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handeaux · 3 years

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17 Curious Facts About The Cincinnati Reds

The Original Cincinnati Baseball Team Now Plays In Atlanta

Everyone knows baseball’s first professional team was organized in Cincinnati in 1869. What’s forgotten is that team’s disappointing 1870 season, after which the franchise dissolved. Manager Harry Wright moved to Boston, where he organized, with some former Cincinnati teammates, the Boston Red Stockings in 1871. Renamed the Boston Braves in 1912, that team moved to Milwaukee in 1953, and to Atlanta in 1966.

Red Stockings Were Dangerous

The 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings created a sensation by wearing knickerbocker trousers to show off their manly calves, clothed in lurid scarlet, to entice more women to the ball park. Other clubs adopted Cincinnati’s style, but players reported cases of blood poisoning when they were spiked, because the toxic dyes coloring their stockings seeped into the wounds. By the early 1900s, players started wearing white “sanitary socks” under brightly (and dangerously) dyed “stirrup socks” to avoid infection.

Today’s Reds Are Cincinnati’s Fifth Professional Baseball Team

1. The Cincinnati Red Stockings of 1869 dissolved after the 1870 season. 2. A revived Reds, formed in 1875, joined the new National League in 1876, but was expelled from the league and dissolved in 1880 because they refused to stop serving beer. 3. The current Cincinnati Reds team was organized in 1881 to join the rival American Association, then quit the AA in 1889 to rejoin the National League. 4. The American Association returned to town in 1891 with team known as Kelly's Killers, who played in the East End. 5. A short-lived professional league, the Union Association, recruited a Cincinnati franchise, the “Outlaw Reds,” who competed during that league’s only season in 1884.

Too Much Sunshine.

Baseball games have been called on account of rain, snow, earthquakes, darkness and all sorts of factors, but the Cincinnati Reds once had a game called on account of sunshine. The Reds and the Boston Braves squared off on 6 May 1892 in League Park. This ancestor of Crosley Field was built facing west and, after 14 innings of scoreless play, the catchers and hitters complained they couldn’t see the ball as the sun slowly settled behind Price Hill. Umpire Jack Sheridan agreed and called the tie game on account of sunshine. The next day’s Enquirer called the decision “just and sensible.”

Cicadas Are Good Luck

Local maven Joe Hoffecker notes the Reds have played eight seasons during which Cincinnati endured an infestation of 17-year cicadas. During those eight seasons, the Reds won a World Series, two National League pennants and two second-place finishes. The combined won-lost record for those eight years is 633-553, for a cumulative .534 percentage. This bodes well for the 2021 season.

Build It And They Will Come

Before settling in at the corner of Western Avenue and Findlay Street, the Reds played ball at Union Grounds, located approximately where the Union Terminal Fountain is today (1867 to 1870), at a park variously known as Cincinnati Baseball Park, Avenue Grounds, and Brighton Park, located in Camp Washington on Spring Grove Avenue north of the stockyards (1876 to 1880), and at the Bank Street Grounds in Brighton, near where Bank Street ends at I-75 today (1882 to 1883). The team settled at a former brickyard at the corner of Western Avenue and Findlay Street, named League Park (1884 to 1901), rebuilt as the Palace of the Fans in 1902, and as Redland Field in 1912. This venue was renamed Crosley field in 1934.

Ovine Groundskeepers

On the morning of 4 July 1894, somebody opened the gates at League Park and all the lawnmowers escaped. Groundskeeper John Schwab arrived at the ball grounds early to get the lines painted and stands swept for a double header only to discover that a flock of sheep he employed to trim the grass had wandered off. By nightfall, he hadn’t located his errant grounds crew.

Palms Of Seasoned Leather

Second baseman John Alexander “Bid” McPhee was the first major leaguer to play his entire professional career (1882-99) for the Cincinnati Reds. Many years later, Johnny Bench and Barry Larkin also achieved this feat. But there is another curious feat associated with Bid McPhee. He was certainly the last second baseman, and some sources claim he was the last player, to take the field without a glove. After 14 years of outstanding fielding without a mitt, McPhee donned a glove in 1896 and had a Hall of fame year.

Let’s Go Out To The Lobby

In 1913, the hottest concept in movie theaters was the airdome, an outdoor set-up under the stars with a piano player pounding away as silent films unspooled. The Reds organization hopped on that bandwagon by opening Cincinnati’s only roof-covered airdome at Redland Field. The nightly theater sat 3,000 viewers who got to see a feature and four shorts for a nickel. The Reds also leased their ballpark for dances, boxing, wrestling and track events.

Spring Training In A Cemetery

Although the 1919 Reds went on to claim the World Series crown, the year got off to an inauspicious start. Manager Pat Moran hauled the team to Waxahachie, Texas for spring training but found the weather anything but vernal. Constant rain and plunging temperatures prevented play on the field at Jungle Park, so the team practiced on the adjacent railroad tracks or crossed the road and found higher – and dryer – ground in the Waxahachie City Cemetery. It was the “dead ball” era, after all!

Ejected For Napping

Hall-of-Fame center-fielder Edd Roush has the distinction of being the only major leaguer ever ejected from a game for taking a nap on the field. The Reds opened an East Coast road trip on 8 June 1920, facing the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds. The defending world champions played miserably but vociferously challenged an eighth-inning call by umpire Barry McCormick. The ump allowed the debate to go on for a good 15 minutes, so Roush made a pillow of his cap and glove and reclined in the outfield. At length, McCormick ejected a couple of players and ordered play to resume, but Roush couldn’t be roused and was sent to the showers. New York won, 5 to 4.

Three Is Better Than Two

In all of major league history, there have been only three occasions in which two ball clubs played three games on a single day. The last of those rare triple headers involved the Cincinnati Reds. Fighting against Pittsburgh for third place in the National League, the Reds faced the Pirates at Forbes Field on 2 October 1920 for a marathon outing beginning at noon. The Reds took the first two games, clinching their third-place finish. The Pirates were ahead 6-0 when the third game was called on account of darkness.

Postponed On Account Of Lindbergh

In May 1927, Colonel Charles Lindbergh flew alone across the Atlantic Ocean. After returning stateside, Lindbergh embarked on a nationwide tour, arriving in Cincinnati on 6 August 1927. The Reds hastily erected a temporary platform at Redland Field and the gates opened for a standing-room-only crowd to hear their hero speak. So many aviation enthusiasts filled the stands that the Reds couldn’t clear them out to let the paying baseball crowd in. That day’s game was postponed and the Reds and Phillies turned the next day’s game into a double-header.

Up, Up And Away!

On 8 June 1934, the Cincinnati Reds became the first major league baseball team to travel to a game by airplane when they journeyed to Chicago. Manager Bob O’Farrell and 19 players flew to Chicago, some said, in a bid to distract attention from their last-place standing. The Reds beat the Cubs that day, 4 to 3.

No Commies Here!

Throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, Americans suspected anyone with liberal leanings of supporting Communism. Nationally televised hearings led by Senator Joseph McCarthy raised anti-Communist feelings to a fever pitch, and no one wanted to be labelled a “Red.” Bowing to popular pressure, the Cincinnati Reds became the Cincinnati Redlegs from 1954 to 1959 to allay any concerns about their patriotism.

Fewer Trains Meant Parking For The Reds

In 1957, both the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants departed for sunny California, and New York City was left holding the bag. That bag contained an unfulfilled offer to build what would become Shea Stadium as part of a futile effort to hold either of the National League teams in Gotham. Snubbed by both, New York determined to build that stadium anyway and attempted to lure the Reds to the Big Apple. Reds owner Powel Crosley Jr. hinted that he might consider such an offer, because he needed parking. Cincinnati rushed a plan to demolish Union Terminal’s maintenance facilities to create more parking spaces around Crosley Field.

Rosie Reds Kept The Team In Cincinnati

Despite winning the National League pennant in 1961, the Reds saw dwindling attendance over the following years. When owner Bill DeWitt let it be known in 1964 that he was entertaining an offer to sell the team to a San Diego syndicate, the Queen City panicked. Among the proposals to boost attendance was the successful formation of the Rosie Reds to encourage women to attend games. The Rosie Reds are still going strong after more than 50 years. “Rosie,” by the way, is an acronym. It stands for Rooters Organized to Stimulate Interest & Enthusiasm.

[A tip of the hat to Cincinnati Reds Historian Greg Rhodes whose research was invaluable in compiling this list.]

#cincinnati reds #greg rhodes #joe hoffecker #edd roush #powel crosley #bill dewitt #harry wright #pat moran #redlegs

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arts-dance · 3 years

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Édouard Manet French: 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, and a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.

Born into an upper-class household with strong political connections, Manet rejected the future originally envisioned for him, and became engrossed in the world of painting. His early masterworks, The Luncheon on the Grass (Le déjeuner sur l'herbe) and Olympia, both 1863, caused great controversy and served as rallying points for the young painters who would create Impressionism. Today, these are considered watershed paintings that mark the start of modern art. The last 20 years of Manet's life saw him form bonds with other great artists of the time, and develop his own style that would be heralded as innovative and serve as a major influence for future painters.

Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe ( Luncheon on the Grass )

A major early work is The Luncheon on the Grass (Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe), originally Le Bain. The Paris Salon rejected it for exhibition in 1863, but Manet agreed to exhibit it at the Salon des Refusés (Salon of the Rejected) which was a parallel exhibition to the official Salon, as an alternative exhibition in the Palais des Champs-Elysée. The Salon des Refusés was initiated by Emperor Napoleon III as a solution to a problematic situation which came about as the Selection Committee of the Salon that year rejected 2,783 paintings of the ca. 5000. Each painter could decide whether to take the opportunity to exhibit at the Salon des Refusés, less than 500 of the rejected painters chose to do so.

Manet employed model Victorine Meurent, his wife Suzanne, future brother-in-law Ferdinand Leenhoff, and one of his brothers to pose. Meurent also posed for several more of Manet's important paintings including Olympia; and by the mid-1870s she became an accomplished painter in her own right.

The painting's juxtaposition of fully dressed men and a nude woman was controversial, as was its abbreviated, sketch-like handling, an innovation that distinguished Manet from Courbet. At the same time, Manet's composition reveals his study of the old masters, as the disposition of the main figures is derived from Marcantonio Raimondi's engraving of the Judgement of Paris (c. 1515) based on a drawing by Raphael.

Two additional works cited by scholars as important precedents for Le déjeuner sur l'herbe are Pastoral Concert (c. 1510, The Louvre) and The Tempest (Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice), both of which are attributed variously to Italian Renaissance masters Giorgione or Titian. The Tempest is an enigmatic painting featuring a fully dressed man and a nude woman in a rural setting. The man is standing to the left and gazing to the side, apparently at the woman, who is seated and breastfeeding a baby; the relationship between the two figures is unclear. In Pastoral Concert, two clothed men and a nude woman are seated on the grass, engaged in music making, while a second nude woman stands beside them.

Olympia

As he had in Luncheon on the Grass, Manet again paraphrased a respected work by a Renaissance artist in the painting Olympia (1863), a nude portrayed in a style reminiscent of early studio photographs, but whose pose was based on Titian's Venus of Urbino (1538). The painting is also reminiscent of Francisco Goya's painting The Nude Maja (1800).

Manet embarked on the canvas after being challenged to give the Salon a nude painting to display. His uniquely frank depiction of a self-assured prostitute was accepted by the Paris Salon in 1865, where it created a scandal. According to Antonin Proust, "only the precautions taken by the administration prevented the painting being punctured and torn" by offended viewers.[9] The painting was controversial partly because the nude is wearing some small items of clothing such as an orchid in her hair, a bracelet, a ribbon around her neck, and mule slippers, all of which accentuated her nakedness, sexuality, and comfortable courtesan lifestyle. The orchid, upswept hair, black cat, and bouquet of flowers were all recognized symbols of sexuality at the time. This modern Venus' body is thin, counter to prevailing standards; the painting's lack of idealism rankled viewers. The painting's flatness, inspired by Japanese wood block art, serves to make the nude more human and less voluptuous. A fully dressed black servant is featured, exploiting the then-current theory that black people were hyper-sexed.[4] That she is wearing the clothing of a servant to a courtesan here furthers the sexual tension of the piece.

Olympia's body as well as her gaze is unabashedly confrontational. She defiantly looks out as her servant offers flowers from one of her male suitors. Although her hand rests on her leg, hiding her pubic area, the reference to traditional female virtue is ironic; a notion of modesty is notoriously absent in this work. A contemporary critic denounced Olympia's "shamelessly flexed" left hand, which seemed to him a mockery of the relaxed, shielding hand of Titian's Venus.[10] Likewise, the alert black cat at the foot of the bed strikes a sexually rebellious note in contrast to that of the sleeping dog in Titian's portrayal of the goddess in his Venus of Urbino.

Olympia was the subject of caricatures in the popular press, but was championed by the French avant-garde community, and the painting's significance was appreciated by artists such as Gustave Courbet, Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, and later Paul Gauguin.

As with Luncheon on the Grass, the painting raised the issue of prostitution within contemporary France and the roles of women within society.

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère), 1882, Courtauld Gallery, London

In his last years Manet painted many small-scale still lifes of fruits and vegetables, such as Bunch of Asparagus and The Lemon (both 1880). He completed his last major work, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère), in 1882, and it hung in the Salon that year. Afterwards, he limited himself to small formats. His last paintings were of flowers in glass vases.

Manet's public career lasted from 1861, the year of his first participation in the Salon, until his death in 1883. His known extant works, as catalogued in 1975 by Denis Rouart and Daniel Wildenstein, comprise 430 oil paintings, 89 pastels, and more than 400 works on paper.

The grave of Manet at Passy

Although harshly condemned by critics who decried its lack of conventional finish, Manet's work had admirers from the beginning. One was Émile Zola, who wrote in 1867: "We are not accustomed to seeing such simple and direct translations of reality. Then, as I said, there is such a surprisingly elegant awkwardness ... it is a truly charming experience to contemplate this luminous and serious painting which interprets nature with a gentle brutality."

The roughly painted style and photographic lighting in Manet's paintings was seen as specifically modern, and as a challenge to the Renaissance works he copied or used as source material. He rejected the technique he had learned in the studio of Thomas Couture – in which a painting was constructed using successive layers of paint on a dark-toned ground – in favor of a direct, alla prima method using opaque paint on a light ground. Novel at the time, this method made possible the completion of a painting in a single sitting. It was adopted by the Impressionists, and became the prevalent method of painting in oils for generations that followed. Manet's work is considered "early modern", partially because of the opaque flatness of his surfaces, the frequent sketchlike passages, and the black outlining of figures, all of which draw attention to the surface of the picture plane and the material quality of paint.

The art historian Beatrice Farwell says Manet "has been universally regarded as the Father of Modernism. With Courbet he was among the first to take serious risks with the public whose favour he sought, the first to make alla prima painting the standard technique for oil painting and one of the first to take liberties with Renaissance perspective and to offer "pure painting" as a source of aesthetic pleasure. He was a pioneer, again with Courbet, in the rejection of humanistic and historical subject-matter, and shared with Degas the establishment of modern urban life as acceptable material for high art."

Art market

The late Manet painting, Le Printemps (1881), sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum for $65.1 million, setting a new auction record for Manet, exceeding its pre-sale estimate of $25–35 million at Christie's on 5 November 2014. The previous auction record was held by Self-Portrait With Palette which sold for $33.2 million at Sotheby's on 22 June 2010.[38]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89douard_Manet

#Édouard Manet

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demospectator · 3 years

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“78. Chinese Women in Sutro Heights. San Francisco, Cal.” (a.ka. “Chinese Noble Women in Sutro Heights”) -- circa 1896 (Photograph by W.C. Billington from the Marilyn Blaisdell Collection)

When Chinese women ventured out into San Francisco’s Outside Lands

The presence of what appears to be unescorted Chinese women would have been unthinkable in the San Francisco of the two decades prior to when this extraordinary photograph was taken. Racial hostility by whites against Chinese throughout the American West, California, and San Francisco during 1870s and 1880s was stoked by dramatic population growth, economic depressions, the struggles of the organized labor movement against capital, and resulting high unemployment.

By the late 19th century, however, the Chinese Question had been resolved – unfavorably to the Chinese -- after the passage of national legislation in the form of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The evil genius of exclusion, anti-miscegenation, alien land ownership prohibition, and other laws assured that the Chinese population would, in effect, simply die out by legislative genocide; violence to persons and property, while never technically legal, was no longer necessary.

In the meantime, money from the vast fortunes made in gold and silver mining and the benefits of railroad-driven technological and infrastructure development flowed into San Francisco of the Gilded Age. When the private economy and construction faltered, public works projects would help bridge economic recessions, including greater attention to the development of public amenities such as parks.

The engineer, politician and philanthropist Adolph Heinrich Joseph Sutro (April 29, 1830 – August 8, 1898) served as the 24th mayor of San Francisco from 1895 until 1897. After his German-Jewish family immigrated to the US in 1850 and San Francisco in 1851, Sutro moved to Virginia City, Nevada. He made a fortune from mining operations in the Comstock Lode after obtaining financing and constructing a “Sutro Tunnel” to drain water from the silver mines and eliminate the threat of flooding.

Sutro increased his wealth by real estate investments back in San Francisco, including Mount Sutro, Land’s End (the area where Lincoln Park and the Cliff House are located today), and Mount Davidson. In 1881, Sutro purchased 22 acres of undeveloped land south of Point Lobos (San Francisco) and north of Ocean Beach at the western edge of the city. It included a promontory overlooking the Pacific, with scenic views of the Marin Headlands, Mount Tamalpais, and the Golden Gate. Sutro built his mansion on a rocky ledge there, above the first Cliff House.

“In 1885,” according to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area history, “self-made millionaire Adolph Sutro created the Sutro Heights Park, an elegant and formal public garden that covered over twenty acres in the area now known as Land’s End. Inspired by the rugged beauty and incredible scenery, Sutro intentionally designed the grounds to capture the views of the Pacific Ocean, the Golden Gate and the Marin Headlands.” Admission was open to the public for a donation of ten cents to defray the costs of maintain the grounds. For more information see: https://www.nps.gov/goga/learn/historyculture/sutro-heights.htm

Sutro’s opening his park to all, including Chinese, calls attention to the unusual presence recorded by the above photo, taken on the grounds of his Sutro Heights park, circa 1896.

The photo depicts the view north beside Palm Drive of five women in traditional Chinese dress. Sutro’s statuary of “Venus de Milo” and a Gryphon, planters, and palm trees can be seen, along with the main gate in the background. Less obvious (in the left third of the photo) is the presence of a man staring at the five women while standing next to a ladder in the background. The onlooker probably worked as one of the 17 full-time gardeners, machinist and drivers whom Sutro employed to maintain a collection of flower beds, forests, elegant wide walkways, hedge mazes and "parterres" (a popular Victorian landscape feature where flowers and bushes were carefully trimmed into shapes of names or designs). See: https://www.nps.gov/goga/learn/historyculture/sutro-heights.htm

However, no Chinese workers would have been present on the grounds that day -- or ever. Sutro bragged that, although he employed fourteen thousand men, he had never engaged a “Chinaman.” He wrote, “The very worst emigrants from Europe are a hundred times more desirable than these Asiatics.”

Of the five women shown in the photograph, not all of them may have qualified for Chinatown’s noble” class. The relatively plain dress and slippers worn by the two women at the left indicate that they may have been house servants. The other three young women wear more elaborate, and expensive, attire and footwear. The photograph notably captures smiles on the faces of at least two of the women, from which one can infer that they were enjoying the outing on the far western side of the City. Based on what is known about the lives of Chinese America’s first women, a walk through Sutro’s gardens probably represented a welcome change from their everyday routine.

“Chinese Women in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, Feb. 22, 1900.” Photographer unknown (from the Marilyn Blaisdell collection). A rare shot of Chinese women visiting the park, apparently unaccompanied by any male.

The absence of any male in the frame of the first photo is telling and unusual outside of Chinatown. Historian Jack Tchen, in his 1984 book, Genthe’s Photographs of San Francisco’s Old Chinatown, wrote about the lives of early Chinese American women on the urban frontier as follows:

“The women who came to America were limited to three primary occupational roles. They were usually either a merchant's wife, a house servant, or a prostitute. In the rural wilds of Idaho, Montana, and the Western frontier, local folklore has portrayed a few Chinese women as rugged and liberated frontier settlers; however, the women in San Francisco's Tangrenbu [唐人埠] were closely guarded and highly valued commodities. Merchants could freely bring their wives over and establish families. Abiding by traditional customs, these women were seldom seen in the streets of Chinatown. The great majority of men did not have the right to have a family. Before and after 1882, certain tongs specialized in smuggling young Chinese women past United States immigration agents. To enable them to pay their way to this country, exploitative contracts were drawn up similar to those many poor male workers came under. However, there was a significant difference: where the men paid off their debts with their labor, women paid off their debts with their labor and their bodies. . . .

* * * “Young girls would start off as house servants and occasionally work at odd jobs like stripping tobacco. Upon reaching a certain age they would either marry a wealthy merchant or enter into several years of prostitution. Some merchants considered experienced prostitutes ideal wives because they were attractive, sociable, and adept at entertaining guests. House servants were treated with varying degrees of respect and disrespect, depending on the individual character of the families they serve. Some young girls were brutally treated. They worked hard and were sometimes horribly beaten. Others were treated like members of the family. . . . * * * “The options available to Chinese children in the United States were severely limited both by the discriminatory laws of the larger society by the role expectations of the tradition-bound culture they came from. It would take some 40 years after these photographs were made for the laws and cultural restraints send their hold sufficiently to allow them a wider range of possibilities.”

In 1896, the same year during which the photo of five Chinese women was supposedly taken, Sutro would build a new Cliff House below his estate on the bluffs of Sutro Heights and start construction of the famous Sutro Baths.

As for the photographer, William Charles Billington, the National Park Service’s history recounts that he and his partner, Thomas Thomson, operated a photography studio at the Sutro Heights parapet, which they opened in 1894. They would take tintype photos of visitors, usually with the Cliff House as a backdrop, and scenic Land's End photos. As evidenced by the card variant of first photo in this series, the images would be reproduced in postcard format for sale to tourists, an example of which appears below.

As evidenced by the above variant of first photo in this series (from the Bob Bragman Collection), the images would find their way into postcard formats for sale to tourists.

In 1896, Billington’s company opened a studio on Point Lobos, the Cliff Photo Gallery, also at San Francisco's west end. His brother, John, would join the business and continue it after William’s death until 1925.

John Billington might have been the photographer of this photo of three Chinese women in traditional dress with a very poised girl in more modern apparel strolling down Palm Avenue, enjoying Sutro’s garden, in 1910 for a welcome break from Chinatown’s urban confines.

Chinese women and a child on Palm Avenue in Sutro Heights, circa 1910. Photographer Unknown (J. Billington?)

As for the Sutro estate and park, the Sutro family donated the land to the City of San Francisco in 1938. In 1939, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) demolished the residence which had fallen into decay. The WPA crews removed the remaining statuary, with the exception of The Lions (copies of those in London's Trafalgar Square at the entrance gate), and a statue of Diana the Huntress (Artemis), a concrete copy of the Louvre's Diana. An 18-acre city park then opened, eventually becoming part of the federal Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

For the Chinese, the photographs of women in Sutro Heights implicitly convey the relative security of the unequal peace of the 1890s -- gained by Exclusion and a network of laws and policies that confined most of their opportunities to Chinatown; the resulting small population, with its dwindling labor force, no longer posed a threat to white dominance of the urban frontier, such that even the “noble” women of Chinese America could travel to San Francisco’s Outside Lands without fear of violence or other hindrance.

[updated 2023-8-4]

#Chinese women in Sutro Hts. park #W.C. Billington

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travel-voyages · 3 years

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The Lusitania, shown here on its arrival to New York City in 1907, was one of the ships which launched the modern era of leisure cruising

The Monster Ships That Changed How We Travel

The beauty salons, swimming pools and even wireless communications of today’s huge cruise ships all got their start with the “floating palaces” of a century ago. BBC FutureKat Long

When the world’s then-largest ocean liner embarked on its first transatlantic voyage in September 1907, thousands of spectators gathered at the docks of Liverpool to watch. “She presented an impressive picture as she left, with her mighty funnels and brilliant illumination,” wrote one reporter. Cunard’s RMS Lusitania had been outfitted with a new type of engine that differed from that of its rivals – and would go on to break the speed record for the fastest ocean crossing not once, but twice.

Between 1850 and 1900, three British passenger lines – Cunard, Inman and White Star – dominated transatlantic travel. Toward the end of the century, as increasing numbers of emigrants sought passage to the US and a growing class of Gilded Age travellers demanded speed and luxury, corporate rivalry intensified. Pressure from other European lines forced the British companies to add amenities like swimming pools and restaurants.

Not unlike today's rivalries between, say, aircraft manufacturers like Airbus and Boeing, each raced to make its ocean liners the largest, fastest and most opulent. In the process, they launched the modern age of leisure cruising – and developed innovations and technologies that continue to be used on cruise ships today.

Comfort Class

In the mid-19th Century, there were two main players. Inman’s inaugural steamship, launched in 1850, made it the first major British line to replace traditional side-mounted paddlewheels with a screw propeller – an apparatus with fixed blades turning on a central axis. With the added speed and fuel efficiency this brought, plus a sleek iron hull that was more durable than wood, Inman established itself as a company unafraid to try new technology for faster crossings.

‘For safety and comfort, take the old reliable Cunard Line’, reads this advertisement from around 1875. Credit: Alamy.

Inman’s main rival, Cunard, focused on safety instead. “The Cunard way was to let competitors introduce new-fangled technology and let them deal with the setbacks,” says Michael Gallagher, Cunard’s company historian. “Once that technology had proved itself, only then would Cunard consider using it.”

But Cunard risked being left behind both by Inman and by a new rival which burst onto the scene in 1870 – the White Star line’s splashy debut included five huge ocean liners, dubbed “floating hotels”. Their flagship, RMS Oceanic, launched in 1871 and had efficient compound engines that burned just 58 tonnes of coal per day, compared with 110 tonnes consumed by Inman’s ships. That gave White Star the budget to invest in comfort.

The contrast with Cunard was stark. “Where Oceanic had bathtubs, Cunard offered a basin; where Oceanic had central heating, Cunard offered stoves; and where Oceanic had lavatories, Cunard managed with chamber pots,” says Gallagher. Architects for Oceanic also moved first-class cabins to mid-ship for less rocking on the waves.

In the 1880s and 1890s, each of White Star’s new ships captured the Blue Riband, an unofficial accolade which recognises the passenger liner able to make the fastest average speed on a westbound Atlantic crossing. In answer, Inman built SS City of New York and SS City of Paris. The City of Paris won the Blue Riband several times thanks to its expensive but fuel-efficient triple-expansion engines and twin screw propellers. The innovation was a first for an ocean liner, and meant that if one propeller broke, the other could compensate – finally ending the need for auxiliary sails. This suddenly freed up a lot more space on deck that would later be put to good use by providing luxury facilities for their passengers.

In 1888, Inman introduced ships which no longer required auxiliary sails, giving ocean liners a similar look to the one they have today. Credit: Alamy.

Cunard, meanwhile, ventured into the new world of telecommunications by installing the first Marconi wireless stations, which allowed radio operators to transmit messages at sea, on its sister ships RMS Lucania and RMS Campania. First-class passengers could even book European hotels by wireless before reaching port.

“Connectivity was just as important to passengers in the past as it is today,” says William Roka, historian and public programmes manager at South Street Seaport Museum in New York City.

In 1897, Germany entered the fray. Shipping company Norddeutscher Lloyd unveiled its colossal Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse – which shocked its rivals by taking the Blue Riband from Britain after 52 years. Another German liner, the SS Amerika, wowed its well-heeled guests by introducing the first à la carte restaurant at sea: the Ritz-Carlton, brainchild of Paris hotelier Cesar Ritz and renowned chef Auguste Escoffier. It allowed guests to order meals at their leisure and dine with their friends rather than attend rigidly scheduled seatings – a forerunner of the kind of freestyle dining seen on today’s cruise ships.

The freestyle dining seen on today’s cruise ships dates back to 1905. Credit: Alamy.

To complicate matters, American banking tycoon JP Morgan was buying up smaller companies to create a US-based shipping-and-railroad monopoly. In 1901, White Star became his biggest acquisition. Inman, too, now was US-owned, having been bought by an American company in 1893. Suddenly, the battles weren’t only in the boardrooms: building the world’s top ocean liners was now a point of national pride.

With the help of a £2.6 million government loan (equivalent to more than £261 million today), Britain’s Cunard line launched the massive twins RMS Lusitania and RMS Mauretania. Both had the first steam turbine engines of any superliner. To reach its sustained speed of 25 knots (46.25 km/h), the Lusitania had “68 additional furnaces, six more boilers, 52,000 sq ft of heating surface, and an increase of 30,000 horsepower,” reported the New York Times. “If turbines had not been employed, at least three 20,000-horsepower engines would have been necessary.”

White Star fought back with RMS Olympic, RMS Titanic and HMHS Britannic. Like the Lusitania and Mauretania, White Star’s trio would feature double hulls and watertight bulkheads. With standard reciprocating engines, they were slower than the Cunarders, but surpassed them in size and elegance. The Olympic and another White Star liner, the Adriatic, even debuted the first indoor swimming pools at sea. A first-class passenger “may indulge in Turkish and electric baths, take recreation in the gymnasium or [with] a squash racket or divert himself in the swimming pond,” marvelled one newspaper.

“It was fun for the first-class passengers to send postcards back home saying, ‘Writing to you from the deck of the world’s biggest ship, wish you were here,’” says historian William H Miller Jr.

First introduced on ocean liners more than 100 years ago, gymnasiums – shown here on Cunard’s Berengaria around 1930 – remain a staple of cruise ships today. Credit: Alamy.

History changed course when Titanic hit an iceberg on 14 April 1912 and sank on her first transatlantic voyage. As a result of the tragedy, safety regulations were updated to require lifeboat berths for every passenger and 24-hour radio surveillance (rules which are still in place).

But there were more challenges to come. World War One broke out in 1914 and European governments requisitioned liners for war service. Then a German submarine torpedoed Lusitania off the coast of Ireland on 7 May 1915, killing more than a thousand of those on board.

Cruising On

Despite a post-war liner-building boom, US anti-immigration laws reduced the number of transatlantic emigrants – the liners’ bread and butter – in the 1920s.

“Ships only made money when there were passengers aboard,” says David Perry, a maritime historian. “The companies needed to do something to stay afloat, so they created the tourists.”

Cunard modernised the aging Mauretania to burn oil instead of coal (most liners were converted to burn oil after World War One), painted its dark hull white to reflect the sunlight and sent her to the tropics as the first cruise ship catering to the new class of passengers: US vacationers who wanted a holiday at sea, replete with the nostalgic glamour of yesteryear. “Cruising offered a way for steamship companies to keep using their older transatlantic vessels and [make] additional revenue,” says Roka.

Cunard modernised the Mauretania and gave it a white hull, as shown in this 1930s illustration. Credit: Alamy.

After the Depression forced a struggling Cunard and White Star to merge, the new Cunard-White Star built the immense RMS Queen Mary and RMS Queen Elizabeth. To compete with German, American and French liners, designers ratcheted up the creature comforts, like air-conditioning and private bathrooms in every stateroom. The Italian liners Conte de Savoia and Rex featured the first outdoor swimming pools “with real sand around them to make it look beachy – completely over the top,” Perry says. By 1957, more people crossed the Atlantic by ship than ever before.

But by the following year, jet passengers outnumbered them.

“Cunard said flying was a fad,” Miller says. “But if, like the company slogan said, ‘Getting there is half the fun’, then getting there faster was a lot more fun.”

Despite Cunard’s best efforts, by the late 1950s more people were flying than taking ships to their destinations. Credit: Alamy.

Air travel and high operating costs doomed most transatlantic liners by the 1970s – only Cunard’s RMS Queen Mary 2 makes regular transatlantic crossings now.

Even so, cruising itself grew more popular over the ensuing decades. And not only does the idea of leisure cruising stem from these early days of competition, but so do many of the specific features of today’s massive ships.

Today’s vessels still feature oil-burning engines, though the power and propulsion systems are much more sophisticated. Modern perks like barbershops and beauty salons, freestyle dining, pools and libraries all were introduced on the original “floating palaces.” Even internet communication has its roots in the wireless rooms aboard the great ocean liners.

But the most important similarity may be the most basic.

“The feeling of the deck under your feet is the same,” says Perry. “That’s the transformative power of a voyage at sea.”

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-monster-ships-that-changed-how-we-travel

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#Monster Ships

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historical-babes · 4 years

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Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923).

French stage actress.

She starred in some of the most popular French plays of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She also played male roles, including Shakespeare's Hamlet. Rostand called her "the queen of the pose and the princess of the gesture", while Hugo praised her "golden voice". She made several theatrical tours around the world, and was one of the first prominent actresses to make sound recordings and to act in motion pictures.

She entered the Paris Conservatoire when she was 16. She left the in 1862 and was then accepted by the national theatre company, the Comédie-Française. Her contract with the Comédie-Française was canceled in 1863 after she slapped the face of a senior actress who had been rude to her younger sister.

She then entered a period of soul-searching, questioning her talent for acting. During these critical months she became the mistress of Henri, prince de Ligne, and gave birth to her only child, Maurice. From 1864 to 1866, she frequently had trouble finding roles. She often worked as a courtesan, taking wealthy and influential lovers.

Later, Bernhardt was married to a Greek military-officer-turned-actor, Jacques Damala, but the marriage was short-lived, he died of drug abuse. Damala was incredibly cruel to her and delighted in humiliating her.

Throughout her life she had a series of affairs or liaisons with famous men.

In 1866 Bernhardt signed a contract with the Odéon theatre and, during six years of intensive work with a congenial company there, gradually established her reputation.

During the Franco-German War in 1870, she organized a military hospital in the Odéon theatre.

In 1872 Bernhardt left the Odéon and returned to the Comédie-Française, where at first she received only minor parts.

Bernhardt had become an expressive actress with a wide emotional range who was capable of great subtlety in her interpretations. Her grace, beauty, and charisma gave her a commanding stage presence, and the impact of her unique voice was reinforced by the purity of her diction. Her career was also helped by her relentless self-promotion and her unconventional behaviour both on and off the stage.

In 1880, Bernhardt formed her own traveling company and soon became an international idol.

In 1905, during a South American tour, she had injured her right knee when jumping off the parapet in the last scene of La Tosca. By 1915 gangrene had set in, and her leg had to be amputated. Undaunted, the patriotic Bernhardt insisted on visiting the soldiers at the front during World War I while carried about in a litter chair.

In 1922, she began rehearsing a new play. On the night of the dress rehearsal, she collapsed, going into a coma for an hour, then awakened with the words, "when do I go on?" She recuperated for several months, with her condition improving.

She died from uremia.

Famous roles:

La Dame Aux Camelias

Ruy Blas

Fédora

La Tosca

L'Aiglon

Hamlet

[Submission]

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classic-laugjhing-hollywood · 3 years

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Marie Dressler (born Leila Marie Koerber, November 9, 1868 – July 28, 1934) was a Canadian stage and screen actress, comedian, and early silent film and Depression-era film star. In 1914, she was in the first full-length film comedy. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1931.

Leaving home at the age of 14, Dressler built a career on stage in traveling theatre troupes, where she learned to appreciate her talent in making people laugh. In 1892, she started a career on Broadway that lasted into the 1920s, performing comedic roles that allowed her to improvise to get laughs. From one of her successful Broadway roles, she played the titular role in the first full-length screen comedy, Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), opposite Charlie Chaplin and Mabel Normand. She made several shorts, but mostly worked in New York City on stage. During World War I, along with other celebrities, she helped sell Liberty bonds. In 1919, she helped organize the first union for stage chorus players.

Her career declined in the 1920s, and Dressler was reduced to living on her savings while sharing an apartment with a friend. In 1927, she returned to films at the age of 59 and experienced a remarkable string of successes. For her performance in the comedy film Min and Bill (1930), Dressler won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She died of cancer in 1934.

Marie Dressler's original name was Leila Marie Koerber. She was born on November 9, 1868, Cobourg, Ontario. She was one of the two daughters of Anna (née Henderson), a musician, and Alexander Rudolph Koerber (b. April 13, 1826, Lindow, Neu-Ruppin, Germany – d. November 1914, Wimbledon, Surrey, England), a German-born former officer in the Crimean War. Leila's elder sister, Bonita Louise Koerber (b. January 1864, Ontario, Canada – d. September 18, 1939, Richmond, Surrey, England), later married playwright Richard Ganthony.

Her father was a music teacher in Cobourg and the organist at St. Peter's Anglican Church, where as a child Marie would sing and assist in operating the organ. According to Dressler, the family regularly moved from community to community during her childhood. It has been suggested by Cobourg historian Andrew Hewson that Dressler attended a private school, but this is doubtful if Dressler's recollections of the family's genteel poverty are accurate.

The Koerber family eventually moved to the United States, where Alexander Koerber is known to have worked as a piano teacher in the late 1870s and early 1880s in Bay City and Saginaw (both in Michigan) as well as Findlay, Ohio. Her first known acting appearance, when she was five, was as Cupid in a church theatrical performance in Lindsay, Ontario. Residents of the towns where the Koerbers lived recalled Dressler acting in many amateur productions, and Leila often irritated her parents with those performances.

Dressler left home at the age of 14 to begin her acting career with the Nevada Stock Company, telling the company she was actually 18. The pay was either $6 or $8 per week, and Dressler sent half to her mother. At this time, Dressler adopted the name of an aunt as her stage name. According to Dressler, her father objected to her using the name of Koerber. The identity of the aunt was never confirmed, although Dressler denied that she adopted the name from a store awning. Dressler's sister Bonita, five years older, left home at about the same time. Bonita also worked in the opera company. The Nevada Stock Company was a travelling company that played mostly in the American Midwest. Dressler described the troupe as a "wonderful school in many ways. Often a bill was changed on an hour's notice or less. Every member of the cast had to be a quick study". Dressler made her professional debut as a chorus girl named Cigarette in the play Under Two Flags, a dramatization of life in the Foreign Legion.

She remained with the troupe for three years, while her sister left to marry playwright Richard Ganthony. The company eventually ended up in a small Michigan town without money or a booking. Dressler joined the Robert Grau Opera Company, which toured the Midwest, and she received an improvement in pay to $8 per week, although she claimed she never received any wages.

Dressler ended up in Philadelphia, where she joined the Starr Opera Company as a member of the chorus. A highlight with the Starr company was portraying Katisha in The Mikado when the regular actress was unable to go on, due to a sprained ankle, according to Dressler. She was also known to have played the role of Princess Flametta in an 1887 production in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She left the Starr company to return home to her parents in Saginaw. According to her, when the Bennett and Moulton Opera Company came to town, she was chosen from the church choir by the company's manager and asked to join the company. Dressler remained with the company for three years, again on the road, playing roles of light opera.

She later particularly recalled specially the role of Barbara in The Black Hussars, which she especially liked, in which she would hit a baseball into the stands. Dressler remained with the company until 1891, gradually increasing in popularity. She moved to Chicago and was cast in productions of Little Robinson Crusoe and The Tar and the Tartar. After the touring production of The Tar and the Tartar came to a close, she moved to New York City.

In 1892, Dressler made her debut on Broadway at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in Waldemar, the Robber of the Rhine, which only lasted five weeks. She had hoped to become an operatic diva or tragedienne, but the writer of Waldemar, Maurice Barrymore, convinced her to accept that her best success was in comedy roles. Years later, she appeared in motion pictures with his sons, Lionel and John, and became good friends with his daughter, actress Ethel Barrymore. In 1893, she was cast as the Duchess in Princess Nicotine, where she met and befriended Lillian Russell.

Dressler now made $50 per week, with which she supported her parents. She moved on into roles in 1492 Up To Date, Girofle-Girofla, and A Stag Party, or A Hero in Spite of Himself After A Stag Party flopped, she joined the touring Camille D'Arville Company on a tour of the Midwest in Madeleine, or The Magic Kiss, as Mary Doodle, a role giving her a chance to clown.

In 1896, Dressler landed her first starring role as Flo in George Lederer's production of The Lady Slavey at the Casino Theatre on Broadway, co-starring British dancer Dan Daly. It was a great success, playing for two years at the Casino. Dressler became known for her hilarious facial expressions, seriocomic reactions, and double takes. With her large, strong body, she could improvise routines in which she would carry Daly, to the delight of the audience.

Dressler's success enabled her to purchase a home for her parents on Long Island. The Lady Slavey success turned sour when she quit the production while it toured in Colorado. The Erlanger syndicate blocked her from appearing on Broadway, and she chose to work with the Rich and Harris touring company. Dressler returned to Broadway in Hotel Topsy Turvy and The Man in the Moon.

She formed her own theatre troupe in 1900, which performed George V. Hobart's Miss Prinnt in cities of the northeastern U.S. The production was a failure, and Dressler was forced to declare bankruptcy.

In 1904, she signed a three-year, $50,000 contract with the Weber and Fields Music Hall management, performing lead roles in Higgeldy Piggeldy and Twiddle Twaddle. After her contract expired she performed vaudeville in New York, Boston, and other cities. Dressler was known for her full-figured body, and buxom contemporaries included her friends Lillian Russell, Fay Templeton, May Irwin and Trixie Friganza. Dressler herself was 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 m) tall and weighed 200 pounds (91 kg).

In 1907, she met James Henry "Jim" Dalton. The two moved to London, where Dressler performed at the Palace Theatre of Varieties for $1500 per week. After that, she planned to mount a show herself in the West End. In 1909, with members of the Weber organization, she staged a modified production of Higgeldy Piggeldy at the Aldwych Theatre, renaming the production Philopoena after her own role. It was a failure, closing after one week. She lost $40,000 on the production, a debt she eventually repaid in 1930. She and Dalton returned to New York. Dressler declared bankruptcy for a second time.

She returned to the Broadway stage in a show called The Boy and the Girl, but it lasted only a few weeks. She moved on to perform vaudeville at Young's Pier in Atlantic City for the summer. In addition to her stage work, Dressler recorded for Edison Records in 1909 and 1910. In the fall of 1909, she entered rehearsals for a new play, Tillie's Nightmare. The play toured in Albany, Chicago, Kansas City, and Philadelphia, and was a flop. Dressler helped to revise the show, without the authors' permission, and in order to keep the changes she had to threaten to quit before the play opened on Broadway. Her revisions helped make it a big success there. Biographer Betty Lee considers the play the high point of her stage career.

Dressler continued to work in the theater during the 1910s, and toured the United States during World War I, selling Liberty bonds and entertaining the American Expeditionary Forces. American infantrymen in France named both a street and a cow after Dressler. The cow was killed, leading to "Marie Dressler: Killed in Line of Duty" headlines, about which Dressler (paraphrasing Mark Twain) quipped, "I had a hard time convincing people that the report of my death had been greatly exaggerated."

After the war, Dressler returned to vaudeville in New York, and toured in Cleveland and Buffalo. She owned the rights to the play Tillie's Nightmare, the play upon which her 1914 movie Tillie's Punctured Romance was based. Her husband Jim Dalton and she made plans to self-finance a revival of the play. The play fizzled in the summer of 1920, and the production was disbanded. In 1919, during the Actors' Equity strike in New York City, the Chorus Equity Association was formed and voted Dressler its first president.

Dressler accepted a role in Cinderella on Broadway in October 1920, but the play failed after only a few weeks. She signed on for a role in The Passing Show of 1921, but left the cast after only a few weeks. She returned to the vaudeville stage with the Schubert Organization, traveling through the Midwest. Dalton traveled with her, although he was very ill from kidney failure. He stayed in Chicago while she traveled on to St. Louis and Milwaukee. He died while Marie was in St. Louis, and Marie then left the tour. His body was claimed by his ex-wife, and he was buried in the Dalton plot.

After failing to sell a film script, Dressler took an extended trip to Europe in the fall of 1922. On her return she found it difficult to find work, considering America to be "youth-mad" and "flapper-crazy". She busied herself with visits to veteran hospitals. To save money she moved into the Ritz Hotel, arranging for a small room at a discount. In 1923, Dressler received a small part in a revue at the Winter Garden Theatre, titled The Dancing Girl, but was not offered any work after the show closed. In 1925, she was able to perform as part of the cast of a vaudeville show which went on a five-week tour, but still could not find any work back in New York City. The following year, she made a final appearance on Broadway as part of an Old Timers' bill at the Palace Theatre.

Early in 1930, Dressler joined Edward Everett Horton's theater troupe in Los Angeles to play a princess in Ferenc Molnár's The Swan, but after one week, she quit the troupe. Later that year she played the princess-mother of Lillian Gish's character in the 1930 film adaptation of Molnar's play, titled One Romantic Night.

Dressler had appeared in two shorts as herself, but her first role in a feature film came in 1914 at the age of 44. In 1902, she had met fellow Canadian Mack Sennett and helped him get a job in the theater. After Sennett became the owner of his namesake motion picture studio, he convinced Dressler to star in his 1914 silent film Tillie's Punctured Romance. The film was to be the first full-length, six-reel motion picture comedy. According to Sennett, a prospective budget of $200,000 meant that he needed "a star whose name and face meant something to every possible theatre-goer in the United States and the British Empire."

The movie was based on Dressler's hit Tillie's Nightmare. She claimed to have cast Charlie Chaplin in the movie as her leading man, and was "proud to have had a part in giving him his first big chance." Instead of his recently invented Tramp character, Chaplin played a villainous rogue. Silent film comedian Mabel Normand also starred in the movie. Tillie's Punctured Romance was a hit with audiences, and Dressler appeared in two Tillie sequels and other comedies until 1918, when she returned to vaudeville.

In 1922, after her husband's death, Dressler and writers Helena Dayton and Louise Barrett tried to sell a script to the Hollywood studios, but were turned down. The one studio to hold a meeting with the group rejected the script, saying all the audiences wanted is "young love." The proposed co-star of Lionel Barrymore or George Arliss were rejected as "old fossils". In 1925, Dressler filmed a pair of two-reel short movies in Europe for producer Harry Reichenbach. The movies, titled the Travelaffs, were not released and were considered a failure by both Dressler and Reichenbach. Dressler announced her retirement from show business.

In early 1927, Dressler received a lifeline from director Allan Dwan. Although versions differ as to how Dressler and Dwan met, including that Dressler was contemplating suicide, Dwan offered her a part in a film he was planning to make in Florida. The film, The Joy Girl, an early color production, only provided a small part as her scenes were finished in two days, but Dressler returned to New York upbeat after her experience with the production.

Later that year, Frances Marion, a screenwriter for the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studio, came to Dressler's rescue. Marion had seen Dressler in the 1925 vaudeville tour and witnessed Dressler at her professional low-point. Dressler had shown great kindness to Marion during the filming of Tillie Wakes Up in 1917, and in return, Marion used her influence with MGM's production chief Irving Thalberg to return Dressler to the screen. Her first MGM feature was The Callahans and the Murphys (1927), a rowdy silent comedy co-starring Dressler (as Ma Callahan) with another former Mack Sennett comedian, Polly Moran, written by Marion.

The film was initially a success, but the portrayal of Irish characters caused a protest in the Irish World newspaper, protests by the American Irish Vigilance Committee, and pickets outside the film's New York theatre. The film was first cut by MGM in an attempt to appease the Irish community, then eventually pulled from release after Cardinal Dougherty of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia called MGM president Nicholas Schenck. It was not shown again, and the negative and prints may have been destroyed. While the film brought Dressler to Hollywood, it did not re-establish her career. Her next appearance was a minor part in the First National film Breakfast at Sunrise. She appeared again with Moran in Bringing Up Father, another film written by Marion. Dressler returned to MGM in 1928's The Patsy as the mother of the characters played by stars Marion Davies and Jane Winton.

Hollywood was converting from silent films, but "talkies" presented no problems for Dressler, whose rumbling voice could handle both sympathetic scenes and snappy comebacks (the wisecracking stage actress in Chasing Rainbows and the dubious matron in Rudy Vallée's Vagabond Lover). Frances Marion persuaded Thalberg to give Dressler the role of Marthy in the 1930 film Anna Christie. Garbo and the critics were impressed by Dressler's acting ability, and so was MGM, which quickly signed her to a $500-per-week contract. Dressler went on to act in comedic films which were popular with movie-goers and a lucrative investment for MGM. She became Hollywood's number-one box-office attraction, and stayed on top until her death in 1934.

She also took on serious roles. For Min and Bill, with Wallace Beery, she won the 1930–31 Academy Award for Best Actress (the eligibility years were staggered at that time). She was nominated again for Best Actress for her 1932 starring role in Emma, but lost to Helen Hayes. Dressler followed these successes with more hits in 1933, including the comedy Dinner at Eight, in which she played an aging but vivacious former stage actress. Dressler had a memorable bit with Jean Harlow in the film:

Harlow: I was reading a book the other day.

Dressler: Reading a book?

Harlow: Yes, it's all about civilization or something. A nutty kind of a book. Do you know that the guy said that machinery is going to take the place of every profession?

Dressler: Oh my dear, that's something you need never worry about.

Following the release of Tugboat Annie (1933), Dressler appeared on the cover of Time, in its issue dated August 7, 1933. MGM held a huge birthday party for Dressler in 1933, broadcast live via radio. Her newly regenerated career came to an abrupt end when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1934. MGM head Louis B. Mayer learned of Dressler's illness from her doctor and reportedly asked that she not be told. To keep her home, he ordered her not to travel on her vacation because he wanted to put her in a new film. Dressler was furious but complied. She appeared in more than 40 films, and achieved her greatest successes in talking pictures made during the last years of her life. The first of her two autobiographies, The Life Story of an Ugly Duckling, was published in 1924; a second book, My Own Story, "as told to Mildred Harrington," appeared a few months after her death.

Dressler's first marriage was to an American, George Francis Hoeppert (1862 – September 7, 1929), a theatrical manager. His surname is sometimes given as Hopper. The couple married on May 6, 1894, in Grace Church Rectory, Greenville, New Jersey, as biographer Matthew Kennedy wrote, under her birth name, Leila Marie Koeber,. Some sources indicate Dressler had a daughter who died as a small child, but this has not been confirmed.

Her marriage to Hoeppert gave Dressler U.S. citizenship, which was useful later in life, when immigration rules meant permits were needed to work in the United States, and Dressler had to appear before an immigration hearing. Ever since her start in the theatre, Dressler had sent a portion of her salary to her parents. Her success on Broadway meant she could afford to buy a home and later a farm on Long Island, which she shared with her parents. Dressler made several attempts to set up theatre companies or theatre productions of her own using her Broadway proceeds, but these failed and she had to declare bankruptcy several times.

In 1907, Dressler met a Maine businessman, James Henry "Jim" Dalton, who became her companion until his death [Death Record 3104-27934] on November 29, 1921, at the Congress Hotel in Chicago from diabetes. According to Dalton, the two were married in Europe in 1908. However, according to Dressler's U.S. passport application, the couple married in May 1904 in Italy.

Dressler reportedly later learned that the "minister" who had married them in Monte Carlo was actually a local man paid by Dalton to stage a fake wedding. Dalton's first wife, Lizzie Augusta Britt Dalton, claimed he had not consented to a divorce or been served divorce papers, although Dalton claimed to have divorced her in 1905. By 1921, Dalton had become an invalid due to diabetes mellitus, and watched her from the wings in his wheelchair. After his death that year, Dressler was planning for Dalton to be buried as her husband, but Lizzie Dalton had Dalton's body returned to be buried in the Dalton family plot.

After Dalton's death, which coincided with a decline in her stage career, Dressler moved into a servant's room in the Ritz Hotel to save money. Eventually, she moved in with friend Nella Webb to save on expenses. After finding work in film again in 1927, she rented a home in Hollywood on Hillside Avenue. Although Dressler was working from 1927 on, she was still reportedly living hand to mouth. In November 1928, wealthy friends Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Neurmberg gave her $10,000, explaining they planned to give her a legacy someday, but they thought she needed the money immediately. In 1929, she moved to Los Angeles to 6718 Milner Road in Whitley Heights, then to 623 North Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills, both rentals. She moved to her final home at 801 North Alpine in Beverly Hills in 1932, a home which she bought from the estate of King C. Gillette. During her seven years in Hollywood, Dressler lived with her maid Mamie Cox and later Mamie's husband Jerry.

Although atypical in size for a Hollywood star, Dressler was reported in 1931 to use the services of a "body sculptor to the stars", Sylvia of Hollywood, to keep herself at a steady weight.

Biographers Betty Lee and Matthew Kennedy document Dressler's long-standing friendship with actress Claire Du Brey, whom she met in 1928. Dressler and Du Brey's falling out in 1931 was followed by a later lawsuit by Du Brey, who had been trained as a nurse, claiming back wages as the elder woman's nurse.

On Saturday, July 28, 1934, Dressler died of cancer, aged 65, in Santa Barbara, California. After a private funeral held at The Wee Kirk o' the Heather chapel, she was interred in a crypt in the Great Mausoleum in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California.

She left an estate worth $310,000, the bulk left to her sister Bonita.

Dressler bestowed her 1933 Duesenberg Model J automobile and $35,000 to her maid of 20 years, Mamie Steele Cox, and $15,000 to Cox's husband, Jerry R. Cox, who had served as Dressler's butler for four years. Dressler intended that the funds should be used to provide a place of comfort for black travelers, and the Coxes used the funds to open the Coconut Grove night club and adjacent tourist cabins in Savannah, Georgia, in 1936, named after the night club in Los Angeles.

Dressler's birth home in Cobourg, Ontario, is known as Marie Dressler House and is open to the public. The home was converted to a restaurant in 1937 and operated as a restaurant until 1989, when it was damaged by fire. It was restored, but did not open again as a restaurant. It was the office of the Cobourg Chamber of Commerce until its conversion to its current use as a museum about Dressler and as a visitor information office for Cobourg.[66] Each year, the Marie Dressler Foundation Vintage Film Festival is held, with screenings in Cobourg and in Port Hope, Ontario. A play about the life of Marie Dressler called "Queen Marie" was written by Shirley Barrie and produced at 4th Line Theatre in 2012 and Alumnae Theatre in 2018.

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Dressler has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1731 Vine Street, added in 1960. After Min and Bill, Dressler and Beery added their footprints to the cement forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, with the inscription "America's New Sweethearts, Min and Bill."

Canada Post, as part of its "Canada in Hollywood" series, issued a postage stamp on June 30, 2008, to honour Marie Dressler.

Dressler is beloved in Seattle. She played in two films based on historical Seattle characters. Tugboat Annie (1933) was loosely based on Thea Foss, of Seattle. Likewise Hattie Burns, in Politics (1931), was based on Bertha Knight Landes, the first woman to become mayor of Seattle.

Dressler's 152nd birthday was commemorated in a Google Doodle on November 9, 2020.

#marie dressler #classic hollywood #classic movie stars #golden age of hollywood #early film #silent era #silent hollywood #silent movie stars #1910s movies #1920s hollywood #1930s hollywood #comedy legend #hollywood legends

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rabbitcruiser · 3 years

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Christmas Day

Christmas Day is a Christian holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, and it is also celebrated as a non religious cultural holiday. It is a public holiday in many countries, and is celebrated in some countries where there is not a large Christian population. It takes place after Advent and the Nativity Fast, and begins Christmastide, or the Twelve Days of Christmas. The name of the holiday is shortened from “Christ’s mass,” and throughout history the day has been known as “midwinter,” “Nativity,” “Yule,” and “Noel.”

The New Testament gospels of Luke and Matthew describe Jesus as being born in Bethlehem, in Judea. Luke’s account tells of Joseph and Mary traveling to Bethlehem from Nazareth for a census, and Jesus being born in a stable and being laid in a manger. According to this account, angels proclaimed him as the savior, and shepherds came to visit him. Matthew’s account tells the story of the magi following a star in the sky and bringing Jesus gifts.

The month and date of Jesus’ birth is unknown, but the Western Christian Church placed it as December 25 by at least 336 CE, when the first Christmas celebration was recorded, in Rome. This date later became adopted by Eastern churches at the end of the fourth century. Some Eastern churches celebrate Christmas on December 25 of the Julian calendar, which is January 7. The date of December 25 may have been chosen for a few reasons. This is the day that the Romans marked as the winter solstice, the day when the Sun would begin remaining longer in the sky. Jesus also was sometimes identified with the Sun. The Romans had other pagan festivals during the end of the year as well. December 25 also may have been chosen because it is about nine months after the date commemorating the Crucifixion of Jesus.

Christmas celebrations were not prominent in the Early Middle Ages, and the holiday was overshadowed by Epiphany at the time. Christmas started to come to prominence after 800 CE, when Charlemagne was crowned emperor on Christmas Day. During the Middle Ages it became a holiday that incorporated evergreens, the giving of gifts between legal relationships—such as between landlords and tenants, eating, dancing, singing, and card playing. By the seventeenth century in England the day was celebrated with elaborate dinners and pageants.

Puritans saw the day as being connected to drunkenness and misbehavior, and banned it in the seventeenth century. But, Anglican and Catholic churches promoted it at the time. Following the Protestant Reformation, many new denominations continued celebrating Christmas, but some radical Protestant groups did not celebrate it. In Colonial America, Pilgrims were opposed to the holiday, and it wasn’t until the mid nineteenth century that the Boston area fully embraced the holiday. But, the holiday was freely practiced in Virginia and New York during colonial times. Following the Revolution it fell out of favor in the United States to some extent, as it was seen as being an English custom.

Around the world there was a revival of Christmas celebrations in the early nineteenth century, after it took on a more family oriented, and children centered theme. A contributing factor to this was Charles Dickens’ publication of A Christmas Carol in 1843. His novel highlighted themes of compassion, goodwill, and family. Seasonal food and drink, family gatherings, dancing, games, and a festive generosity of spirit all are part of Christmas celebrations today, and were part of Dickens’ novel. Even the phrase “Merry Christmas” became popularized by the story.

In the United States, several of Washington Irving’s short stories in the 1820s helped revive Christmas, as did A Visit From St. Nicholas. This poem helped to popularize the exchanging of gifts, and helped Christmas shopping take on an economic importance. It was after this that there began to be a conflict between the spiritual and commercial aspects of Christmas as well. By the 1850s and 1860s, the holiday became more widely celebrated in the United States, and Puritan resistance began to shift to acceptance. By 1860, fourteen states had adopted Christmas as a legal holiday. On June 28, 1870, it became a federal holiday in the United States.

Celebrations of Christmas in the United States and other countries are a mix of pre-Christian, Christian, and secular influences. Gift giving today is based on the tradition of Saint Nicholas, as well as on the giving of gifts by the magi to Jesus. Giving also may have been influenced by gift giving during the ancient Roman festival Saturnalia. Closely related and often interchangeable figures such as Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, and Christkind are seen as gift givers to children—the best known of which is Santa Claus. His name is traced back to the Dutch Sinterklaas, which simply meant Saint Nicholas. Saint Nicholas was a fourth century Greek bishop who was known for his care of children, generosity, and the giving of gifts to children on his feast day. During the Reformation, many protestants changed the gift giver to the Christ child, or Christkindl, which was changed to Kris Kringle in English. The date of giving changed from Saint Nicholas Day to Christmas Eve at this time. Modern Santa Claus started in the United States, particularly in New York; he first appeared in 1810. Cartoonist Thomas Nast began drawing pictures of him each year beginning in 1863, and by the 1880s Santa took on his modern form.

Attending Christmas services is popular for religious adherents of the holiday. Sometimes services are held right at midnight, at the beginning of Christmas Day. Readings from the gospels as well as reenactments of the Nativity of Jesus may be done.

Christmas cards are another important part of Christmas, and are exchanged between family and friends in the lead up to the day. The first commercial Christmas cards were printed in 1843—the same year as the printing of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. In 1875 the first commercial Christmas cards made their debut in the United States. Today both religious and secular artwork adorns the cards.

Music has long been a part of Christmas. The first Christmas hymns came about in fourth century Rome. By the thirteenth century, countries like France, Germany, and Italy had developed Christmas songs in their native language. Songs that became known as carols were originally communal folk songs, and were sung during celebrations such as “harvest tide” as well as Christmas, and began being sung in church. The singing of Christmas songs went into some decline during the Reformation. “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” came about in the eighteenth century, and “Silent Night” was composed in 1818. Christmas carols were revived with William Sandy’s Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern in 1833, which included some of the first appearances of “The First Noel,” “I Saw Three Ships,” “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” and “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.” Secular Christmas songs began to come about in the late eighteenth century. “Deck the Halls” was written in 1784, and “Jingle Bells” was written in 1857. Many secular Christmas songs were produced in the 20th century, in jazz, blues, country, and rock and roll variations: Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” was popularized by Bing Crosby; “Jingle Bell Rock” was sung by Bobby Helms; Brenda Lee did a version of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree;” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was recorded by Gene Autry. Elvis Presley also put out a Christmas album.

A special meal is often eaten on the day, and popular food varies from country to country. In United States, turkey with stuffing—sometimes called dressing—is often the main course, but roast beef or ham are also popular. Potatoes, squash, roasted vegetables, casseroles, and cranberry sauces are common. Popular drinks include tonics, sherries, and eggnog. Pastries, cookies, and other desserts sweeten the day, and fruits, nuts, chocolates, and cheeses are popular snacks.

Finally, Christmas decorations are an important aspect of the holiday and include things such as trees, lights, nativity scenes, garland, stockings, angels, wreaths, mistletoe, and holly. The Christmas tree tradition is believed to have started in Germany in the eighteenth century, although some believe Martin Luther began the tradition in the sixteenth century. Christmas trees were introduced to England in the early nineteenth century. In 1848 the British royal family photo showed the family with a Christmas tree, and it caused a sensation. A version of the photo was reprinted two years later in the United States. By the 1870s the putting up of trees was common in the United States. They are adorned with lights and ornaments, and can be real or artificial.

Christmas Day, also known as Christmas, is being observed today! It has always been observed annually on December 25th.

There are an innumerable amount of ways that you could celebrate Christmas:

attend a church service or read the gospel Christmas accounts

watch a Christmas film

listen to Christmas music

complete an Advent calendar or wreath

give gifts

view a Nativity play

watch a Christmas parade

visit family or friends

visit Santa Claus

read books such as How the Grinch Stole Christmas! or A Christmas Carol

light a Christingle

view Christmas decorations

go Christmas caroling

make Christmas cookies or other foods associated with the holiday

Source

#Christmas Day #ChristmasDay #25 December #it's snowing #Christmas Tree #Nativity scene #manger scene #Christmas Tree Topper #original photography #Schweiz #Switzerland #Xmas 2020 #real tree and real beewax candles #homemade stuffed turkey #but not this year #Cabernet Sauvignon #Christmas Lights #Merry Christmas #Merry Xmas

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ab-strakt-ed · 4 years

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Music Industry Innovation: Meta Data

Just as long as music has been released for consumption, there have been procedures in place to acknowledge the parties involved in a song’s creation. Traditionally this information is solely used to issue royalties to music creators. In the late 1870s, Thomas Edison created the first iteration of the phonograph. In 1880 Alexander Graham Bell revamped the phonograph by inventing the graphophone. This music player with the added ability to record sound became the inspiration for cassette recording boomboxes in the late 1970s. In the heyday of the graphophone, the standard methods of metadata collection were spoken introductions and sticker annotations on a piece of paper. Moving forward to 1930 we saw the introduction of LPs by RCA Victor; eventually to be renamed RCA Records, and in 1948 Dr. Peter Goldmark and Columbia Records revamped the vinyl disk by increasing playtimes to two minutes as opposed to the potential minute of a cylinder phonograph. During this era in music we also saw the introduction of large gatefold liner notes with artwork and lyrics; as the preferred method of metadata collection. This led to what is now commonly known as an album booklet for CD’s beginning in the early 1980s containing photos, lyrics, thank you notes and a list of all parties who contributed to each song. Now with the current advancement of digital albums, consumers are provided with digital album booklets that continue the trend of information included in LP’s and CD’s but don’t require physical output.

In the music industry, Meta Data typically focuses on audio recording and refers to, the name of the recording artist, songwriter(s), producer(s), musicians, audio engineer(s), recording studio, etc. This information notifies companies like ASCAP and BMI who handle music publishing, of the proper parties to issue payment and ownership rights whenever their creative intelligence (in the form of song) is used (be it in a video, movie, concert, radio program, commercial, karaoke machine, etc.). Metadata in its more historic forms has always been an integral part of music intellectual property ownership documentation. In the ’80s and ’90s cracking the plastic on a CD for the first time and reading the liner notes in an album booklet was nostalgic (ahhh fond memories).

However, with the dawn of the Big Data Age, metadata now also helps music companies like Apple Music and Tidal determine what music and other content to target to their listeners. Today the favorite that a consumer makes on any given song in a streaming platform, triggers metadata to prompt suggestions of additional content they may enjoy. This new execution made it possible to compose a uniquely curated library of music for their customers directly from their catalogs or indirectly through a relationship with radio networks; who direct traffic to these entities for customers who are interested in purchasing a song they’ve heard.

Apple Music and Tidal are currently the two primary monopolies of music streaming in the music industry aside from Pandora and Spotify. Apple Music allows consumers to have access to over thirty million songs, so they can explore all of their musical interests and the recommendations from Apple based on the content they favorite and view with a membership. Consumers can also communicate with the artists they’re fans of with comments and actions on the artist’s live posts. Apple Music additionally offers its own 24 hours, 7 days a week radio service which introduces customers to a variety of music, shows, and other content they can purchase within the program. Furthermore, this facet of Apple Inc. has a relationship with radio stations where recognizable tags are placed in songs metadata; embedded with iTunes coding so that a query of the song in apps like SoundHound, Shazam and players like Pandora and Spotify will populate a result in the iTunes store for the potential purchase of the music.

On the Tidal platform, consumers enjoy a similar thirty million songs and relationships with radio through metadata tags using, artist names, lyrics, and sounds from production; like Apple Music. However, the draw of this flagship is that the owners of the company are artists, writers, and producers of music. This enables them to show more concern and compassion for those with creative rights being properly compensated for their work, whenever streamed through their servers. At Tidal an artist, writer or producer, earns a higher percentage of profit through the metadata tags when their content is consumed, compared to other companies like Apple who focus the profit margin on the streaming company itself. Other benefits of Tidal for consumers are the access to exclusive content from the creative individuals that are not available on any other platform or early release exclusivity, streaming of large ticket items concerts and boxing matches, and the purchase or winning of tickets to shows.

Unfortunately, while radio tagging seems to be working very well to direct consumers to music purchase portals, the systems in place to process who is responsible for creating each song played, do not always have the proper information to guarantee that all worthy parties receive royalty payments. Surprisingly, the logging of this information was more accurate when everything was manually notated and funneled through a select group of specialists. In this digital age, where technology streamlines all of our processes, the quality of collecting and organizing relevant data in the music industry has been lost. The main culprits causing incorrect information are, name misspellings, performer name changes, content having multiple release dates, and content being released under different artists presenting a conflict in ownership to the data analysis tools.

All of these issues result in a loss of potential sales, missed promotion opportunities to consumers, and miss-distributed or undistributed royalties to deserving parties. Some artists have experienced piracy as a result of the inconsistencies in digital music metadata, causing the need to pull content from streaming services and other platforms. In turn, customers then can’t enjoy or purchase the content either. Currently, there are 350 digital music providers, and each is monitoring its systems and security. The industry as a whole is at a loss financially due to each company independently create its metadata solution. NARM suggests that digital music and streaming providers should come together and create one unified system for metadata collection, analysis, and output to lower expenses and increase product output and ultimately, economic growth. Likely this will be executed when the Global Repertoire Database is accepted as the standard for metadata functioning in the music industry. It will compare duplicate entries and those that belong to the same artist under different names to ensure that ownership is put in the proper places. This will raise the accuracy of royalty payments, and the content catalogs of creative the customers see in their queries, in addition to standard cataloging and analysis.

#music #innovation #data analysis #technology #music industry #metadata #apple news #itunes #tidal music

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blackkudos · 4 years

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James Reese Europe

James Reese Europe (February 22, 1880 – May 9, 1919), sometimes known as Jim Europe, was an American ragtime and early jazz bandleader, arranger, and composer. He was the leading figure on the black American music scene of New York City in the 1910s. Eubie Blake called him the "Martin Luther King of music".

Early life

Europe was born in Mobile, Alabama, to Henry Jefferson Europe (1848–1899) and Loraine Saxon (maiden; 1849–1930). His family — which included four siblings, Minnie Europe (Mrs. George Mayfield; 1868–1931), Ida S. Europe (1870–1919), John Newton Europe (1875–1932), and Mary Loraine (1883–1947) — moved to Washington, D.C., when he was 10.

Europe moved to New York in 1904.

Band leader

In 1910, Europe organized the Clef Club, a society for Black Americans in the music industry. In 1912, the club made history when it played a concert at Carnegie Hall for the benefit of the Colored Music Settlement School. The Clef Club Orchestra, while not a jazz band, was the first band to play proto-jazz at Carnegie Hall. It is difficult to overstate the importance of that event in the history of jazz in the United States — it was 12 years before the Paul Whiteman and George Gershwin concert at Aeolian Hall, and 26 years before Benny Goodman's famed concert at Carnegie Hall. The Clef Club's performances played music written solely by Black composers, including Harry T. Burleigh and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Europe's orchestra also included Will Marion Cook, who had not been in Carnegie Hall since his own performance as solo violinist in 1896. Cook was the first black composer to launch full musical productions, fully scored with a cast and story every bit as classical as any Victor Herbert operetta. In the words of Gunther Schuller, Europe "... had stormed the bastion of the white establishment and made many members of New York's cultural elite aware of Negro music for the first time". The New York Times remarked, "These composers are beginning to form an art of their own"; yet by their third performance, a review in Musical America said Europe's Clef Club should "give its attention during the coming year to a movement or two of a Haydn Symphony".

Europe was known for his outspoken personality and unwillingness to bend to musical conventions, particularly in his insistence on playing his own style of music. He responded to criticism by saying, "We have developed a kind of symphony music that, no matter what else you think, is different and distinctive, and that lends itself to the playing of the peculiar compositions of our race ... My success had come ... from a realization of the advantages of sticking to the music of my own people." And later, "We colored people have our own music that is part of us. It's the product of our souls; it's been created by the sufferings and miseries of our race."

Some of Europe's best-known compositions include several that were co-composed with Ford Dabney (1893–1958) for the famed dancers Irene and Vernon Castle. The Castles regarded Europe's Society Orchestra among the best they had worked with and hired Europe late in 1913 as their preferred band leader with Dabney as their arranger.

Co-composed with Dabney for the Castles; Joseph W. Stern (1870–1934), publisherComposed soley by Europe for the Castles; G. Ricordi & Co., publisher

Co-composed with Dabney for Kern and Bolton's

Nobody Home

(1915)— Princess Theatre April 20, 2015, through June 1915; Maxine Elliott's Theatre June 7, 1915, through August 7, 1915

Co-composed with Dabney, lyrics by Gene Buck, for Ziegfeld's

Midnight Frolic,

sang by Nora Bayes; Francis, Day & Hunter Ltd., publisher

In 1913 and 1914 he made a series of phonograph records for the Victor Talking Machine Company. These recordings are some of the best examples of the pre-jazz hot ragtime style of the U.S. Northeast of the 1910s. These are some of the most accepted quotes that are in place to protect the idea that the Original Dixieland Jass Band recorded the first jass (spelling later changed) pieces in 1917 for Victor. Unlike Europe's post-War recordings, the Victor recordings were not called nor marketed as "jazz" at the time, and were far from the first recordings of ragtime by Black American musicians.

Neither the Clef Club Orchestra nor the Society Orchestra were small "Dixieland" style bands. They were large symphonic bands to satisfy the tastes of a public that was used to performances by the likes of the John Philip Sousa band and similar organizations very popular at the time. The Clef Orchestra had 125 members and played on various occasions between 1912 and 1915 in Carnegie Hall. It is instructive to read a comment from a music review in the New York Times from March 12, 1914: "... the programme consisted largely of plantation melodies and spirituals [arranged such as to show that] these composers are beginning to develop an art of their own based on their folk material ..."

Military service

During World War I, Europe obtained a commission in the New York Army National Guard, where he fought as a lieutenant with the 369th Infantry Regiment (the "Harlem Hellfighters") when it was assigned to the French Army. He went on to direct the regimental band to great acclaim. In February and March 1918, James Reese Europe and his military band travelled over 2,000 miles in France, performing for British, French and American military audiences as well as French civilians. Europe's "Hellfighters" also made their first recordings in France for the Pathé brothers. The first concert included a French march, and the Stars and Stripes Forever as well as syncopated numbers such as "The Memphis Blues", which, according to a later description of the concert by band member Noble Sissle "... started ragtimitis in France".

Post-war career

After his return home in February 1919 he stated, "I have come from France more firmly convinced than ever that Negros should write Negro music. We have our own racial feeling and if we try to copy whites we will make bad copies ... We won France by playing music which was ours and not a pale imitation of others, and if we are to develop in America we must develop along our own lines." In 1919 Europe made more recordings for Pathé Records. These include both instrumentals and accompaniments with vocalist Noble Sissle who, with Eubie Blake, would later have great success with their 1921 production of Shuffle Along, which gives us the classic song "I'm Just Wild About Harry". Differing in style from Europe's recordings of a few years earlier, they incorporate blues, blue notes, and early jazz influences (including a rather stiff cover record of the Original Dixieland Jass Band's "Clarinet Marmalade").

Death

On the night of May 9, 1919, Europe performed for the last time. He had been feeling ill all day, but wanted to go on with the concert (which was to be the first of three in Boston's Mechanics Hall). During the intermission Europe went to have a talk with two of his drummers, Steve and Herbert Wright. After Europe criticized some of their behavior (walking off stage during others' performances), Herbert Wright became very agitated and threw his drumsticks down in a seemingly unwarranted outburst of anger. He claimed Europe did not treat him well and that he was tired of getting blamed for others' mistakes. He lunged for Europe with a penknife and was able to stab him in the neck. Europe told his band to finish the set and he would see them the next morning. To Europe and his band the wound seemed superficial. As he was carried away, he told them "I'll get along alright." At the hospital, they could not stop the bleeding and he died hours later.

News of Europe's death spread fast. Composer and band leader W. C. Handy wrote: "The man who had just come through the baptism of war's fire and steel without a mark had been stabbed by one of his own musicians ... The sun was in the sky. The new day promised peace. But all the suns had gone down for Jim Europe, and Harlem didn't seem the same." Europe was granted the first ever public funeral for a black American in the city of New York. Tanney Johnson said of his death: "Before Jim Europe came to New York, the colored man knew nothing but Negro dances and porter's work. All that has been changed. Jim Europe was the living open sesame to the colored porters of this city. He took them from their porters' places and raised them to positions of importance as real musicians. I think the suffering public ought to know that in Jim Europe, the race has lost a leader, a benefactor, and a true friend."

At the time of his death, he was the best-known black-American bandleader in the United States. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

#02/22 #05/09

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oswhys · 5 years

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Dumb AC concept ideas

So this is basically a info dump of ideas for potential AC games and concepts that its been playing with in my head, it's mostly me nerding out about junk (look if I can info dump about Teotihuacan I’ll do it.) like it's ideas that I think would be cool and what id want to see in future installments, even if they aren't likely to happen. It's also written super casually cause I started making this in a burst of inspiration at like 2 am and yet still got distracted from it cause I started going on tangents. So it's a bit of a mess. I’m totally down for bouncing ideas around if anyone has their own concepts.

1920’s jazz age assassin from the beginning of unity and the abstergo employee handbook. "The lives and failures of the most degenerate Americans to ever grace the world's stage - Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Stein." please tell me how this doesn't sound cool as shit? Okokokokokokok SO… CARS. like this dude would have a car (and of course the player can earn different cars and looks for their car and junk, including a yellow Duesenberg… like come on if he knew Fitzgerald they gotta let this dude drive Gatsby's car.) I think there can be an argument about him having a rope launcher attachment buuut maybe not??? I mean a car and a rope launcher would be dope as hell. The dude probably bounced between Paris and New York if he's a genuine jazz age junkie like how abstergo describes him and his writer pals. Also it would be cool to meet Picasso… also his base of operations should be a fucking speakeasy, like duh, like where else would a 1920’s assassin camp out? I don’t really have any plot ideas but the concept of a jazz age assassin is cool enough for me to want it this badly.

1970’s-1980’s William Miles in a corporate espionage type game, like i know he had Desmond in 1987 but he was an active filed assassin in 1977 when he was in Moscow so clearly he could've been doing other junk around then. It doesn't have to be him, i just want a 70’d-80’s assassin trying to fuck with abstergo and trying to steal animus research or something. Like Alieen Bock died in 81 and that was at the height of animus research before abstergo started really investing in it cause of Vidic. Like the surrogate initiative and the animus project are… basically the same thing really. Like knowing that Altair and Ezio were not actually related until their bloodlines crossed with Desmond. So with the memory keys being cited as an integral part of the animus project they obviously had a role to play in the surrogate project. Besides the newer games are pretty loosey-goosey with how the DNA and animus junk works now, with the spear having DNA traces or whatever and its corrupted enough that we could… choose things?? (don't ask questions just have fun i guess.) ok i’m over thinking this stuff… but come on… disco!!!!! Please please please have a disco assassination. Like… the idea of an assassin taking out a target at the disco is cool enough for me to want it. ALSO!!! If it goes into the 80’s then please for the love of god a Thriller inspired outfit would be to die for. Like i know getting the exact look would be a trademark nightmare but an inspired look may be able to get away with it. I just want some real corporate espionage type missions while dressed in some brightly colored dorky(cool as shit) 70’s/80’s fashion.

So like… ANYTHING from ancient Andean culture. So The Chimú or the Moche… that would be cool, but I'd settle for Wari and Tiwanaku. I just kinda want to see Chan Chan recreated. And Moche art was so fucking good like… idk man they're making video games that are mostly of ancient cultures now so the possibility of them making something in a more modern setting is slim to none. Like come on they're gonna want to make like idk maybe one more really ancient cultural game so they can still reuse assets again before making a whole new saga. That's just their track record. The problem with doing an ancient andean cultural video game is that there isn't a lot to work with other then our knowledge of the architecture and artistry of the ancient peoples. We have art documentary significant events but there isn't really any historical recordings so there's no significant figures to meet or events to take part in that we know of right now. BUT that also means that hey if Ubisoft wants us to have freedom of choice within the narrative this would be a great opportunity.

Speaking of ancient culturesssss ancient Mexican cultures would be REALLY cool too. Like obviously Mayans culture is the first to come to mind but AC already kinda explored the Mayans so idk maybe a more underrated ancient culture deserves the spotlight. The Zapotec and other civilizations in the Oaxaca. Like this would be really cool since we actually see a rise in raiding and conquest warfare, like theres these bas-relief stone carvings called Las Danzantes which are actually depictions of sacrificial victims, most likely foreign captives. The architecture is also to die for like i’m a sucker for talud-tablero style stuff popping up in ancient Latin america. Also do i gotta say it? BALL COURTS!!! A recreation of the ancient ball game in a video game would be cool as shit my dudes like… please i want this so bad. Like how origins depicted mummification with respect I’d love to see the same kind of loving dedication to the funerary practices of the ancient peoples. (off topic completely but some latin american civilizations had their own forms of mummification) like i wanna see the abandonment of Monte Alban and the later use of it by the Mixtecs. But the most important thing about the celebration of the ancient Zapotec would be the ability to celebrate the modern Zapotec culture, that would just be cool. Ok I’ll finish up this train of ideas with the one i really really really want to see recreated, the original Teotihuacan, before the Aztecs found it. With the pyramids being painted and covered in beautiful carvings and, of course, talud-tablero style architecture. It's basically the biggest ancient city in mesoamerica with hidden cave systems that we are still finding today and so much of the ancient city was built over because it might've been covered up or eroded to the point where no one knew it was there, or because there wasn't really anyone who cared enough to uh, not build on top of historical sites. Modern mexico city is built all around and on top of it (apparently you can see Walmart from the top of the temple of the sun…) so its a huge ancient city that was really colorful and really populated with crazy ancient tunnels underneath the pyramids that we’ve only discovered recently so how fucking cool are those possibilities? Like i just can't get over the idea of some assassin-esque person climbing up red pyramids and sitting next to statues and carvings of Queztalcoatl painted in a turquoise. Ancient farms and city life thriving. From what we know about it, like many other ancient latin american cities it was abandoned at some point, exactly why is unclear though (probably a mix of things cause there wasn't any kings really but more like… neighborhood councils (that's the best guess rn)). It was an actual city though, most archaeologists compare it to modern cities due to its city planning and its huge population. What was left behind was so spectacular that when the Aztecs found it they legit thought it was the city of the gods. This was a real fucking city and I’m crazy about it man i want it in a fucking video game my dudes.

COWBOYS PLEASE. Like i know rdr2 came out so they probably wont do it (for a while at least) and they already have the gold rush assassin so they've dabbled with cowboy stuff but… cowboys… like theres nothing else to say really… Cowboys. Also like i know how AC is pretty much ass melee combat and cowboys means guns and lots of guns and bows and probably rope darts. But… folding swords. That my shitty solution to have melee combat, like syndicate had melee and some gun stuff cause duh, but it was mostly melee. Like you can make the game centered around stealth so a lot more sneaking then combat, kinda like in unity. I have a few ideas for this one but most of them play into my own personal cowboy wish fulfillment fantasy of owning a farm with snakes for the production of venoms and other toxins. It's hard to explain but i kinda really want to see someone with a snake/spider enclosure where they produce venoms for the protag to use. The specific time period i have in mind is like 1870-1888 but it could defo go later. It's just that was peak for a lot of famous gunslingers and robberies. And Mesa Verde was basically rediscovered in the late 1880’s (its kinda weird like it was “officially” discovered in 88 but others saw it before that soooo. Also Montezuma Castle would be cool to visit in game as well. I dont have have a lot of knowledge about mesa verde or Montezuma but i know they're cool af.) the wild west is just ripe with possibility so i have some hope they’ll do one in the future but i don't see it happening anytime within the next couple of years.

Please for the love of god give me a AC3/unity dual sequel. Set in 1798 Egypt before during and maybe a little after the french invasion of Egypt. There would be a ton to work around and justify to get that to happen in universe buuuuut… i want it so badly. I have a shit ton of ideas but im saving all of that for a rainy day.

I wouldn't mind if they actually did stuff with WWI, mostly cause i really like that one WWI assassin from project legacy and Lydia's whole thing was really cool.

Ok I’m kinda on burn out after all that cause I just… its 4 AM and i’m supposed to be writing a paper but I made this big fucking oops.

#Assassin's Creed #assassins creed #assassin’s creed #this is dumb sorry i just... gotta express this shit #my stuff

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thebrewstorian · 2 years

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"I furthermore request that my residence never be sold to a saloon keeper," Johanna Behrens

This is a story in six parts!

Read the first: Many roads lead to and through the history of beer in Eugene

Read the second: “I furthermore request that my residence never be sold to a saloon keeper”

Read the third: The years of quick turnover at the Eugene City Brewery: August Werner and Henry Hageman

Read the fourth: Mary and Mathias Meller, a short story that could be much longer

Read the fifth: The Vogl Family

Read the sixth: Pironi and Weinhard [alternate title “It all comes back to Louisa”]

Read them all: #eugene beer history

When we left the Behrens, they lived in Oregon City, where Louis worked as a brewer and Johanna kept house. I haven’t found the location of the brewery yet, so I’m not sure how close they lived to it, which may help gauge what the level of overlap between home and brewery or Johanna’s day-to-day role in brewery operations might have been.

Photograph from the Clackamas County Historical Society.

The 1880 picture below gives a slightly different perspective, but it’s difficult to tell whether there was a dwelling nearby then or when Johanna lived in Oregon City.

Photograph from the Clackamas County Historical Society.

One more odd tidbit of an overlap: the Oregon City Enterprise announced the opening of a brewery, in Oregon City, by Henry Humbel, who’d recently moved there from Idaho. His wife at the time was Theresa, who later divorced him and co-owed a brewery in Astoria.

In Theresa's own words from their 1870 divorce records: “I drank wine with Mr Humble before I married him. It was my suggestion of going into the brewery business.”

The first advertisement for the Eugene City Brewery was in July 1867, and stated Louis was making ale, porter, and lager beer, and “selling at price to suit the times, for cash, or will exchange for barley.”

In the same edition, there was an ad for the Lager Beer Saloon, run by the Coleman Brothers, which provides interesting information about what was being sold at saloons in Eugene. Their bar was always stocked with whiskey, rum, gin, schnapps, Hostetters [stomach bitters], Hoofland’s [German stomach bitters, nonalcoholic unless “tonic,” which had Santa Crus rum], tonic, brandy, wine, lager, and “any and everything that is ‘good to take,’” but also had a “large and full stock” of oysters, sardines, nuts, confectionaries, cigars, tobacco, Meerschaum pipes, toys, and “fancy goods.”

The 1870 census reflects their move to Eugene, where they had an estimated personal estate value of $1000 ($22,000 in 2022), a decrease from the decade before, and 4 children with the birth of Louis O. in 1861.

What about brewing in Eugene?

In 1867, the editors of the Eugene Register Guard thanked 13-year-old Victor in 1867 for bring them “a bucket of splendid lager this week” and proclaimed the ale and lager made by the Eugene City Brewery as good as any other brewery in the state. In the “buy local” sentiment that would be omnipresent in the 21st century, they said “there is no longer and excuse for patronizing Corvallis. Encourage home enterprise and industry.” In an 1869 advertisement the Corvallis Brewery, proprietor Joseph Hunt called into question the quality and safety of Louis’ beer: “The public are assured that I brew on the square, and that everything in my line is pure. If you want ‘fish berries’ and other poisonous compounds don’t buy of me. If you want a health insuring beverage, send along your orders, and you can then ‘laugh and grow fat.’”

Hunt made sure to let Eugene residents know they could find his beer at the Arcade Salon.

In 1867 and 1868, Louis was taxed as a distiller, likely making barley malt whiskey, though none of his brewery ads include liquor. He registered the name Eugene City Distilling Company in late 1868 or early 1869, and his peak year for whiskey production was 1869. Concurrently, there were lawsuits being litigated. In 1868, two circuit court suits were brought against Behrens, including one by Peter Blake to foreclose on a property and a sheriff’s sale to pay debts.

There was a period in 1868 where there were no newspaper advertisements for the brewery: was this because of financial difficulties or the closure of the business due to these lawsuits?

The last Eugene City Brewery ad with Louis Behrens as proprietor was January 30, 1869 and then something curious happened, the name on the ad changed to Johanna’s. In an ad dated August 21, 1869, customers read that the brewery always had lager on hand, “for sale cheap, in small and large quantities,” with J. Behrens followed by L. Behrens, who was the agent.

Behrens’ health probably began to fail in 1869 and the brewery stopped advertising entirely in August 1870. Louis was still listed as the brewer in tax lists for June 1870 and 1871 and was listed as a brewer and retail liquor agent in the 1871 Pacific Coast Business Directory. Louis died November 8, 1871 of dropsy and was buried in Eugene Pioneer Cemetery.

And so, this question remains unanswered: who was running the business? The “L.” in the advertisement could be father or son Louis, but it is also possible lawsuits or illness meant the elder Louis wasn’t involved at all. And it is impossible to not to flash forward to the statement in the title of this post from Johanna’s 1882 will: “I furthermore request that my residence never be sold to a saloon keeper.”

Johanna married James Goodchild at her home in June 1879. James was a gardener and his first wife, Sarah, had died in England. In the 1870 census, his personal estate value was $10,000 ($200,000 in 2022) and real estate value was $800 and ten years later, in the 1880 census, Johanna and James lived with 18-year-old Louis in Eugene. They weren’t married for long: James died in January 1881 at 66 years old and Johanna died the next year, September 24, 1882, at 58-years-old. Son Louis died in a railway accident in May 1881, so her remaining three children Victor, Lottie Ralston, and Clara Severns divided the property equally between them. Her real and personal property was valued at $2000, but considering debts the total estate was valued at $1000. Her personal property allows for some imagining about what their house was like.

It was valued at nearly $200, and included four tables (round, dining, kitchen, stand); five safes (clothes, dish, meat, flour); 5 yards two ply carpet, 15 yards three ply carpet, 46 yards rag carpet; several chairs and stools; 3 stoves (parlor, box, cooking); various pieces of furniture including a leather-bound trunk and a marble washstand; seven cabinet sized rustic frames and nine framed pictures; two looking glasses. There were two feather beds, a bedstead and wire mattress, a mattress, a cottage bedstead, nine feather pillows, five bed blankets, and six quilts. She had 3 1/2 cords of wood, 46 cans of fruit, and 10 pounds of dried fruit. There were tools like a mattock and a crowbar, two spades, five rakes, and a bucksaw. She owned one and a half dozen chickens, miscellaneous tableware, and a “whatnot.”

It ends with an intriguing caveat, the title of this post, as it related to property: “I furthermore request that my residence never be sold to a saloon keeper.”

This raises questions about what her experiences had been being married to a man who was one of the earliest brewers and distillers in Oregon, but one that died at 53.

Sources used:

Historic newspapers (Historic Oregon Newspapers, but also newspapers.com, Chronicling America, and historic newspaper sites from other states)

Ancestry.com

Late 19th and early 20th century books about people and places (mainly on Hathi Trust and Google Books)

Free form searching on the internet (Tavern Trove is good for approximations of dates, but there are also regional history newsletters that are helpful)

Sanborn Fire Insurance maps

#Eugene beer history #oregon beer #beer history

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deeisace · 6 years

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hmmmm

i like to think there are a lot of interesting folks in my family

or there were, at least

well, yeah okay my recent family is pretty weird also

but just to list some odd/interesting/cool folks? i think, anyway. because i’m thinking about it and i can’t research bcs i turned off my ancestry account bcs i don’t have £15 a month spare

uhhh anyway okay

most of these you will know i’m sure, cs i do talk rather a lot of nonsense fairly often

because letterkenny has reminded me of the existence of canada-

henry bird, ghost child. the only record of him ever that i can find, ever, is the passenger list of him going over to ontario in i forget if it was 1873 or 1878, but he was 8 years old, and i assume he is a cousin of mine somehow (since he went over with my 4th-great grandparents, an aunt and her neices/nephew(/stepchildren - the aunt, Grace, married her sister, Thirza’s widower, 6 months after her sister died, and who died 6 months later)).

on the subject of Canada, Willie Bird, my cousin four times removed, who became a mountie in somewhere called Moose Jaw (someone who is from there is called a Moose Javian, which is fuckin amazing) in his early 20s/the late 1880s, and I can’t find a mention of him following that, in 1891. His sister Ann married a postman and moved to Ohio, where it seems she fairly immediately died, and his sister Thirza married someone called John James Nicholson, stayed home in Dufferin County, Ontario and named her second son Beryle.

Ellenor Moore, an aunt of mine, whose husband Thomas was in fact legally married to the woman next door - they had 10 children between the three of them over 15 years, with most of the eldest listed to Ellenor, and most of the youngest listed with Mary - or at least, they lived in that manner, according to the 1891 census, although the youngest two, the same age, had swapped residence according to their baptisms - John was baptised to Ellenor but lived with Mary on the census, and Selena was baptised to Mary but lived with Ellenor. I couldn’t find baptism records for most of the elder children, however. Of course I don’t know their lives or their reasonings, but I like to think they were happy, living in such a way, even in 1870s-1890s(etc) rural Lancashire.

Alfred Wyatt Pettit, my 3rd-great grandfather, the cheesemonger apprentice turned coachman - turned tram driver, turned omnibus driver, turned omnibus conductor. He really must’ve hated cheese - or just really liked these new motor cars, I suppose!

Redvers Madge, my 3rd great uncle. He just has a funny name, tbh. I’m not at all surprised he went by Henry. Jack, why on earth would you do that to your youngest son?? The rest of them had normal names, f god’s sake.

On the subject of odd names, tho - Thirza Bird, Devereaux Aland, Wyndham Evans (on my father’s side), Wyndham Madge (on my mother’s side), Mark Darke, Horatio Fox... A set of sisters all called variations on Mary - Mary, Maria, May - with Elizabeth and Charles the youngest two siblings. And a set of sisters all with flower names - Daisy, Violet, Ivy, Hyacinth (who hated her name, and was called something entirely unrelated as soon as she was able to protest) and Lily - where all the boys had, again, normal names - Charles, Sam, Eddie and Cyril.

Alice Fox, who came from a family of criminals - or at least, her dad (the aforementioned Horatio Fox, “a rough-looking fellow [and] lazy, drunken vagabond”, according to the papers, who I talk about here a bit) was terrible in at least most ways you can think, to his family as well as himself, and seems to have been in prison more often than not, fortunately - and one of her aunts was the 1870s equivalent of a shoplifter, whilst the other caused a lot of bother fighting with her neighbours, and the last married a policeman, which must’ve caused some family drama, I imagine. But Alice married a baker, who’sone and only mention in the local paper was that once he got fined for leaving his car outside a shop for too long, which spooked a horse, in 1912 - so while that’s no proof, I do hope her later life was happier than her childhood.

Ah, who else, now.

John Stuart Scarth, who was a son of a gun - although not in his manner, so far as I can tell. He was born, impossibly, on a ship on it’s way back from Malta. Impossible because although his dad was a soldier, the regiment he belonged to would not be in Malta another 30 years. He lists himself as being born in Lisbon, however - but although his daughter must’ve got something wrong - or I have, or someone has - he must’ve told her that story, for her to remember it and tell it to the author of a genealogical book about posh people in Illinois. I’m not entirely sure I believe that book, that she was "a lady of culture and refinement”, since that is certainly not true of any of my more recent relatives (refinement?? nah), although I do believe the book/her that her dad was the precentor of St Magnus’ Cathedral, sort of like a choir master, for 40 years, and had “a peculiar talent” “in vocal and instrumental music”, and valued music far above his trade (which was tailoring, same as his dad - who also had the same name) - I know from the Orkney papers some of the songs he sang, and that he had a “neat manner” and that he sang as entertainment for the local Temperance League meetings sometimes - which is why I say he was not a son of a gun - although his place of birth makes him one.

James Linklater Fergus, the first actual Scouser in my family (although Lancashire goes further back some, on another branch), a sailor on a steam ship who died in Alexandria, Egypt, after stepping on a rusty nail - or at least, that is what I assume from “puncture wound, sole rht foot, 10 days hosp”.

Betsy Evans, my 4th-great aunt, from Darlaston, who listed her occupation as “latch-press” in 1871 - I know of course it means that she made latches, in a factory or suchlike, but it seems so much like an old-timey word for a thief, doesn’t it? I can quite imagine her making the locks she will later break into, though I’m sure that’s a foolish thought if ever there was one.

Alfred Cotterill, my great great grandfather, who emigrated to Boston and came back not two years later - to join the war effort, for ww1 had begun (supposedly, according to his grandson - but he married in april 1914, in Newport, Wales (to an awful woman), and the war did not begin until july - so unless he was clairvoyant, I fail to see how that was the case. He had a tattoo, on his right arm, although I’ve no idea what of, since I can’t find his blummin war records, can I? He spent most of the war as a POW, in the salt mines - he was shot in the leg in no man’s land, and was reportedly glad the germans picked him up instead of the british, since it meant he kept his leg, rather than the british, who had no time or resources, just amputating it.

Richard Mussard, a cab driver in London in the 1850s etc, who lived near two train stations and did so alright for himself that he owned his own cab after some time. He became a cabbie before the advent of The Knowledge, and so must’ve been one of the first to have to take it. I’ve no idea of his parents, but London in 1800 seems to have had two Mussard families - one, lightermen (sort of like ferrymen, only for things rather than people, working with the currents and with long paddles used for steering) from Battersea, or the other, a middle-class fencing/dancing instructor to boarding schools who did indeed have a son called Richard, although it was his middle name and not first. I don’t know how Richard might have got from an alright middle-class background to ferrying people between train stations for a pitance, and I would not wish such a decrease in fortunes upon him, but I do hope I’m decended from a fencing instructor anyway.

---

I think that’s rather enough, I suppose - I’ve run out of people that other people seem to find interesting, and I’m sure if I continued I’d bore you. And it’s midnight.

#ancestry #nonsense #if you should like to know about my recent family?#my mother is a disfellowshipped jehovah's witness who moved to france to spin alpaca wool and grow oyster mushrooms in her spare time from w #working at a chateaux #my stepdad is a blacksmith #he also used to write radio jingles and was an actual hatter once - one of the doctor whos complimented one of his leather top hats once #and he was a hairdresser #one of my brothers (fagin) studies theoretical physics; one (alfie) is a mechanic and the other works somehow in finance?? idk what joe does #my youngest sister's mum is a barrister who works in a bookie's; and my eldest sister is an au pair in london #i think that's rather enough nonsense for tonight i'm going to sleep

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patriotsnet · 3 years

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What National Policies Did Republicans Pursue During The Civil War

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-national-policies-did-republicans-pursue-during-the-civil-war/

What National Policies Did Republicans Pursue During The Civil War

Path Dependency And Counterfactuals

To explain the failure of Reconstruction, I process trace different causal narratives, using both path dependence and counterfactuals in my analysis. As Andrew Bennett and Colin Elman argue, case studies can be valuable for understanding path dependence, as they enable detailed analysis of historical events in ways that are suitable for rare cases and allow for the study of interaction effects, feedback loops, equifinality, and sequencing. If path dependency is in effect, later events, such as the spread of violence, are highly sensitive to previous decisions; solutions that might have worked at the initial stage are less viable over time.

Counterfactuals help scholars assess causal hypotheses by making claims about events that did not actually occur. They are valuable when large-N or even comparative casework is difficult. Counterfactuals are particularly useful when the number of observations of a particular case is low and multiple variables are in play. It is difficult to make definitive claims from counterfactual analysis, however, even when there is a strong understanding of all the potential causal mechanisms in the system. Consequently, my findings are suggestive, not conclusive, particularly when applied to other cases.

Eisenhower Goldwater And Nixon: 19521974

Dwight D. EisenhowerRichard Nixon

In , Dwight D. Eisenhower, an internationalist allied with the Dewey wing, was drafted as a GOP candidate by a small group of Republicans led by Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. in order that he challenge Taft on foreign policy issues. The two men were not far apart on domestic issues. Eisenhower’s victory broke a twenty-year Democratic lock on the White House. Eisenhower did not try to roll back the New Deal, but he did expand the Social Security system and built the Interstate Highway System.

After 1945, the isolationists in the conservative wing opposed the United Nations and were half-hearted in opposition to the expansion of Cold War containment of communism around the world. A garrison state to fight communism, they believed, would mean regimentation and government controls at home. Eisenhower defeated Taft in 1952 on foreign policy issues.

Eisenhower was an exception to most Presidents in that he usually let Vice President Richard Nixon handle party affairs . Nixon was narrowly defeated by John F. Kennedy in the 1960 United States presidential election, weakening his moderate wing of the party.

Strength of parties in 1977 Party 29 0

Barry GoldwaterAmerican conservative

Nixon defeated both Hubert Humphrey and George C. Wallace in . When the Democratic left took over their party in 1972, Nixon won reelection by carrying 49 states.

Richard Nixon

African American Population Distribution 1890

African American population distribution and migration patterns can be traced using maps published in the statistical atlases prepared by the U. S. Census Bureau for each decennial census from 1870 to 1920. The atlas for the 1890 census includes this map showing the percentage of colored to the total population for each county. Although the heaviest concentrations are overwhelmingly in Maryland, Virginia, and the southeastern states, there appear to be emerging concentrations in the northern urban areas , southern Ohio, central Missouri, eastern Kansas, and scattered areas in the West , reflecting migration patterns that began during Reconstruction.

Pietistic Republicans Versus Liturgical Democrats: 18901896

Voting behavior by religion, Northern U.S. late 19th century % Dem 90 10

From 1860 to 1912, the Republicans took advantage of the association of the Democrats with “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion. Rum stood for the liquor interests and the tavernkeepers, in contrast to the GOP, which had a strong dry element. “Romanism” meant Roman Catholics, especially Irish Americans, who ran the Democratic Party in every big city and whom the Republicans denounced for political corruption. “Rebellion” stood for the Democrats of the , who tried to break the Union in 1861; and the Democrats in the North, called “, who sympathized with them.

Demographic trends aided the Democrats, as the German and Irish Catholic immigrants were Democrats and outnumbered the English and Scandinavian Republicans. During the 1880s and 1890s, the Republicans struggled against the Democrats’ efforts, winning several close elections and losing two to Grover Cleveland .

Religious lines were sharply drawn. Methodists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Scandinavian Lutherans and other in the North were tightly linked to the GOP. In sharp contrast, liturgical groups, especially the Catholics, Episcopalians and German Lutherans, looked to the Democratic Party for protection from pietistic moralism, especially prohibition. Both parties cut across the class structure, with the Democrats more bottom-heavy.

Violence And Military Rule

Violence was common throughout Reconstruction. White supremacist groups such as the Klan emerged throughout the South and, through the use and threat of force, intimidated or prevented Black people from voting and paved the way for Democrats opposed to Black equality to gain power.

At its founding in Tennessee after the war, the KKK was initially dedicated as much to amusement as to violence. By 1867, the movement spread and had grown more unified, and for several years, Confederate war hero Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest became its commander in Tennessee. Even with Forrest’s leadership, the KKK is best thought of as a like-minded collection of local groups that initiated most of their violence without informing state or even county Klan leaders. Existing like-minded local groups also took its name, though, in some cases, they preserved their original ones, such as the Red Shirts, the Knights of the White Camelia in Louisiana, the Native Sons of the South, or the Knights of the Rising Sun in Texas. Their primary purpose was political change, not murder. As with most terrorism, the psychological effect of their violence was great. The Ku Klux terror colored nearly every aspect of Southern life and politics, often far beyond the immediate range of terrorist activity, argued one historian.

View Large

The Trump Era: 20162020

Presidency of Donald TrumpDonald Trump

Businessman Donald Trump won the 2016 Republican primaries, representing a dramatic policy shift from traditional conservatism to an aggressively populist ideology with overtones of cultural identity politics. Numerous high-profile Republicans, including past presidential nominees like Mitt Romney, announced their opposition to Trump; some even did so after he received the GOP nomination. Much of the Republican opposition to Trump stemmed from concerns that his disdain for political correctness, his support from the , his virulent criticism of the mainstream news media, and his expressions of approval for political violence would result in the GOP losing the presidential election and lead to significant GOP losses in other races. In one of the largest upsets in American political history, Trump went on to defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

In addition to electing Donald Trump as president, Republicans maintained a majority in the , in the , and amongst state governors in the 2016 elections. The Republican Party was slated to control 69 of 99 state legislative chambers in 2017 and at least 33 governorships . The party took total control of the government in 25 states following the 2016 elections; this was the most states it had controlled since 1952.

In 2017 Donald Trump promised to use protective tariffs as a weapon to restore greatness to the economy.

Fighting The New Deal Coalition: 19321980

Historian George H. Nash argues:

Unlike the “moderate,” internationalist, largely eastern bloc of Republicans who accepted some of the “Roosevelt Revolution” and the essential premises of President Truman’s foreign policy, the Republican Right at heart was counterrevolutionary. Anticollectivist, anti-Communist, anti-New Deal, passionately committed to limited government, free market economics, and congressional prerogatives, the G.O.P. conservatives were obliged from the start to wage a constant two-front war: against liberal Democrats from without and “me-too” Republicans from within.

The Old Right emerged in opposition to the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Hoff says that “moderate Republicans and leftover Republican Progressives like Hoover composed the bulk of the Old Right by 1940, with a sprinkling of former members of the Farmer-Labor party, Non-Partisan League, and even a few midwestern prairie Socialists.

Republican Party Platform Of 1960

Preamble

The United States is living in an age of profoundest revolution. The lives of men and of nations are undergoing such transformations as history has rarely recorded. The birth of new nations, the impact of new machines, the threat of new weapons, the stirring of new ideas, the ascent into a new dimension of the universe- everywhere the accent falls on the new.

At such a time of world upheaval, great perils match great opportunitiesand hopes, as well as fears, rise in all areas of human life. Such a force as nuclear power symbolizes the greatness of the choice before the United States and mankind. The energy of the atom could bring devastation to humanity. Or it could be made to serve men’s hopes for peace and progressto make for all peoples a more healthy and secure and prosperous life than man has ever known.

One fact darkens the reasonable hopes of free men: the growing vigor and thrust of Communist imperialism. Everywhere across the earth, this force challenges us to prove our strength and wisdom, our capacity for sacrifice, our faith in ourselves and in our institutions.

Free men look to us for leadership and support, which we dedicate ourselves to give out of the abundance of our national strength.

Foreign Policy

The pre-eminence of this Republic requires of us a vigorous, resolute foreign policyinflexible against every tyrannical encroachment, and mighty in its advance toward our own affirmative goals.

National Defense

Economic Growth and Business

Labor

Lessons For The Global Economy

Lincoln would have well understood the challenges facing many modern emerging nations, particularly large and diverse ones such as China, Russia, India, Brazil, and Indonesia. Of course, the context is different. Today, the forces of economic disruption are generally external rather than internal. The source of turmoil is the rapid expansion of international commerce, finance, communications, and transportation, which is inexorably drawing industrialized and emerging nations together into one large global economy.

Now, as then, we also hear charges of worker exploitation, this time because multinationals have established manufacturing facilities in low-wage countries. And, in another echo of Lincolns time, there are calls for protectionist measures. These come not only from companies and workers in industrialized countries, who must compete with lower-priced goods from emerging economies, but also from companies and workers in emerging economies, who must compete against the industrialized economies more technologically advanced products.

One could benefit by looking to Lincoln and the Republican Congress that came to power with him after the election of 1860. Emerging economies today are unlikely to replicate their policies per se. But much can be learned from the principles that informed those policies:

Emphasize the good of the national economy over regional interests.

Tailor your policies to your own national situation.

Reaction To The Attack On Fort Sumter

With the attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, followed by President Abraham Lincoln‘s April 15 call for 75,000 volunteers to put the seceded states back into line, public sentiment turned dramatically against the Union.

Historian Daniel Crofts thus reports:

Unionists of all descriptions, both those who became Confederates and those who did not, considered the proclamation calling for seventy-five thousand troops “disastrous.” Having consulted personally with Lincoln in March, Congressman Horace Maynard, the unconditional Unionist and future Republican from East Tennessee, felt assured that the administration would pursue a peaceful policy. Soon after April 15, a dismayed Maynard reported that “the President’s extraordinary proclamation” had unleashed “a tornado of excitement that seems likely to sweep us all away.” Men who had “heretofore been cool, firm and Union loving” had become “perfectly wild” and were “aroused to a frenzy of passion.” For what purpose, they asked, could such an army be wanted “but to invade, overrun and subjugate the Southern states.” The growing war spirit in the North further convinced southerners that they would have to “fight for our hearthstones and the security of home.”

Black Exodus To Kansas

During Reconstruction freed slaves began to leave the South. One such group, originally from Kentucky, established the community of Nicodemus in 1877 in Graham County on the high, arid plains of northwestern Kansas. However, because of several crop failures and resentment from the county’s white settlers, all but a few homesteaders abandoned their claims. A rising population of 500 in 1880 had declined to less than 200 by 1910.

A page of photographs and a township map from a 1906 county land ownership atlas provide evidence that some of these black migrants still owned land in and around this small village. Their impressive determination in an area with few good natural resou rces has resulted in the only surviving all-black community in Kansas.

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Standard Atlas of Graham Co. Kansas, Including a Plat Book of the Villages, Cities, and Townships. Index of families in Nicodemus. Chicago: A. Ogle, 1906. Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress

Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/african-american-odyssey/reconstruction.html#obj3

Grant And The Government Debt

In the first two years of Ulysses S. Grants presidency, Treasury Secretary George Boutwell helped reduce federal expenditures to $292 million in 1871, which was down from $322 million in 1869. The cost of collecting taxes fell to 3.11 percent in 1871. Grant reduced the number of employees working in the government from 6,052 on March 1, 1869, to 3,804 on December 1, 1871. He also increased tax revenues by $108 million from 1869 to 1872. During his first administration, the national debt fell from $2.5 billion to $2.2 billion. The United States had debt prior to the Civil War, but it increased sharply during the war. One reason for the increase of debt was the selling of bonds to citizens to pay for the war efforts.

On May 19, 1869, Grant protected the wages of those working for the U.S. government. In 1868, a law had been passed that reduced the government working day to eight hours. However, much of the law was later repealed in order to allow day wages to also be reduced. To protect workers, Grant signed an executive order that, no reduction shall be made in the wages regardless of the reduction in hours for the government day workers.

Regional State And Local Politics

The Republicans welcomed the Progressive Era at the state and local level. The first important reform mayor was of , who was elected Governor of Michigan in 1896. In New York City, the Republicans joined nonpartisan reformers to battle Tammany Hall and elected Seth Low . Golden Rule Jones was first elected mayor of as a Republican in 1897, but was reelected as an independent when his party refused to renominate him. Many Republican civic leaders, following the example of Mark Hanna, were active in the National Civic Federation, which promoted urban reforms and sought to avoid wasteful strikes. North Carolina journalist William Garrott Brown tried to convince upscale white southerners of the wisdom of a strong early white Republican Party. He warned that a one party solid South system would negate democracy, encourage corruption, because the lack of prestige of the national level. Roosevelt was following his advice. However, in 1912, incumbent president Taft needed black Republican support in the South to defeat Roosevelt at the 1912 Republican national convention. Brown’s campaign came to nothing, and he finally supported Woodrow Wilson in 1912.

An African American Institution Of Higher Learningwilberforce University

A group of Ohioans, including four African American men, established Wilberforce University near Xenia, Ohio, in 1856, and named it after the famous British abolitionist, William Wilberforce. When the school failed to meet its financial obligations, leaders of the African Methodist Episcopal Church purchased it in 1863.

The articles of association of Wilberforce University, dated July 10, 1863, state that its purpose was to promote education, religion and morality amongst the colored race. Even though the university was established by and for people of color, the articles stipulated that no one should be excluded from the benefits of said institution as officers, faculty, or pupils on account of merely race or color.

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Economic And Governance Collapse In The South

When Reconstruction began, the South was economically devastated. One-fifth of white Southerners of military age, the core of the labor force, had died in the war, and even more had been wounded. Machinery and work animals also had been lost in the war. In addition, emancipation raised the question of who would harvest the crops, which in the past had depended on slave labor. By 1868, however, the plantation economy had begun to stabilize, and the planter class again began to prosper, but many poorer white Southerners faced competition from Black labor.

As dire as the economic situation was for the old order, it was even worse for the newly freed Black population. Slavery, with its rape, brutality, and family separations, had shattered much of the community’s social capital, and land, animals, and equipment were all in the hands of white Southerners. In response, Congress created the federal Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands to protect the rights of the formerly enslaved, administer justice, and help them negotiate labor contracts and lease lands.

Yet, the racial power imbalance was profound. White Southerners conspired to prevent the formerly enslaved from buying land or starting businesses. In addition, Democratic newspapers had far more circulation and influence than the new pro-Republican ones , and they dispensed a steady stream of vitriol against the Radicals, at times even publicizing orders for groups such as the KKK. Freedmen’s

Dwight D Eisenhower: Domestic Affairs

Although there were dangerous moments in the Cold War during the 1950s, people often remember the Eisenhower years as “happy days,” a time when Americans did not have to worry about depression or war, as they had in the 1930s and 1940s, or difficult and divisive issues, as they did in the 1960s. Instead, Americans spent their time enjoying the benefits of a booming economy. Millions of families got their first television and their second car and enjoyed new pastimes like hula hoops or transistor radios. Young people went to drive-in movies or malt shops, often wearing the latest fashionspegged pants for men, poodle skirts for women.

he Eisenhower years were not so simple or carefree

Modern Republicanism

As President, Eisenhower thought that government should provide some additional benefits to the American people. He signed legislation that expanded Social Security, increased the minimum wage, and created the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. He also supported government construction of low-income housing but favored more limited spending than had Truman.

Prosperity and Poverty

Even though poverty was widespread, poor people got little attention during the 1950s. It was easier to celebrate the abundance of a booming consumer economy. People who had lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s emphasized the economic security of the 1950s. It was not until the 1960s that affluent Americans rediscovered the poverty amid the prosperity.

Eisenhower and McCarthy

Republicans Dominate The 1920s

Roaring Twenties

The party controlled the presidency throughout the 1920s, running on a platform of opposition to the League of Nations, support for high tariffs, and promotion of business interests. Voters gave the GOP credit for the prosperity and Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover were resoundingly elected by landslides in , and . The breakaway efforts of Senator Robert M. La Follette in 1924 failed to stop a landslide for Coolidge and his movement fell apart. The Teapot Dome Scandal threatened to hurt the party, but Harding died and Coolidge blamed everything on him as the opposition splintered in 1924.

Those Racist Dixiecrats Create Mainstream Republican Policy

But their ideas formed modern GOPs core platform.

In a campaign ad, Democrat-turned-Republican Jesse Helms said racial quotas prevented white people from getting jobs. The lie of racial quotas persists in the GOPs rejection of affirmative action. Racial quotas are illegal.

Take the idea of special interests. Heres Helms view, as a Republican:

Are civil rights only for Negroes? While women in Washington who have been raped and mugged on the streets in broad daylight have experienced the most revolting sort of violation of their civil rights. The hundreds of others who have had their purses snatched by Negro hoodlums may understandably insist that their right to walk the street unmolested was violated. Television commentary, 1963, quoted in The Charlotte Observer.

But you would think that Ted Cruz would have a clearer understanding of the connections between the Dixiecrats and the Republican Party.

He loves Jesse Helms.

Looking to do your part? One way to get involved is to read the Indivisible Guide, which is written by former congressional staffers and is loaded with best practices for making Congress listen. Or follow this publication, connect with us on , and join us on Facebook.

Teaching The Newly Freed Population

Sea-island School, No. 1,St. Helena Island. Established in April 1862.Education among the Freedmen, ca. 1866-70. Broadside. Page 2. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress. Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-107754

Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/african-american-odyssey/reconstruction.html#obj11

The New Deal Era: 19321939

After Roosevelt took office in 1933, New Deal legislation sailed through Congress at lightning speed. In the 1934 midterm elections, ten Republican senators went down to defeat, leaving them with only 25 against 71 Democrats. The House of Representatives was also split in a similar ratio. The “Second New Deal” was heavily criticized by the Republicans in Congress, who likened it to class warfare and . The volume of legislation, as well as the inability of the Republicans to block it, soon made the opposition to Roosevelt develop into bitterness and sometimes hatred for “that man in the White House. Former President Hoover became a leading orator crusading against the New Deal, hoping unrealistically to be nominated again for president.

Most major newspaper publishers favored Republican moderate Alf Landon for president. In the nation’s 15 largest cities the newspapers that editorially endorsed Landon represented 70% of the circulation. Roosevelt won 69% of the actual voters in those cities by ignoring the press and using the radio to reach voters directly.

Roosevelt carried 46 of the 48 states thanks to traditional Democrats along with newly energized labor unions, city machines and the Works Progress Administration. The realignment creating the Fifth Party System was firmly in place. Since 1928, the GOP had lost 178 House seats, 40 Senate seats and 19 governorships, though it retained a mere 89 seats in the House and 16 in the Senate.

Boutwell And The Treasury

George S. Boutwell: George S. Boutwell served as secretary of the Treasury under Ulysses S. Grant.

Following in line with the Republican Party national platform of 1868, Secretary Boutwell advocated that the national debt must be reduced and the United States return to a gold specie economy. Boutwell believed that the stabilization of the currency and the reduction of the national debt was more important than risking a depression by withdrawing greenbacks from the economy.

On his own, with neither the knowledge of President Grant nor other Cabinet members, Boutwell controversially began to release gold from the Treasury and sell government bonds in order to reduce the supply of greenbacks in the economy. As secretary, he opposed a rapid lowering of taxes and favored using surplus revenues to make a large reduction of the national debt. In 1870, Congress, at his recommendation, passed an act providing for the funding of the national debt and authorizing the selling of certain bonds, but not authorizing an increase of the debt.

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travel-voyages · 3 years

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Early skyscrapers

📷 The Flatiron Building, New York City, shortly after its construction in 1903

The early skyscrapers were a range of tall commercial buildings built between 1884 and 1945, predominantly in the American cities of New York City and Chicago. Cities in the United States were traditionally made up of low-rise buildings, but significant economic growth after the Civil War and increasingly intensive use of urban land encouraged the development of taller buildings beginning in the 1870s. Technological improvements enabled the construction of fireproofed iron-framed structures with deep foundations, equipped with new inventions such as the elevator and electric lighting. These made it both technically and commercially viable to build a new class of taller buildings, the first of which, Chicago's 138-foot (42 m) tall Home Insurance Building, opened in 1885. Their numbers grew rapidly, and by 1888 they were being labelled skyscrapers.

Chicago initially led the way in skyscraper design, with many constructed in the center of the financial district during the late 1880s and early 1890s. Sometimes termed the products of the Chicago school of architecture, these skyscrapers attempted to balance aesthetic concerns with practical commercial design, producing large, square palazzo-styled buildings hosting shops and restaurants on the ground level and containing rentable offices on the upper floors. In contrast, New York's skyscrapers were frequently narrower towers which, more eclectic in style, were often criticized for their lack of elegance. In 1892, Chicago banned the construction of new skyscrapers taller than 150 feet (46 m), leaving the development of taller buildings to New York.

A new wave of skyscraper construction emerged in the first decade of the 20th century. The demand for new office space to hold America's expanding workforce of white-collar staff continued to grow. Engineering developments made it easier to build and live in yet taller buildings. Chicago built new skyscrapers in its existing style, while New York experimented further with tower design. Iconic buildings such as the Flatiron were followed by the 612-foot (187 m) tall Singer Tower, the 700-foot (210 m) Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, and the 792-foot (241 m) Woolworth Building. Though these skyscrapers were commercial successes, criticism mounted as they broke up the ordered city skyline and plunged neighboring streets and buildings into perpetual shadow. Combined with an economic downturn, this led to the introduction of zoning restraints in New York in 1916.

In the interwar years, skyscrapers spread to nearly all major U.S. cities, while a handful were built in other Western countries. The economic boom of the 1920s and extensive real estate speculation encouraged a wave of new skyscraper projects in New York and Chicago. New York City's 1916 Zoning Resolution helped shape the Art Deco or "set-back" style of skyscrapers, leading to structures that focused on volume and striking silhouettes, often richly decorated. Skyscraper heights continued to grow, with the Chrysler and the Empire State Building each claiming new records, reaching 1,046 feet (319 m) and 1,250 feet (380 m) respectively. With the onset of the Great Depression, the real estate market collapsed, and new builds stuttered to a halt. Popular and academic culture embraced the skyscraper through films, photography, literature, and ballet, seeing the buildings as either positive symbols of modernity and science, or alternatively examples of the ills of modern life and society. Skyscraper projects after World War II typically rejected the designs of the early skyscrapers, instead embracing the international style; many older skyscrapers were redesigned to suit contemporary tastes or even demolished—such as the Singer Tower, once the world's tallest skyscraper.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_skyscrapers

#Early skyscrapers #NYC #Flatiron

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rabbitcruiser · 4 years

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Christmas Day

Christmas Day is a Christian holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, and it is also celebrated as a non religious cultural holiday. It is a public holiday in many countries, and is celebrated in some countries where there is not a large Christian population. It takes place after Advent and the Nativity Fast, and begins Christmastide, or the Twelve Days of Christmas. The name of the holiday is shortened from "Christ's mass," and throughout history the day has been known as "midwinter," "Nativity," "Yule," and "Noel."

The New Testament gospels of Luke and Matthew describe Jesus as being born in Bethlehem, in Judea. Luke's account tells of Joseph and Mary traveling to Bethlehem from Nazareth for a census, and Jesus being born in a stable and being laid in a manger. According to this account, angels proclaimed him as the savior, and shepherds came to visit him. Matthew's account tells the story of the magi following a star in the sky and bringing Jesus gifts.

The month and date of Jesus' birth is unknown, but the Western Christian Church placed it as December 25 by at least 336 CE, when the first Christmas celebration was recorded, in Rome. This date later became adopted by Eastern churches at the end of the fourth century. Some Eastern churches celebrate Christmas on December 25 of the Julian calendar, which is January 7. The date of December 25 may have been chosen for a few reasons. This is the day that the Romans marked as the winter solstice, the day when the Sun would begin remaining longer in the sky. Jesus also was sometimes identified with the Sun. The Romans had other pagan festivals during the end of the year as well. December 25 also may have been chosen because it is about nine months after the date commemorating the Crucifixion of Jesus.

Puritans saw the day as being connected to drunkenness and misbehavior, and banned it in the seventeenth century. But, Anglican and Catholic churches promoted it at the time. Following the Protestant Reformation, many new denominations continued celebrating Christmas, but some radical Protestant groups did not celebrate it. In Colonial America, Pilgrims were opposed to the holiday, and it wasn't until the mid nineteenth century that the Boston area fully embraced the holiday. But, the holiday was freely practiced in Virginia and New York during colonial times. Following the Revolution it fell out of favor in the United States to some extent, as it was seen as being an English custom.

Around the world there was a revival of Christmas celebrations in the early nineteenth century, after it took on a more family oriented, and children centered theme. A contributing factor to this was Charles Dickens' publication of A Christmas Carol in 1843. His novel highlighted themes of compassion, goodwill, and family. Seasonal food and drink, family gatherings, dancing, games, and a festive generosity of spirit all are part of Christmas celebrations today, and were part of Dickens' novel. Even the phrase "Merry Christmas" became popularized by the story.

In the United States, several of Washington Irving's short stories in the 1820s helped revive Christmas, as did A Visit From St. Nicholas. This poem helped to popularize the exchanging of gifts, and helped Christmas shopping take on an economic importance. It was after this that there began to be a conflict between the spiritual and commercial aspects of Christmas as well. By the 1850s and 1860s, the holiday became more widely celebrated in the United States, and Puritan resistance began to shift to acceptance. By 1860, fourteen states had adopted Christmas as a legal holiday. On June 28, 1870, it became a federal holiday in the United States.

Christmas cards are another important part of Christmas, and are exchanged between family and friends in the lead up to the day. The first commercial Christmas cards were printed in 1843—the same year as the printing of Dickens' A Christmas Carol. In 1875 the first commercial Christmas cards made their debut in the United States. Today both religious and secular artwork adorns the cards.

Music has long been a part of Christmas. The first Christmas hymns came about in fourth century Rome. By the thirteenth century, countries like France, Germany, and Italy had developed Christmas songs in their native language. Songs that became known as carols were originally communal folk songs, and were sung during celebrations such as "harvest tide" as well as Christmas, and began being sung in church. The singing of Christmas songs went into some decline during the Reformation. "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" came about in the eighteenth century, and "Silent Night" was composed in 1818. Christmas carols were revived with William Sandy's Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern in 1833, which included some of the first appearances of "The First Noel," "I Saw Three Ships," "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," and "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen." Secular Christmas songs began to come about in the late eighteenth century. "Deck the Halls" was written in 1784, and "Jingle Bells" was written in 1857. Many secular Christmas songs were produced in the 20th century, in jazz, blues, country, and rock and roll variations: Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" was popularized by Bing Crosby; "Jingle Bell Rock" was sung by Bobby Helms; Brenda Lee did a version of "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree;" "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" was recorded by Gene Autry. Elvis Presley also put out a Christmas album.

Christmas Day, also known as Christmas, is being observed today! It has always been observed annually on December 25th.

There are an innumerable amount of ways that you could celebrate Christmas:

attend a church service or read the gospel Christmas accounts

watch a Christmas film

listen to Christmas music

complete an Advent calendar or wreath

give gifts

view a Nativity play

watch a Christmas parade

visit family or friends

visit Santa Claus

read books such as How the Grinch Stole Christmas! or A Christmas Carol

light a Christingle

view Christmas decorations

go Christmas caroling

make Christmas cookies or other foods associated with the holiday

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