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Franklin Pierce College

Franklin Pierce College

Franklin Pierce College is a four-year liberal-arts college in rural Rindge, New Hampshire, founded in 1962 and named after Franklin Pierce, the New Hampshire-born 14th President of the United States. The college has an enrollment of 1,590 students, and is located at the foot of Mount Monadnock, overlooking Pearly Pond. The area was bought in 1854 by sea Captain Asa Brewer. Rindge tradition has it that the estate was a stop in the Underground Railroad. In the past the land has also been owned by a wealthy horse enthusiast, the Boy Scouts of America, and silent movie actress Alma Monaco. The campus today is composed of about 1,200 acres. The school recently added the Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications in honor of Marlin Fitzwater, press secretary to presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. The college also operates six Graduate & Professional Studies centers in Concord, Keene, Lebanon, Nashua, Portsmouth, and Salem. The current president of Franklin Pierce College is Dr. George Hagerty. FPC is currently anticipating a change in status to university, effective during the 2006-2007 academic year. [http://eraven.fpc.edu/specanncmt/presmemo.pdf Memo From President Hagerty]Ř

Famous alumni


- Felix Brillant, Canadian soccer midfielder
- Temple Grandin, animal behavior researcher

External links


- [http://www.fpc.edu Franklin Pierce College Website]
- [http://www.fpc.edu/pages/ataglance/history.html History of FPC]

Rindge, New Hampshire

Rindge is a town located in Cheshire County, New Hampshire. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 5,451. Rindge is home to Franklin Pierce College, the Cathedral of the Pines, and part of Annett State Forest.

History

Franklin Pierce College] Granted in 1736 by Colonial Governor Jonathan Belcher to soldiers from Rowley, Massachusetts returning from the war in Canada, the town was first known as "Rowley-Canada." In 1749, it was renamed by Governor Benning Wentworth as "Monadnock No. 1," or "South Monadnock." The town would be incorporated in 1768 by Governor John Wentworth as "Rindge," in honor of Captain Daniel Rindge of Portsmouth, one of the original grant holders. The Cathedral of the Pines is a national memorial for all American war dead. The location had been selected by Lieutenant Sanderson Sloane and his wife as the place to build their home when he returned from World War II. A cathedral was created by his parents, Dr. and Mrs. Douglas Sloane, after learning that their son was lost when the bomber he flew was shot down over Germany on February 22, 1944. Historic Sites & Museums:
- Rindge Historical Society Museum

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 103.5 km² (40.0 mi²). 96.3 km² (37.2 mi²) of it is land and 7.2 km² (2.8 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 6.93% water. Rindge is located in a hilly lake region. Hubbard Pond is in the northeast, Contoocook Lake on the northern boundary, and Lake Monomonac on the southern boundary.

Demographics

As of the census2 of 2000, there are 5,451 people, 1,502 households, and 1,138 families residing in the town. The population density is 56.6/km² (146.6/mi²). There are 1,863 housing units at an average density of 19.3/km² (50.1/mi²). The racial makeup of the town is 97.21% White, 1.16% African American, 0.15% Native American, 0.33% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.40% from other races, and 0.73% from two or more races. 0.88% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. There are 1,502 households out of which 38.3% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 65.4% are married couples living together, 6.6% have a female householder with no husband present, and 24.2% are non-families. 18.6% of all households are made up of individuals and 5.3% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.87 and the average family size is 3.30. In the town the population is spread out with 24.1% under the age of 18, 26.3% from 18 to 24, 22.0% from 25 to 44, 19.8% from 45 to 64, and 7.7% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 24 years. For every 100 females there are 103.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 102.4 males. The median income for a household in the town is $50,494, and the median income for a family is $52,500. Males have a median income of $36,268 versus $27,204 for females. The per capita income for the town is $18,495. 7.6% of the population and 4.3% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 11.5% of those under the age of 18 and 3.3% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.

External links


- [http://www.town.rindge.nh.us/ Town of Rindge, New Hampshire Official Website]
  - [http://www.cathedralpines.com The Cathedral of the Pines]
  - [http://www.fpc.edu/ Franklin Pierce College] Category:Cheshire County, New Hampshire Category:Towns in New Hampshire

Mount Monadnock

Mount Monadnock, or Grand Monadnock, is a 3,165 foot (965 m) peak in southwestern New Hampshire that has drawn attention for years by its relative isolation from other mountains. The word "monadnock" has been adopted by American geologists in a more general sense as an alternative term for an inselberg. In glaciation events, a monadnock may remain ice-free above the iceflow that surrounds it, forming a nunatak. Thus it may retain relics of the pre-glacial period. This original is often called Grand Monadnock, to ensure differentiating it from other Vermont and New Hampshire peaks with "Monadnock" in their names. New Hampshire

History

Monadnock was the site, in the 19th century, of a toll carriage road, still visible, and of a resort hotel. Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson were among those who climbed and wrote about it then. In the same period, uncontrollable fires (some supposedly set to drive wolves out of thickets to be shot: the last wolf killed in the state of New Hampshire was in 1887) destroyed crucial vegetation, permitting severe erosion and creating a tree-line that still persists, though the mountain is too low to have a naturally bare summit. Today Monadnock is criss-crossed by well-maintained hiking trails (some requiring hiker-level scrambling), and an estimated 125,000 people a year climb it to the top. Monadnock has long been described as the second-most-climbed mountain in the world (after Mt. Fuji in Japan). Since 1990, it has been suggested that so many of Fuji's climbers have shifted to newly available public transportation for that ascent, that Monadnock's annual total of foot traffic now exceeds Fuji's.

Environs

Japan The mountain is located near, and mostly within, the town of Jaffrey. The 5,000 acre (20 km²) Monadnock State Park includes many well-used trails, crags, and minor peaks. The main summit and the most popular trails lie in Jaffrey; two others among its major trails have trailheads in the town of Dublin. Monadnock is at the northern end of the Monadnock-Metacomet Trail, a long-distance trail (without much opportunity to camp adjacent to the trail) stretching south through the north-south span of Massachusetts and half of Connecticut. As of 2003, there is a proposal under consideration that would designate the combination of the Monadnock-Metacomet with the Mattabesset Trail in Connecticut as a National Scenic Trail, giving it some of the status already accorded to the Appalachian Trail. The Wapack Trail runs to the east of Monadnock, passing over a sister crest, Pack Monadnock.

External link


- [http://www.tmclark.com/monadnock.html Grand Mount Monadnock] Monadnock, Mount

1854

1854 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar).

Events


- January 13 - The accordion is patented by Anthony Faas.
- January 21 - Loss of the Tayleur - 380 drowned, later dubbed "the first Titanic"
- February 11 - Major streets lit by coal gas for first time.
- February 13 - Mexican troops force William Walker and his troops to retreat to Sonora
- February 14 - Texas is linked by telegraph with the rest of the United States, when a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas is completed.
- February 17 - The British recognize the independence of the Orange Free State.
- February 27 – Britain sends Russia an ultimatum to withdraw from two Ottoman provinces it had conquered, Moldavia and Wallachia
- February 28 - The United States Republican Party is organized in Ripon, Wisconsin.
- March 1 - German psychologist Friedrich Eduard Beneke disappears, two years later his remains are found in the canal near Charlottenburg
- March 11- Royal Navy fleet sails from Britain under Vice Admiral Sir Charles Napier
- March 20 - The Boston Public Library opens to the public.
- March 27 – United Kingdom declares war on Russia – Crimean War begins
- March 28 – France declares war on Russia
- March 31 - Commodore Matthew Perry of the U.S. Navy, signs the Treaty/Convention of Kanagawa with the Japanese government, to be precise, Tokugawa Shogunate, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade. (See History of Japan)
- May 30 - The Kansas-Nebraska Act becomes law establishing the US territories of Nebraska and Kansas.
- June - The Grand Excursion takes prominent Eastern U.S. inhabitants from Chicago, Illinois to Rock Island, Illinois by railroad, then up the Mississippi River to St. Paul, Minnesota by steamboat.
- June 10 - The first class of the United States Naval Academy graduate at Annapolis, Maryland
- June 21 - In the battle at Bomarsund in Åland, Royal Navy mate Charles D. Lucas throws a live Russian artillery shell overboard by hand before it explodes - the incident is the first that will be retroactively awarded the Victoria Cross in 1857
- July 6 - In Jackson, Michigan, the first convention of the U.S. Republican Party is held.
- July 13 - In the battle of Guaymas, Mexico, General Jose Maria Yanez stops the French invasion led by Count Gaston de Raousset Boulbon.
- July 13 - Assassination of Khedive Abbas I of Egypt
- August 16 - Russian troops in the island of Bomarsund in Åland surrender to French-British troops
- September 20 - Crimean War: At the Alma, the French-British alliance wins the first battle of the war.
- October 1 - The watch company founded in 1850 in Roxbury by Aaron Lufkin Dennison relocates to Waltham, Mass. to become the Waltham Watch Company pioneer in the American System of Watch Manufacturing.
- October 17 - Newspaper The Age is founded in Melbourne, Australia.
- October 21 - Florence Nightingale leaves for Crimea with 38 other nurses
- October 25 - Crimean War: The Battle of Balaclava occurs, overall a victory for the allies, but it included the disastrous cavalry Charge of the Light Brigade, from which only 200 of 700 men survive.
- November 5 - Crimean War: Russians lose again at the Battle of Inkerman.
- November 17 - In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony.
- December 8 - Pope Pius IX proclaims the dogma of Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Virgin Mary was born free of original sin. original sin cases in the London epidemic of 1854]]
- The Polyglotta Africana, an early classification of African languages based on field work under freed slaves in Freetown, Sierra Leone, is published by Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle
- Frederick Augustus Albert succeeds to the throne of Saxony.
- Stockholm, Wisconsin is founded by immigrants from Karlskoga, Sweden (cf 1252).
- Chemistry Professor Benjamin Silliman, of Yale University is the first to fractionate petroleum by distillation.
- Abraham Pineo Gesner invents a process for extracting kerosene from coal.
- Said Pasha succeeds his nephew Abbas as pasha of Egypt.
- A Russian fort is established at the present site of Almaty.
- Aurora, Ontario is first settled.
- Spiegelthal excavates the tomb of Alyattes II.
- The Ambrotype is introduced for photography.
- Election of New York City mayor Fernando Wood begins the ascendancy of Tammany Hall.
- An epidemic of cholera in London kills 10,000. Dr John Snow traces the source of one outbreak (that killed 500) to a single water pump, validating his theory that cholera is water-borne, and forming the starting point for epidemiology.
- The Iceland trade is opened to foreigners.
- The future site of Franklin Pierce College in Rindge, New Hampshire is purchased by Captain Asa Brewer.

Births


- January 18 - Thomas Watson, American telephone pioneer (d. 1934)
- February 17 - Friedrich Alfred Krupp, German industrialist (d. 1902)
- March 14 - Paul Ehrlich, German scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1915)
- March 14 - Thomas R. Marshall, Vice President of the United States (d. 1925)
- March 15 - Emil Adolf von Behring, German physician, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1917)
- April 22 - Henri La Fontaine, Belgian lawyer and activist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1943)
- April 29 - Henri Poincaré, French mathematician and physicist (d. 1912)
- May 11 - Albion Woodbury Small, American sociologist (d. 1926)
- May 24 - John Riley Banister, law officer, cowboy, and Texas Ranger (d. 1918)
- July 3 - Leos Janacek, Czech composer (d. 1928)
- July 12 - George Eastman, American inventor (d. 1932)
- July 27 - Takahashi Korekiyo, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1936)
- August 2 - Milan I, King of Serbia (d. 1901)
- September 1 - Engelbert Humperdinck, German composer (d. 1921)
- September 6 - Georges Picquart, French general and Minister of War (d. 1914)
- October 16 - Oscar Wilde, Irish writer (d. 1900)
- October 20 - Arthur Rimbaud, French poet (d. 1891)
- November 5 - Paul Sabatier, French chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1941)
- November 6 - John Philip Sousa, American composer and conductor (d. 1932)
- November 21 - Pope Benedict XV (d. 1922)
- December 23 - Victoriano Huerta, President of Mexico (d. 1916)
- December 24 - Thomas Stevens, English cyclist (d. 1935)
- Edward Harkness, American philanthropist (d. 1940)
- C. W. Post, American cereal manufacturer (d. 1914)

Deaths


- January 8 - William Carr Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford, British general and politician (b. 1768)
- February 17 - John Martin, English painter (b. 1789)
- March 6 - Charles William Vane, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry (b. 1778)
- March 11 - Willard Richards, American religious leader (b. 1804)
- March 13 - Thomas Noon Talfourd, English jurist (b. 1795)
- April 15 - Arthur Aikin, English chemist and mineralogist (b. 1773)
- April 29 - Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey, British general (b. 1768)
- July 6 - Georg Ohm, German physicist
- September 8 - Angelo Mai, Italian cardinal and philologist (b. 1782)
- December 15 - Kamehameha III, King of Hawaii (b. 1814?)
- Abbas I, Pasha of Egypt (b. 1813) Category:1854 ko:1854년 ms:1854 simple:1854 th:พ.ศ. 2397

Underground Railroad

:This page is about the slave escape route. For railroads built below ground, see rapid transit. The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes by which African slaves in the 19th century United States attempted to escape to free states, or as far north as Canada, with the aid of abolitionists. Other routes led to Mexico or overseas. It is estimated that at its height between 1810 and 1850, between 30,000 and 100,000 people escaped enslavement via the Underground Railroad, though U.S. Census figures only account for 6000. The Underground Railroad has captured public imagination as a propagandic symbol of freedom, and figures prominently in Black American history.

Structure

The escape network was "underground" in the sense of underground resistance, but was seldom literally subterranean. The Underground Railroad consisted of clandestine routes, transportation, meeting points, safe houses and other havens, and assistance maintained by abolitionist sympathizers. These individuals were organized into small, independent groups who, for the purpose of maintaining secrecy, knew of connecting "stations" along the route, but few details of the Railroad beyond their immediate area (see vigilance committee). Many individual links were via family relation. Escaped slaves would pass from one waystation to the next, while steadily making their way North. The diverse "conductors" on the railroad included free-born blacks, white abolitionists, former slaves (either escaped or manumitted), and Native Americans. Churches and religious denominations played key roles, especially the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Congregationalists, and Wesleyans, as well as breakaway sects of mainstream denominations such as branches of the Methodist church and American Baptists. Books, newspapers, and other organs disseminated the abolitionist viewpoint nationwide.

Terminology

The Underground Railroad developed its own jargon, which continued the railway metaphor:
- People who helped slaves find the railroad were "agents"
- Guides were known as "conductors"
- Hiding places were "stations"
- "Stationmasters" would hide slaves in their homes.
- Escaped slaves were referred to as "passengers" or "cargo"
- Slaves would obtain a "ticket"
- The secret password for the Underground Railroad was "A friend with Friends" William Still, often called "The Father of the Underground Railroad," helped hundreds of slaves to escape (as many as 60 slaves a month), sometimes hiding them in his Philadelphia home. He kept careful records, including short biographies of the people, that contained frequent railway metaphors. Still maintained correspondence with many of them, often acting as a middleman in communications between escaped slaves and those left behind. He then published these accounts in the book The Underground Railroad in 1872. Messages often were encoded so that only those active in the railroad would fully understand their meanings. For example, the following message, "I have sent via at two o'clock four large and two small hams," clearly indicated that four adults and two children were sent by train from Harrisburg to Philadelphia. However, the addition of the word via indicated that they were not sent on the regular train, but rather via Reading. In this case, the authorities went to the regular train station in an attempt to intercept the runaways, while Still was able to meet them at the correct station and spirit them to safety, where they eventually escaped to Canada. Slaves escaped bondage with and without outside assistance as early as the 1600s, long before the railroads were developed beginning in the 1820s. Coincidently, the nation's first commercial railroad, the east-west Baltimore & Ohio line, operated in Maryland and Ohio, which intersected the northbound path of the Underground Railroad. Ohio The name underground railroad is alleged to have originated with the 1831 escape of Tice Davids from a Kentucky slaveowner. Davids fled across the Ohio River to Ripley, Ohio, where he may have taken refuge with Rev. John Rankin, a prominent white abolitionist whose hilltop home could be seen from the opposite shore (see photo). The slaveowner, in hot pursuit, remarked that Davids had disappeared as if through an "underground road." Rankin's influence in the abolitionist movement would account for the rapid adoption of the term. Although it was possible for escaped slaves to live free in many northern states, it was increasingly dangerous after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. As a result, foreign destinations such as Canada became desirable. The importation of slaves into Upper Canada had been banned in 1793 by Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, and slavery had been abolished throughout the British Empire in 1833. Approximately 30,000 slaves successfully escaped to Canada. Fugitive slaves were a significant presence in the then underpopulated Canadian colonies and formed the basis of the present-day black population throughout Ontario. Mexico abolished slavery in 1829, and until 1819, Florida was under the jurisdiction of Spain. The escapees' main destinations were southern Ontario around the Niagara Peninsula and Windsor, Ontario. A traditional spiritual reminded travellers to "Follow the Drinkin' Gourd," which was an Africanized reference to an asterism within the constellation Ursa Major that commonly was called then, as it is today, the "Big Dipper." Two stars in its bowl point to Polaris, or the North Star. Polaris is the brightest star in a nearby Ursa Minor asterism, the "Little Dipper," which pointed the way due North, to freedom. ::When the sun come back and the first quail calls, ::Follow the Drinkin' Gourd, ::For the old man's waitin' for to carry you to freedom, ::If you follow the Drinkin' Gourd. ::"Follow the Drinkin' Gourd, The river bank makes a very good road, The dead trees show you the way, Left foot, peg foot, traveling on Follow the Drinking Gourd. The river ends between two hills, Follow the Drinking Gourd. There's another river on the other side, Follow the Drinking Gourd. Where the great big river meets the little river, Follow the Drinking Gourd. For the old man is awaiting to carry you to freedom if you follow the Drinking Gourd."a black spiritual Primary routes led east of the Appalachians, up through Pennsylvania and New York to the Niagara Peninsula crossing; up through Ohio and Michigan to Windsor; and south across the Rio Grande. Some routes led West to frontier territory. Just to the east of the Appalachian Mountains in Maryland, many well-documented routes run through a fifty-mile funnel between Washington, DC, and west to where the Appalachians become too rugged for foot travel. At the center of the funnel is Frederick County, Maryland. See: List of Underground Railroad sites Runaways also crossed the southern border to Mexico, or escaped to islands in the Caribbean, a point often neglected by histories of northern abolitionism. The Ohio River and the Rio Grande marked the northern and southern borders of the slave states. Felix Haywood, a former slave, wrote in The Slave Narratives of Texas:
Sometimes someone would come along and try to get us to run up north and be free. We used to laugh at that. There was no reason to run up north. All we had to do was walk, but walk south, and we'd be free as soon as we crossed the Rio Grande.
The term underground railroad, however, rarely was used in reference to these alternate escape routes.

Traveling conditions

Although sometimes the fugitives travelled on real railways, the primary means of transportation were on foot or by wagon. The routes taken were indirect to throw off pursuers. The majority of the escapees are believed to have been male field workers less than forty years old; the journey was often too arduous and treacherous for women and children to complete successfully. It was relatively common, however, for fugitive bondsmen who had escaped via the Railroad and established livelihoods as free men to purchase their mates, children and other family members out of slavery ad seriatim, and then arrange to be reunited with them. In this manner, the number of former slaves who owed their freedom at least in part to the courage and determination of those who operated Underground Railroad was far greater than the many thousands who actually traveled the clandestine network. Because of the risk of discovery, information about routes and safe havens was passed along by word of mouth. Southern newspapers of the day often were filled with pages of notices soliciting information about escaped slaves and offering sizable rewards for their capture and return. Professional bounty hunters pursued fugitives even as far as Canada. Strong, healthy blacks in their prime working and reproductive years were highly valuable commodities, and it was common for free blacks to be kidnapped and sold into slavery. Certificates of freedom, signed, notarized statements attesting to the free status of individual blacks, could be easily destroyed and afforded their owners little protection.

Folklore

Since the 1980s, claims have arisen that quilt designs were used to signal and direct slaves to escape routes and assistance. The first published work documenting an oral history source was in 1999, so it is difficult to evaluate the veracity of these claims. Many accounts also mention spirituals and other songs that contained coded information intended to help navigate the railroad. Songs such as "Steal Away" and other field songs were often passed down purely orally. Tracing their origins and exact meanings is difficult. In any case, a great number of African-American songs of the period deal with themes of freedom and escape, and distinguishing coded information from expression and sentiment may not be possible.

Legal and political

The Underground Railroad was a major cause of friction between the North and South. Many northerners sympathized with those who helped to deliver slaves to safety. For many years, southerners pushed for strong laws to force the recapture of runaway slaves. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 was the first law passed by the U.S. Congress to address the issue of escaped slaves in free states; and in 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which mandated the capture of fugitive slaves. This prevented runaways from settling legally in free states, forcing them to escape into Canada and other British colonies. The law also provided an impetus for the growth of Underground Railroad routes through free states such as Ohio. During the same period, a series of unsuccessful slave rebellions led to retaliatory violence by vigilantes against innocent slaves, which increased the numbers of runaways heading North. When frictions between North and South culminated in the American Civil War, many blacks, slave and free, fought with the Union Army. Following the passing of the Thirteenth Amendment, in some cases the Underground Railroad operated in reverse as fugitives returned to the United States. The Underground Railway consisted of houses owned by whites that slaves rested in in the day. Then, in the night, they would make their move, heading towards the next house.

Effect on Canada

Estimates vary widely, but at least 20,000 slaves escaped to Canada via the Underground Railroad. This had an important effect on Canadian society. The largest group settled in Upper Canada (called Canada West from 1841, and today southern Ontario), where a number of African Canadian communities developed. These were generally in the triangle between Toronto, Niagara Falls, and Windsor, and particularly in Toronto where 1,000 refugees settled and in Kent and Essex counties where several rural villages made up largely of ex-slaves were established. Important black settlements also developed in more distant British colonies (now parts of Canada). These included Nova Scotia as well as Vancouver Island, where Governor James Douglas encouraged black immigration due to his opposition to slavery and because he hoped a significant black community would form a bulwark against those who wished to unite the island with the United States. Upon arrival at their destinations, many fugitives were disappointed. While the British colonies had no slavery, discrimination was still common. Many of the new arrivals had great difficulty finding jobs, and open racism was common. However, most refugees remained. Of the 20,000 who emigrated to Upper Canada only 20% returned to the United States.2 With the outbreak of the Civil War in the United States, a large number of black refugees enlisted in the Union Army and, while some later returned to Canada, many remained in the United States. Thousands of others returned to the American South after the war ended. The desire to reconnect with friends and family was strong, and most were hopeful about the changes emancipation and Reconstruction would bring. Today, Canadians take some pride on being a place American slaves sought as a refuge from the USA. In effect, in some Canadians' eyes, their country represented a place of true freedom for a time for an oppressed people that their neighbor, for all its rhetorical love for the value, refused to be. There are numerous monuments erected in Ontario to reflect that pride.

Contemporary literature


- 1829 Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World by David Walker (a call for resistance to slavery in Georgia)
- 1832 The Planter's Northern Bride by Caroline Lee Hentz
- 1852 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Related events


- 1776 – Declaration of Independence
- 1793 – Fugitive Slave Act
- 1820 – Missouri Compromise
- 1850 – Compromise of 1850
- 1854 – Kansas-Nebraska Act
- 1857 – Dred Scott Decision
- 1858 – Oberlin-Wellington Rescue
- 1860 – Abraham Lincoln of Illinois becomes the first Republican U.S. President
- 1861 through 1865 – American Civil War
- 1863 – Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Lincoln
- 1865 – Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

See also


- Calvin Fairbank
- Harriet Tubman
- Josiah Henson
- Levi Coffin
- Thomas Garrett
- List of African-American abolitionists
- National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
- William Still
- Samuel Seawell
- Slavery in Canada
- Westfield, Indiana
- William Lloyd Garrison
- John Wesley Posey
- Freedom Channing
- Alice M. Ward Library

External links

Footnotes:
- 1[http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/underground/oh3.htm John Rankin House], from National Park Service.
- 2[http://www.pc.gc.ca/canada/proj/cfc-ugrr/commemoration/pg09_e.asp Number of Underground Railroad refugees arriving in Canada] from Parks Canada. Web Sites:
- [http://www.undergroundrr.com/ The William Still National Underground Railroad Foundation]
- [http://www.freedomcenter.org National Underground Railroad Freedom Center]
- [http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/underground/ National Park Service: Aboard the Underground Railroad]
- [http://www.nationalgeographic.com/railroad/ National Geographic: Underground Railroad]
- [http://www.coolingsprings.org Maryland's Cooling Springs Farm: The Story of a Still-Existing Underground Railroad Safe-House]
- [http://www.pc.gc.ca/canada/proj/cfc-ugrr/commemoration/pg04_e.asp Underground Railroad in Canada]
- [http://www.africanhertour.org/ Ontario's Underground Railroad] - Includes an interactive map, a tour, and more.
- [http://www.wwhs.us Underground Railroad in Westfield, Indiana] - Includes Anti-Slavery Friends Cemetery list and more
- [http://www.gwacenter.org Prospect Place mansion, Underground Railroad safehouse in Trinway, Ohio] Books:
- [http://antislavery.eserver.org/tracts/drayton_and_sayres.doc Captains Drayton and Sayres; Or the way in which Americans are treated, for aiding the cause of Liberty at Home], 1848, Eastern Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society (tract on the Pearl Rescue)
- [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15263 Underground Railroad], 1872, by William Still, from Project Gutenberg (classic book documenting the Underground Railroad operations in Philadelphia, PA)
- [http://www.shockfamily.net/underground/contents.html Stories of the Underground Railroad], 1941, by Anna L. Curtis (stories about Thomas Garrett, a famous agent on the Underground Railroad)
- [http://www.cosmoetica.com/S16-DES11.htm "Robert Hayden: His Day is Now!" contains the poet's classic "Runagate, Runagate" ("Renegade, Renegade")] Folklore:
- [http://www.quilthistory.com/ugrrquilts.htm Putting it in Perspective: The Symbolism of Underground Railroad quilts]
- [http://www.womenfolk.com/quilting_history/abolitionist.htm Underground Railroad Quilts & Abolitionist Fairs]
- [http://www.historyofquilts.com/underground-railroad.html Documentary Evidence is Missing on Underground Railroad Quilts]

Sources and further reading


- 1998: Forbes, Ella. But We Have No Country: The 1851 Christiana Pennsylvania Resistance. Africana Homestead Legacy Publishers.
- 2000: Chadwick, Bruce. Traveling the Underground Railroad: A Visitor's Guide to More Than 300 Sites. Citadel Press. ISBN 0806520930.
- 2001: Blight, David W. Passages to Freedom: The Underground Railroad in History and Memory. Smithsonian Books. ISBN 1588341577.
- 2002: Hudson, J. Blaine. Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad in the Kentucky Borderland. McFarland & Company. ISBN 078641345X.
- 2003: Hendrick, George, and Willene Hendrick. Fleeing for Freedom: Stories of the Underground Railroad As Told by Levi Coffin and William Still. Ivan R. Dee Publisher. ISBN 1566635462.
- 2004:
  - Hagedorn, Ann. Beyond the River: The Untold Story of the Heroes of the Underground Railroad. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0684870665.
  - Griffler, Keith P. Front Line of Freedom: African Americans and the Forging of the Underground Railroad in the Ohio Valley. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0813122988. Category:African-American history Category:History of Canada Category:History of slavery in the United States Category:Underground ja:地下鉄道（秘密結社）

Silent movie

A silent film is a film with no accompanying, synchronized recorded spoken dialogue. The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as the motion picture itself, but because of the technical challenges involved, most films were silent before the late 1920s. 1920s (Germany, 1927)]]

History

The years before sound came to the movies are known as the silent era among film scholars and historians. The art of motion pictures grew into full maturity before silent films were replaced by talking pictures or talkies and many film buffs believe the esthetic quality of cinema actually decreased for several years as the new medium of sound was adapted to the movies. The visual quality of silent movies (especially those produced during the 1920s) was often extremely high but later televised presentations of poor, second or even third generation copies made from already damaged and neglected stock (usually played back at incorrect speeds and with inappropriate music) led to the widely held misconception that these films were primitive and barely watchable by modern standards.

Intertitles

Since silent films had no synchronized sound for dialogue, onscreen intertitles were used to narrate story points, present key dialogue and sometimes even comment on the action for the cinema audience. The title writer became a key professional in silent film and was often separate from the scenario writer who created the story. Intertitles (or titles as they were generally called at the time) often became graphic elements themselves, featuring illustrations or abstract decorations that commented on the action of the film or enhanced its atmosphere.

Live music and sound

Showings of silent films almost always featured live music, starting with the pianist at the first public projection of movies by the Lumière Brothers on December 28, 1895 in Paris (Cook, 1990). From the beginning, music was recognized as essential, contributing to the atmosphere and giving the audience vital emotional cues (musicians sometimes played on film sets during shooting for similar reasons). Small town and neighborhood movie theaters usually had a pianist. From the mid-teens onward, large city theaters tended to have organists or entire orchestras. Massive theatrical organs such as the famous "mighty Wurlitzer" could simulate some orchestral sounds along with a number of sound effects. The scores for silents were often more or less improvised early in the medium's history. Once full features became commonplace, however, music compiled from Photoplay music by the pianist, organist, orchestra conductor or the movie studio itself, which would send out a cue sheet with the film. Starting with Joseph Carl Breil's score for D.W. Griffith's groundbreaking epic The Birth of a Nation (USA, 1915) it became relatively common for films to arrive at the exhibiting theater with original, specially composed scores (Eyman, 1997). By the height of the silent era, movies were the single largest source of employment for instrumental musicians (at least in America) and the introduction of talkies, which happened simultaneously with the onset of the Great Depression, was devastating. Film industries in some countries devised other ways of bringing sound to silents. The early cinema of Brazil featured fitas cantatas, filmed operettas with singers lip-synching behind the screen (Parkinson, 1995, p. 69). In Japan, films had not only live music, but the benshi, a live narrator who provided commentary and character voices. The benshi became a central element in Japanese film form, as well as providing translation for foreign (mostly American) movies (Standish, 2005). Their popularity was one reason why silents persisted well into the 1930s in Japan.

Acting techniques

Japan (USA, 1925)]] The medium of silent film required a greater emphasis on body language and facial expression so the audience could better understand what an actor was feeling and portraying on screen. Combined with cultural differences arising from the passage of time, modern-day audiences may be disoriented watching some films from the silent era. Silent comedies tend to be more popular in the modern era than drama, partly because overacting is more natural in comedy. However, some silent films were quite subtly acted, depending on the director and the skill of the actors. Overacting in silent films was sometimes a habit actors transferred from their stage experience and directors who understood the intimacy of the new medium discouraged it.

Projection speed

Up until around 1925, most silent films were shot at slower speeds (or "frame rates") than sound films, typically at 16 to 23 frames per second depending on the year and studio, rather than 24 frames per second. Unless carefully shown at their original speeds they can appear unnaturally fast and jerky, which reinforces their alien appearance to modern viewers. At the same time, some scenes were intentionally undercranked during shooting in order to accelerate the action, particularly in the case of slapstick comedies. The intended frame rate of a silent film can be ambiguous and since they were usually hand cranked there can even be variation within one film. Film speed is often a vexed issue among scholars and film buffs in the presentation of silents today, especially when it comes to DVD releases of "restored" films; the 2002 restoration of Metropolis (Germany, 1927) may be the most fiercely debated example. Most films seem to have been shown at 18 fps or higher - some even faster than what would become sound film speed (24 fps). Even if shot at 16 fps (often cited as "silent speed"), the projection of a nitrate base 35mm film at such a slow speed carried a considerable risk of fire. Oftentimes projectionists would receive instructions from the distributors as to how fast particular reels or scenes should be projected on the musical director's cue sheet. Theaters also sometimes varied their projection speeds depending on the time of day or popularity of a film in order to maximize profit. [http://www.cinemaweb.com/silentfilm/bookshelf/18_car_1.htm]

Lost films

Thousands of silent films were made during the years before the introduction of sound but some historians estimate between 80 and 90 percent of them have been lost forever. Movies of the first half of the 20th century were filmed on an unstable, highly flammable nitrate film stock which required careful preservation to keep it from decomposing over time. Most of these films were considered to have no commercial value after they were shown in theaters and were carelessly preserved if at all. Over the decades their prints crumbled into dust (or goo). Many were recycled and a sizable number were destroyed in both studio fires and space-saving projects. As a result, silent film preservation has been a high priority among movie historians.

Later homages

Several filmmakers have paid homage to the comedies of the silent era, including Jacques Tati with his Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953), Mel Brooks with Silent Movie (1976) and indie filmmaker [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1076079/ Eric B. Borgman] with his film [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427142/combined The Deserter] (2004). Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien's acclaimed drama Three Times (2005) is during its middle third a silent, complete with intertitles. The style is also echoed in the 1999 German film Tuvalu.

Some notable silent films

With director and year of release:

Before 1915


- 'La Fée au Choux', Alice Guy Blaché, 1896
- Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon), George Méliès, 1902
- The Great Train Robbery, Edwin S. Porter, 1903
- La Presa di Roma, Filoteo Alberini, 1905
- The Night Before Christmas, 1905
- Ben-Hur, Sidney Olcott, 1907
- From the Manger To the Cross, Sidney Olcott, 1912
- Oliver Twist, 1912 (First American feature film made)
- Richard III, 1912 (Second American feature film made and oldest surviving complete feature film)
- A Message from Mars, Sir Charles Hawtrey, 1913
- Cabiria, Giovanne Pastrone, 1914
- The Perils of Pauline, Louis J. Gasnier & Donald MacKenzie 1914

1915 - 1919


- Honeymoon for Three, Sir Charles Hawtrey, 1915
- The Birth of a Nation, D. W. Griffith, 1915
- The Awakening, William Desmond Taylor, 1915
- Les Vampires, Louis Feuillade, 1915-16
- Intolerance, D.W. Griffith, 1916
- Cleopatra, J. Gordon Edwards, 1917
- Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Marshall Neilan, 1917
- Father Sergius, Yakov Protazanov, 1918
- Masks and Faces, with cameo from Sir Charles Hawtrey, George Bernard Shaw and J. M. Barrie, 1918
- Broken Blossoms, D. W. Griffith, 1918
- Anne of Green Gables, William Desmond Taylor, 1919
- Within Our Gates, Oscar Micheaux, 1919

1920 - 1925

Oscar Micheaux
- Way Down East, D. W. Griffith, 1920
- The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Robert Wiene, 1920
- Huckleberry Finn, William Desmond Taylor, 1920
- The Mark of Zorro, Fred Niblo, 1920
- Destiny, Fritz Lang, 1921
- The Kid, Charlie Chaplin, 1921
- Orphans of the Storm, D. W. Griffith, 1921
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Rex Ingram, 1921
- The Sheik, George Melford, 1921
- Blood and Sand, Fred Niblo, 1922
- Nosferatu, F.W. Murnau, 1922
- The Golem, Paul Wegener, 1922
- Beyond the Rocks, Sam Wood, 1922
- Häxan, Benjamin Christensen, 1922
- Nanook of the North, Robert Flaherty, 1922
- The Ten Commandments, Cecil B. deMille, 1923
- The Thief of Bagdad, Douglas Fairbanks, 1923
- Aelita, Yakov Protazanov, 1924
- Sherlock, Jr., Buster Keaton, 1924
- Strike, Sergei Eisenstein, 1924
- The Iron Horse, John Ford, 1924
- Battleship Potemkin, Sergei Eisenstein, 1925
- Ben-Hur, Charles Brabin, J.J. Cohn, and Fred Niblo, 1925
- The Gold Rush, Charlie Chaplin, 1925
- Safety Last, Harold Lloyd, 1925
- Greed, Erich von Stroheim, 1925
- The Phantom of the Opera, Lon Chaney, Sr., 1925
- The Big Parade, King Vidor, 1925
- The Last Laugh, F.W. Murnau, 1925
- The Joyless Street, G.W. Pabst , 1925
- The Street of Forgotten Men, Herbert Brenon , 1925

1926 - 1930

Herbert Brenon .]]
- Our Hospitality, Buster Keaton, 1926
- The Lodger, Alfred Hitchcock, 1926
- Mother, Vsevolod Pudovkin, 1926
- The Adventures of Prince Achmed, Karl Koch, Lotte Reiniger, 1926
- The Man in the Iron Mask
- Faust, F.W. Murnau, 1926
- Brown of Harvard (Jack Conway), 1926
- The Son of the Sheik, George Fitzmaurice, 1926
- Napoléon, Abel Gance, 1927
- The General, Buster Keaton, 1927
- Sunrise, F.W. Murnau, 1927
- Metropolis, Fritz Lang, 1927
- October: Ten Days That Shook The World, Sergei Eisenstein, 1927
- Berlin, Die Symphonie Einer Grosstaldt, Walther Ruttman, 1927
- Wings, William Wellman, 1927
- The Cat And The Canary, Paul Leni, 1927
- Flesh and the Devil, Clarence Brown, 1927
- The Private Life of Helen of Troy, Alexander Korda, 1927
- Seventh Heaven, Frank Borzage, 1927
- Underworld, Josef von Sternberg, 1927
- The Unknown, Tod Browning, 1927
- Steamboat Bill, Jr, Buster Keaton, 1928
- The Last Command, Josef von Sternberg, 1928
- L'Argent, Marcel L'Herbier, 1928
- The Passion of Joan of Arc, Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928
- The Crowd, King Vidor, 1928
- The Wind, Victor Sjöström, 1928
- Beggars of Life, William Wellman, 1928
- Un Chien Andalou, Luis Buñuel, 1928
- The Docks of New York, Josef von Sternberg, 1929
- Diary of a Lost Girl, GW Pabst, 1929
- Pandora's Box, GW Pabst, 1929
- Man With a Movie Camera, Dziga Vertov, 1929
- Earth, Aleksandr Dovzhenko, 1930

1931 and later


- City Lights, Charlie Chaplin, 1931
- Tabu, F. W. Murnau, Robert Flaherty, 1931
- I Was Born, But..., Ozu Yasujiro, 1932
- Passing Fancy, Ozu Yasujiro, 1933
- A Story of Floating Weeds, Ozu Yasujiro, 1934
- The Goddess, Wu Yonggang, 1934
- Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin, 1936
- Silent Movie, Mel Brooks, 1976
- The Call of Cthulhu, 2005

Top grossing silent films

#The Birth of a Nation (1915) - $10,000,000 #The Big Parade (1925) - $6,400,000 #Ben-Hur (1925) - $5,500,000 #Way Down East (1920) - $5,000,000 #The Gold Rush (1925) - $4,250,000 #The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (film) (1921) - $4,000,000 #The Circus (1928) - $3,800,000 #The Covered Wagon (1923) - $3,800,000 #The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) - $3,500,000 #The Ten Commandments (1923) - $3,400,000 #Orphans of the Storm (1921) - $3,000,000 #For Heaven's Sake (1926) - $2,600,000 #Seventh Heaven (1927) - $2,500,000 #What Price Glory (1926) - $2,400,000 #Abie's Irish Rose (1928) - $1,500,000

See also


- [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Silent_films Wikipedia Category: Silent films]
- [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Silent_film_actors Wikipedia Category: Silent film actors]
- Laurel and Hardy films
- Sound stage

References


- Brownlow, Kevin. Behind the Mask of Innocence. New York: Knopf, 1990. ISBN 0-394-57747-7
- Bean, Jennifer M., and Diane Negra, eds. A Feminist Reader in Early Cinema (Camera Obscura Book). Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002. ISBN 0822329999
- Cook, David A. A History of Narrative Film, 2nd edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 1990. ISBN 0-393-95553-2
- Eyman, Scott. The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution, 1926-1930. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. ISBN 0-684-81162-6
- Parkinson, David. History of Film. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1995. ISBN 0-500-20277-X
- Standish, Isolde. A New History of Japanese Cinema: A Century of Narrative Film. New York: Continuum, 2005. ISBN 0-8264-1709-4

External links


- [http://www.filmbug.com/dictionary/silent-film.php Silent Film @ Filmbug]
- [http://www.silent-dvd.net Silent Movies on DVD]
- [http://www.stummfilm.info/festival/index_en.html Overview on silent movie festivals]
- Download Luis Bunuel [http://www.worldcinemaonline.com/selection.php?act=show&categoryid=24 - Un Chien Andalou - Avant Garde Compilation -World Cinema Online]
- [http://www.film-ist-kultur.de/sommerkino/ The biggest silent film festival in Germany: 'Internationale Stummfilmtage']
- [http://www.silentera.com/lost/index.html A list of lost films from the Silent Era] Category:Film genres ja:サイレント映画 nb:Stumfilm

Acres

:This article is about the unit of measure known as the acre. For other definitions, see Acre (disambiguation). An acre is an English unit of area. It is most frequently used to describe areas of land.

UK definition

The UK has a definition of the acre in [http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1995/Uksi_19951804_en_2.htm The Units of Measurement Regulations 1995] as 4,046.856422 4 m². This is equivalent to 43,560 square feet using the definition of foot in the same source.

US definition

The US has a definition of the acre in [http://ts.nist.gov/ts/htdocs/230/235/appxc/appxc.htm NIST Handbook 44] as 43,560 square feet. However, the US has two definitions of foot (international foot and survey foot) and thus two definitions of acre:
- The international acre is 4,046.856422 4 m². This is based on international foot of 0.3048 m.
- The US survey acre is 4,046.87261 m². This is based on the US survey foot of 1200/3937 m.

Related linear measurements

Two obsolete, but related, measurements are the acre's length and the acre's breadth.
- 1 acre's length = 1 furlong, 40 poles, or 220 yards
- 1 acre's breadth = 1 chain, 4 poles, or 22 yards

Conversion

An international acre is equivalent to exactly:
- 4 046.856 422 4 m² (SI unit)
- 40.468 564 224 a,
- 0.404 685 642 24 ha,
- 43 560 square feet,
- 4840 square yards,
- 160 square rods,
- 4 rood,
- 1/640 square mile,
- a 10:1 rectangle of 1 furlong by 1 chain.
- 10 square chains. An acre is equivalent to approximately:
- a square of side 208.71 feet (63.61 metres). One square mile is 640 acres. A square parcel of land ¼ mile wide is 40 acres. A square parcel of land ½ mile on a side is 160 acres, the usual land tract under the Homestead Act in the United States. This results in common field lengths of ½ mile, with every rod in width equal to one acre. An American Football field covers approximately 1.32 acres.

History

The acre was selected as approximately the amount of land tillable by one man behind an ox in one day. This explains its rectangular definition one-chain by one-furlong parcel of land; a long narrow strip of land is more efficient to plough than a square plot, since the plough does not have to be turned so often. Statutory values were enacted in England by acts of
- Edward I,
- Edward III,
- Henry VIII,
- George IV and
- Victoria - the British "Weights and Measures Act" of 1878 defined it as containing 4840 square yards.

See also


- Conversion of units
- Acre-foot
- Acre (Scots)

External links


- [http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1995/Uksi_19951804_en_2.htm The Units of Measurement Regulations 1995]
- [http://ts.nist.gov/ts/htdocs/230/235/appxc/appxc.htm NIST Handbook 44] Category:Units of area Category:Imperial units Category:Customary units in the United States Category:Real estate ja:エーカー

Marlin Fitzwater

Max Marlin Fitzwater (born November 24, 1942) was White House Press Secretary for six years under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, making him one of the longest-serving press secretaries in history.

Early life

Fitzwater was born on a farm in Salina, Kansas He graduated from Kansas State University in 1965 with a degree in journalism. While in school, he worked at newspapers in various Kansas communities before moving to Washington, DC upon graduation. He also served in the United States Air Force. Fitzwater is also a member of Delta Tau Delta Fraternity.

Career in the government

In Washington, Fitzwater served at various Federal agencies, including the Appalachian Regional Commission (1965–1967), the U.S. Department of Transportation (1970–1972) and the Environmental Protection Agency (1972–1981). He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public affairs at the Department of the Treasury from 1981 to 1982. Fitzwater headed to the White House in 1983, serving as Special Assistant to the President Reagan and Deputy Press Secretary for Domestic Affairs. He served as Vice President Bush's press secretary from 1985 to 1987.

Assistant to the President for Press Relations under Reagan

(When James Brady was shot in the assassination attempt on President Reagan in 1981, he was unable to return to work, though he retained the title of Press Secretary for the duration of Reagan's term. Others served under the title of "Assistant to the President for Press Relations") In January 1987, Reagan made Fitzwater the acting press secretary under the title of "Assistant to the President for Press Relations".[http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1987/011287b.htm] He served in this capacity until Reagan left office in 1989. When Mikhail Gorbachev first visited the United States in Reagan's first term, Fitzwater gave joint press briefings with his Soviet counterpart. Over 7000 journalists attended them.

Press Secretary under Bush

When George Bush took over as president in 1989, Fitzwater was again tapped to be the presidential spokesman, this time with the title of Press Secretary. He famously announced in 1991 that "The liberation of Kuwait has begun," and was the voice of NATO and the White House during the Persian Gulf War. Over the years, he became adept at getting the White House out of sticky situations, such as in 1992 when he received the message "President barfed" on his beeper during a trip to Japan.[http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:www.cjonline.com/stories/021404/kan_fitzwater.shtml]

Later years

Fitzwater received the Presidential Citizens Medal in 1992. He has worked on the television show The West Wing as a consultant. In 2002, Franklin Pierce College in Rindge, New Hampshire completed the Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communication in his honor.

Personal life

Fitzwater is married and has two children, Bradley and Courtney. He resides in Deale, Maryland, a village on the Chesapeake Bay.

Works


- Fitzwater, Marlin. Call The Briefing. Crown Publishing Group, 1995. (ISBN 0738834572)
- Fitzwater, Marling. Esther's Pillow. PublicAffairs, 2001. (ISBN 1586480359)

External links


- [http://www.georgebushfoundation.org/bush/html/EndowedLectures/BioMarlinFitzwtrWHSNew.htm Biography from the George Bush Foundation]
- [http://www.mediarelations.ksu.edu/WEB/News/NewsReleases/fitzwatertext.html Lecture at Kansas State University]
- [http://www.fpc.edu/pages/institutes/fitz/ Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communication at Franklin Pierce College] Fitzwater, Marlin Fitzwater, Marlin Fitzwater, Marlin

White House Press Secretary

The White House Press Secretary is a senior White House official with a rank one step below Cabinet level. The Press Secretary is the primary spokesperson for the Administration.

Responsibilities

Responsibilities center on collecting information about what is happening inside the Administration and around the world, and getting that information to the media in a timely and accurate fashion. The information includes things like a summary of the President's schedule for the day, who the President has seen, called or had interactions with, and the official position of the Administration on the news of the day. The Press Secretary traditionally also fields questions from the press corps in briefings and press conferences, which are generally televised, and "press gaggles", which are on-the-record briefings without video recording, though transcripts are usually made available.

External links and references


- [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/briefings/ Bush administration Press Briefings] (by date)
- [http://www.clintonpresidentialcenter.org/ Clinton administration Press Briefings] (use search box in lower left corner)
- [http://www.whitehouse2001.org/files/press/Press-OD.PDF 2001 Presidential Transition report on the duties of the Press Secretary]
- Google's [http://news.google.com/news?q=%22White+House+Press+Secretary%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&sa=N&tab=nn White House Press Secretary news]
- [http://images.google.com/images?q=%22White+House+Press+Secretary%22&svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&start=0&sa=N Images] via Google Category:Executive Office of the U.S. President

George H. W. Bush

George Herbert Walker Bush (born June 12, 1924) was the 41st President of the United States (1989–1993). Previously, he had served as U.S. congressman from Texas (1967–1971), ambassador to the United Nations (1971–1973), Republican National Committee chairman (1973–1974), Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (1976–1977), and the 43rd Vice President of the United States under President Ronald Reagan (1981–1989). A decorated naval aviator, he is the last World War II veteran to have served as President. Bush is the father of the 43rd and current president, George Walker Bush.

Youth, education

George Herbert Walker Bush was born to Prescott Bush and Dorothy Walker. His father served as a U.S. Senator from Connecticut and was a partner in the prominent investment banking firm Brown Brothers Harriman. George Bush began his formal education at the Greenwich Country Day School in Greenwich, Connecticut. Bush attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts from 1936 to 1942, where he demonstrated early leadership, captaining the baseball team, and was a member of an exclusive fraternity called the A.U.V, or "Auctoritas, Unitas, Veritas" – Latin for "Authority, Unity, Truth". His roommate at the boarding school was a young man named Edward G. Hooker. It was at Phillips Academy that Bush learned of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

World War II: decorated naval aviator

1941 After graduating from Phillips Academy in June, 1942, he joined the U.S. Navy on his 18th birthday to become an aviator. After completing the 10-month course, he was commissioned as an ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve on June 9 1943, several days before his 19th birthday, which made him the youngest naval aviator to that date. After finishing flight training he was assigned to Torpedo Squadron (VT-51) as photographic officer in September 1943. As part of Air Group 51, his squadron was based on U.S.S. San Jacinto in the spring of 1944. San Jacinto was part of Task Force 58 that participated in operations against Marcus and Wake Islands in May, and then in the Marianas during June. On June 19 the task force triumphed in one of the largest air battles of the war. On his return from the mission Bush's aircraft made a forced water landing. A submarine rescued the young pilot, although the plane was lost as well as the life of his navigator. On July 25 Bush and another pilot received credit for sinking a small cargo ship off Palau. After Bush's promotion to Lieutenant Junior Grade on August 1, San Jacinto commenced operations against the Japanese in the Bonin Islands. On September 2, 1944, Bush piloted one of four aircraft from VT-51 that attacked the Japanese installations on Chichi Jima. For this mission his crew included Radioman Second Class John Delaney and Lieutenant Junior Grade William White, who substituted for Bush's regular gunner. During their attack four TBM Avengers from VT-51 encountered intense antiaircraft fire. While starting the attack, Bush's aircraft was hit and his engine caught on fire. He completed his attack and released the bombs over his target, scoring several damaging hits. With his engine on fire, Bush flew several miles from the island, where he and one other crew member on the TBM Avenger bailed out of the aircraft. However, the other man's parachute did not open, and he fell to his death. It was never determined which man bailed out with Bush. Both Delaney and White were killed in action. While Bush waited four hours in his inflated raft, several fighters circled protectively overhead until he was rescued by the lifeguard submarine U.S.S. Finback. For this action Bush received the Distinguished Flying Cross. During the month he remained on Finback Bush participated in the rescue of other pilots. Bush subsequently returned to San Jacinto in November 1944 and participated in operations in the Philippines. When San Jacinto returned to Guam, the squadron, which had suffered 50 percent casualties of its pilots, was replaced and sent to the United States. Through 1944 he had flown 58 combat missions for which he received the Distinguished Flying Cross, three Air Medals, and the Presidential Unit Citation awarded aboard the San Jacinto. Because of his valuable combat experience, Bush was reassigned to Norfolk Navy Base and put in a training wing for new torpedo pilots. He was later assigned as a naval aviator in a new torpedo squadron, VT-153. With the surrender of Japan, he was honorably discharged in September 1945 and then entered Yale University. allon, who became a close family friend. Dresser Industries, decades later, merged with Halliburton, whose former CEOs include Dick Cheney, George H. W. Bush's Secretary of Defense and, as of 2005, Vice President of the United States.

Rise in politics

as of 2005 In 1964, Bush ventured into conventional politics by running against Texas' Democratic Senator Ralph Yarborough, making an issue of Yarborough's support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. At the time many Southern politicians (including the Republican Sen. John Tower of Texas) opposed the legislation. Bush called Yarborough an "extremist" and a "left wing demagogue" while Yarborough said Bush was a "carpetbagger" trying to buy a Senate seat "just as they would buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange". Bush lost in the 1964 Democratic landslide. He was later elected in 1966 and 1968 to the House of Representatives from the 7th District of Texas. He later lost his second attempt at a Senate seat in 1970 to Democrat Lloyd Bentsen who defeated the incumbent Yarborough in the Democratic primary. Bentsen later became the Democratic Party nominee for Vice President in the 1988 presidential election, and in 1993, Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton Administration. Throughout the 1970s, under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, Bush briefly served in a number of positions, including Chairman of the Republican National Committee, United States Ambassador to the United Nations (1971-1973), US Envoy to Communist China, Director of Central Intelligence, and board member of the Committee on the Present Danger. Bush has since commented that he did not particularly enjoy this string of jobs, saying he never wanted to be a "career bureaucrat." However, had Bush not received this succession of appointments after his Senate defeat in 1970, it is unlikely he would have risen to a level of national prominence in politics.

Vice President

In 1980, Bush ran for President, losing the Republican Party nomination to Ronald Reagan, the former Governor of California. After some preliminary discussion of choosing former President Gerald Ford as his running mate, Reagan selected Bush as his Vice President, placing him on the winning Republican Presidential ticket of 1980. Bush had declared he would never be Reagan's VP. Bush was many things Reagan had not been - a life-long Republican, a combat veteran, and an internationalist with UN, CIA, and China experience. Bush was also more moderate in his economic positions and political philosophy than Reagan. In the nomination fight against Reagan, Bush had referred to Reagan's supply side-influenced plans for massive tax cuts as "voodoo economics." The Reagan/Bush ticket won again in 1984, against the Democrats' Walter Mondale/Geraldine Ferraro ticket. During his second term as Vice President, Bush had the distinction of becoming the first Vice President to become Acting President when, on July 13, 1985, President Reagan underwent surgery to remove polyps from his colon. Bush served as Acting President for approximately eight hours, most of which he passed playing tennis.

Presidential Campaign

Acting President. January 20, 1989.]] In 1988, after 8 years as Vice President, Bush ran for President. Though considered the early frontrunner for the nomination, Bush came in third in Iowa, beaten by winner U.S. Senator Bob Dole and runner-up televangelist Pat Robertson. However, Bush went on to win New Hampshire and the nomination. Leading up to the 1988 Republican National Convention, there was much speculation as to Bush's choice of running mate. In a move anticipated by few and later criticized by many, Bush chose little-known U.S. Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana. On the eve of the convention, Bush trailed Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis, then Massachusetts governor, by double digits in most polls. Bush, often criticized for his lack of eloquence compared to Reagan, surprised many by giving possibly the best speech of his public career, widely known as the "Thousand points of light" speech[http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/georgehbush1988rnc.htm] for his use of that phrase to describe his vision of American community. Bush's acceptance speech and a generally well-managed Convention catapulted him ahead of Dukakis in the polls, and he held the lead for the rest of the race. The campaign was noted as particularly bitter compared to recent ones and became famous for its highly negative advertisements. One advertisement run by the Bush campaign showed Dukakis awkwardly riding in a U.S. Army tank. Another, produced and placed by an independent group supporting Bush, referred to murderer Willie Horton who committed a rape and assault while on a furlough from a life sentence being served in Massachusetts. The Horton case, and Dukakis's unconditional opposition to the reinstatement of capital punishment in the United States, played a role in creating the impression that Dukakis was "soft on crime." These images helped enhance Bush's stature as a possible Commander-in-Chief compared to the Massachusetts governor.

Victory

The Bush-Quayle ticket beat Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen soundly in the Electoral College, by 426 to 111 (Lloyd Bentsen received one vote). Bush performed very strongly among suburban voters, perhaps owing to his campaign themes of law and order, puncutated by his criticisms of the Massaschuetts furlough program. This was a boon in several swing states. In Illinois, Bush won 69% in DuPage County and 63% out of Lake County, suburban areas which adjoin Chicago's Cook County. In Pennsylvania, Bush swept the group of suburban counties that surround Philadelphia, including Bucks, Delaware, Chester and Montgomery. Bush also won most of the counties in Maryland, perhaps fallout from the fact that Willie Horton committed his infamous criminal acts there. New Jersey, known at the time for its many suburban voters and its moderate Republicanism, went easily for Bush. Contrary to the suburbs was the decrease among rural cou