Broad Street and they had no cases to consider. After a week of inactivity, they adjourned until September, the sixth member was not confirmed until May 12,1790. Because the full Court had only six members, every decision that it made by a majority was made by two-thirds. However, Congress has always allowed less than the Courts full membership to make decisions, under Chief Justices Jay, Rutledge, and Ellsworth, the Court heard few cases, its first decision was West v. Barnes, a case involving a procedural issue. The Courts power and prestige grew substantially during the Marshall Court, the Marshall Court also ended the practice of each justice issuing his opinion seriatim, a remnant of British tradition, and instead issuing a single majority opinion. Also during Marshalls tenure, although beyond the Courts control, the impeachment, the Taney Court made several important rulings, such as Sheldon v. Nevertheless, it is primarily remembered for its ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which helped precipitate the Civil War. In the Reconstruction era, the Chase, Waite, and Fuller Courts interpreted the new Civil War amendments to the Constitution, during World War II, the Court continued to favor government power, upholding the internment of Japanese citizens and the mandatory pledge of allegiance. Nevertheless, Gobitis was soon repudiated, and the Steel Seizure Case restricted the pro-government trend, the Warren Court dramatically expanded the force of Constitutional civil liberties. It held that segregation in public schools violates equal protection and that traditional legislative district boundaries violated the right to vote
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United States Senate Page
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A United States Senate Page is a non-partisan federal employee serving the United States Senate in Washington, D. C. Despite the non-partisan affiliation, pages are assigned to serve senators of the sponsoring senators party, in order to become a U. S. Senate Page, one must first be nominated by a Senator, generally from his or her State. A candidate must be a 16- or 17-year-old high school junior, summer pages can be rising juniors or rising seniors and must have a GPA requirement of a 3.0 or higher. Processes for selection vary by state and senator, typically, a senators office will require the applicant submit a transcript, resume, and various essays. The process is similar to that of selecting an office employee, students can apply for appointment to one of four terms, a Fall semester, a Spring semester, a three or four week June session, and a three or four week July session. During the school year, there are 30 Pages, the majority appoints 16, while the minority appoints 14. Because U. S. Senate Pages are required to wear uniforms while on the job, the uniform consists of a navy blue suit, a white, long sleeve, traditional dress shirt, a name badge, Page insignia lapel pin, and a plain, navy tie. As expected of most Senate employees, Pages are required to maintain a neat, boys must be clean-shaven with hair kept short and neat, falling above their ears. Girls must also have their hair neat and kept out of their face, no extraneous jewelry is to be worn. If a pages appearance is deemed unsatisfactory during the day he or she may be sent back to Webster Hall immediately. U. S. Senate Pages reside at the Daniel Webster Senate Page Residence and this facility is a former funeral home and was reconfigured in order to provide Pages with a home away from home during their time in Washington. Administration and staff include the Page Program Director, Administrative Assistant, four resident Proctors, the living quarters cover two floors, one for male Pages, the other for female Pages. Each floor has a day room for social activity, all Pages share furnished rooms with other Pages and each room is designed for four or six occupants. Each room has closet space, a bathroom, and a single telephone, the Senate Page School, laundry facilities and a kitchen are located on the basement level. The program provides the pages with two meals per day, seven days per week, breakfast is provided at the residence. Lunch is provided on weekdays through a card at the Senate Cafeterias. On Saturdays, lunch or dinner is provided through a voucher for a meal at Union Station, or if the Pages are on a field trip. On Sundays, the program provides dinner at the residence, or goes out to a restaurant, the United States Capitol Police maintains a 24-hour post at Webster Hall as well as outside foot and car patrols
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United States House of Representatives Page
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Pages reported to Chief Pages, commonly referred to as work bosses on the Democratic and Republican sides of the House of Representatives Floor. As was the practice in Middle Ages, pages were used as a service for the four main House Office Buildings as well as inside the Capitol. Pages were nominated by representatives based upon a competitive application process. Congressional Pages had served within the U. S. House of Representatives for almost 180 years, the Senate Page program will continue. Pages serve in one of four terms, a fall semester, a four. Those selected to serve during the period may serve either the summer directly before or directly after their junior year of high school. After completing one session, Pages may be eligible for the subsequent session, based upon merit, prospective House Pages are nominated by a representative or congressional delegate. Pages for the majority party tend to spend the academic year involved in the program, others from the minority party may apply. A Page may be nominated by any representative, regardless of party affiliation or district, candidates must be at least 16 years of age at the time of service, and must serve during either their junior year or during the summer immediately before or after the junior year. Candidates are required to submit high school transcripts as well as information about activities and other criteria, as well as an essay. All final selections for the majority Pages are made by the Speaker of the House and it is a general rule that only one nominee is permitted per representative, except for party leadership. During the 110th Congress, Rep. Anna Eshoo was allowed to appoint a set of twins as Democratic Pages during the summer session. Usually, each group of Pages, typically referred to as a class, Fall and spring classes tend to have between 60 and 72 Pages, while summer session classes are larger, being between 70 and 75 Pages. Thus, not every representative can nominate a Page, during the fall term of the 110th Congress, only 52 Pages were appointed by representatives, making it the smallest Page class in many years. Distribution of Pages slots are 2,1 in the favor of the majority party in the House, however, each party rarely fills all their slots for the school year terms, leaving the minority Page service more shorthanded. Majority Pages will often seek to out their friends on the other side of the aisle with large work-loads. House Pages serving during the school attend the House Page School, located on the attic floor of the Jefferson. Pages are given Library of Congress badges that allow them to access the restricted floor, the school is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools
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Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge
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Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge aka Liz Coolidge, born Elizabeth Penn Sprague, was an American pianist and patron of music, especially of chamber music. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidges father was a wholesale dealer in Chicago. She was musically talented and studied piano as well as composition and she married the physician Frederic Shurtleff Coolidge who died from syphilis contracted from a patient during surgery, leaving her with their only child Albert. Soon after, her parents died as well, Coolidges cousin was Lucy Sprague Mitchell, the founder of Bank Street College of Education. Coolidge provided Mitchell with funds for the founding of the school in 1916, due to her husbands profession, she also gave financial support to medical institutions. Her devotion to music and generosity to musicians were spurred by her own experience as a musician, she appeared as a pianist up to her 80s. Coolidge established the Berkshire String Quartet in 1916 and started the Berkshire Music Festival at South Mountain, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, out of this grew the Berkshire Symphonic Festival at Tanglewood, which she also supported. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts, in 1932, Coolidge established the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Medal for eminent services to chamber music. The medals were awarded by the Library of Congress. But, in 1949 — after objections by U. S, congressmen over the appropriateness of a government body awarding prizes in fine arts and literature to individuals who might harbor dissident views towards the U. S. The Sprague Memorial Hall at Yale University was also financed by Coolidge, Coolidge had a reputation for promoting difficult modern music. Though American herself, she had no national preferences, and in fact most of her commissions went to European composers and she didnt have any urge to specifically promote women composers, either. She sponsored the 1927 tour of the United States of composer Ottorino Resphigi and his wife and that composition turned out to be the Trittico Botticelliano, inspired by three Botticelli paintings on display at the Uffizi museum in Florence, Italy. The first performance of the work was at a concert in Vienna at the end of same year. The most lasting memorial to Elizabeth Sprague Coolidges patronage of music are the compositions which she commissioned from many leading composers of the early 20th century, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, American Patron of Music. New York , London, Schirmer Books , Prentice Hall International,1998, locke, Ralph P. and Cyrilla Barr, editors, Cultivating Music in America, Women Patrons and Activists since 1860. Berkeley, University of California Press,1997
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Calvin Coolidge
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John Calvin Coolidge Jr. was the 30th President of the United States. A Republican lawyer from Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics and his response to the Boston Police Strike of 1919 thrust him into the national spotlight and gave him a reputation as a man of decisive action. Soon after, he was elected as the 29th vice president in 1920, elected in his own right in 1924, he gained a reputation as a small-government conservative, and also as a man who said very little, although having a rather dry sense of humor. Coolidge restored public confidence in the White House after the scandals of his predecessors administration, as a Coolidge biographer wrote, He embodied the spirit and hopes of the middle class, could interpret their longings and express their opinions. That he did represent the genius of the average is the most convincing proof of his strength, Coolidges retirement was relatively short, as he died at the age of 60 in January 1933, less than two months before his immediate successor, Herbert Hoover, left office. Though his reputation underwent a renaissance during the Ronald Reagan administration, John Calvin Coolidge Jr. was born in Plymouth Notch, Windsor County, Vermont, on July 4,1872, the only U. S. president to be born on Independence Day. He held various offices, including justice of the peace and tax collector. Coolidges mother was the daughter of a Plymouth Notch farmer and she was chronically ill and died, perhaps from tuberculosis, when Coolidge was twelve years old. His younger sister, Abigail Grace Coolidge, died at the age of fifteen, probably of appendicitis, Coolidges father remarried in 1891, to a schoolteacher, and lived to the age of eighty. Coolidges family had roots in New England, his earliest American ancestor, John Coolidge, emigrated from Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, England, around 1630 and settled in Watertown. Another ancestor, Edmund Rice, arrived at Watertown in 1638, Coolidges great-great-grandfather, also named John Coolidge, was an American military officer in the Revolutionary War and one of the first selectmen of the town of Plymouth Notch. His grandfather, Calvin Galusha Coolidge, served in the Vermont House of Representatives, many of Coolidges ancestors were farmers, and numerous distant cousins were prominent in politics. Coolidge attended Black River Academy and then Amherst College, where he distinguished himself in the class, as a senior joined the fraternity Phi Gamma Delta. While there, Coolidge was profoundly influenced by philosophy professor Charles Edward Garman, the only hope of perfecting human relationships is in accordance with the law of service under which men are not so solicitous about what they shall get as they are about what they shall give. Yet people are entitled to the rewards of their industry, what they earn is theirs, no matter how small or how great. But the possession of property carries the obligation to use it in a larger service, at his fathers urging after graduation, Coolidge moved to Northampton, Massachusetts to become a lawyer. To avoid the cost of law school, Coolidge followed the practice of apprenticing with a local law firm, Hammond & Field. John C. Hammond and Henry P. Field, both Amherst graduates, introduced Coolidge to law practice in the county seat of Hampshire County, in 1897, Coolidge was admitted to the bar, becoming a country lawyer
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Olin Levi Warner
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Olin Levi Warner was an American sculptor and artist noted for the striking bas relief portrait medallions and busts he created in the late 19th century. Warner was born in Suffield, Connecticut, Warners great-great-uncle was the Revolutionary leader Seth Warner. As a young man he worked as an artisan and a telegraph operator, when the French Third Republic was proclaimed in 1870, he enlisted in the Foreign Legion, resuming his studies when the siege was over. In 1872, he removed to New York City and established a studio and he was one of the founders and a member of the Society of American Artists in 1877, and an associate of the National Academy of Design in 1888. A trip through the Northwest Territory led to a series of Native American-themed portrait medallions and he designed the souvenir half dollar for the Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893. After meeting with little success, however, he returned to live at his fathers farm in Vermont. Towards the end of his life his sculptures became known to a wider audience and he died in 1896, after a cycling accident in New Yorks Central Park. In the 1970s Warners heirs donated his collection of papers to the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. Warner is credited with popularizing the bas relief, through numerous portraits in this style, among his best known works are, May Edwin Forrest Rutherford B. The three tympanums and one door had been completed when he died, attribution This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Warner, Olin Levi
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Tympanum (architecture)
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In architecture, a tympanum is the semi-circular or triangular decorative wall surface over an entrance, door or window, bounded by a lintel and arch. It often contains sculpture or other imagery or ornaments, most architectural styles include this element. In ancient Greek, Roman and Christian architecture, tympana usually contain religious imagery, a tympanum over a doorway is very often the most important, or only, location for monumental sculpture on the outside of a building. These shapes naturally influence the typical compositions of any sculpture within the tympanum, bands of molding surrounding the tympanum are referred to as the archivolt. In medieval French architecture the tympanum is often supported by a pillar called a trumeau. Gable Pediment Portal Sculpted tympanums Chartres Cathedral, West Front, Central Portal Tympanum of the last Judgment - western portal of the abbey-church of Saint Foy
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