Henry Morton Stanley was born

Portrait of Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904), Explorer (Photo credit: Smithsonian Institution)

Sir Henry Morton Stanley GCB, born John Rowlands was born on January 28, 1841 to Elizabeth Parry as a bastard in Denbigh, Denbighshire. He didn’t know his father. His father passed away weeks after his birth and his mother shunned him, he was sent to live with relatives. At age 5 he was sent to St Asaph Union Workhouse for the Poor. The workhouse was a horrible place for him to live, but he lived there until the age of 15. He was able to get an elementary education and go work as a pupil teacher in a National School.

When he was 18 he decided to go to the United States, and when he did that he changed his name to Henry Hope Stanley after a friendly gentleman he met. He was able to get a job working for him at his shop, and after the man passed away he took over the shop and the accent and denied being a foreigner.

He then became a journalist during the Civil War. He made his first expedition to the Ottoman Empire. The expedition did not go at all as planned, as they were jailed and imprisoned but thanks to restitution they were soon let go.

It was 1869 when James Gordon Bennett, Jr. asked Stanley to go on an expedition in search for David Livingstone, the explorer and missionary in Africa. He travelled near and far across Africa and to Zanzibar over 700 miles. Stanley found Livingstone on November 10, 1871 and uttered those timely words, “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?”

His travels took him to the Congo River for further research. Then he went on further expedition such as the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition.

He wrote about his travels in his book Through the Dark Continent.

He as much proved he could become mould himself to fit where need be. His lived a great expedition growing up, and wanted a better life, although very unconventional, he was sort of able to find an adoptive family since the original Stanley had no children. It was just amazing that he behaved like he belonged. He was always the traveler.

References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morton_Stanley

Cassandra

Related articles

• Elizabeth Blackwell becomes the First Female Doctor
• Alice Paul writer of the Equal Rights Amendment born January 11
• The New York City Sullivan Ordinance was Passed on January 21
• Rosa Ponselle was Born
• Albert Schweitzer was Born
• Elvis Aaron Presley was Born
• Edith Wharton was Born

 

Lewis Carroll was Born

Description: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson better known as Lewis Carroll was born January 27, 1832 to Charles Dodgson and Frances Jane Lutwidge. His father was a country parson and mathematician at Croft-on-Tees in North Yorkshire. Carroll was born in Daresbury in Cheshire near the towns of Warrington and Runcorn. He was the eldest of three brothers. Carroll was influenced by

his father, and very intelligent, following the religious views of the time which were dividing Anglo-Catholicism.

Carroll loved to read and often had reading lists. He read such books as The Pilgrim’s Progress. He and his siblings suffered from a vocal stutter. He was also deaf in one year. At age 17 he had developed a whooping cough that made his chest very weak. Later on it is said he also suffered from migraines and epilepsy. He attended Oxford College in 1850 He was able to obtain first-class honors in Mathematics Moderations and nominated to a Studentship as well as various other awards because he was exceptionally gifted.

While he was at Oxford in 1854 he had started submitted some of his writing to be published. He worked to prefect his writing. He submitted his writing under the name of Charles Lutwidge which his name translated in Latin. In 1856 his first poem was published under the name of Lewis Carroll.

He also met Alice Liddell, Henry Liddell’s daughter and dean of the Christ Church who was the influence for his published in 1865 after numerous rejections, with the help of George MacDonald, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was published under the name of Lewis Carroll.

There is much talk of the relationships that Carroll had with little girls, since he wrote about them in books. In some ways I think he had a hard time connecting with adults as opposed to children or he liked the wonderment of children. He was so intelligent, and so sickly, dealing with his stutter, that he probably met more time with himself that with other adults. Children were then easier to reach out and talk to.

Français : Illustration d’origine (1865), par John Tenniel (28 février 1820 – 25 février 1914), du roman de Lewis Carroll, Alice au pays des merveilles. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In 1876 The Hunting of the Snark, a poem was published.

When Carroll was writing he was doing work in the field of math. He worked in geometry, matrix algebra, mathematical logic and recreational mathematics.

When he wasn’t writing books of fiction he was writing books on math.

In 1889 he published his last novel, Sylvia and Bruno. This book did not do as well as Alice in Wonderland.

Carroll is one of my favorite writers and Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There are one of my favorite books. I love the poems he wrote. I recently found the poem Rhyme? And Reason? And a Tangled Tale and they have such imagination. He is indeed one of my all time favorites.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll

Cassandra

Related articles

• Rosa Ponselle was Born
• Alice Paul writer of the Equal Rights Amendment born January 11
• Edith Wharton was Born
• Elvis Aaron Presley was Born
• General Tom Thumb was Born
• Albert Schweitzer was Born
• The Creator of the Addams Family was Born
• Hello Dolly! opened on Broadway on January 16, 1964

The Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn is Played at the Marriage of Queen Victoria’s Daughter and Friedrich of Prussia

English: Theme of the Wedding March, from Mendelssohn’s incidental music Ein Sommernachtstraum, Op. 61. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On January 25, 1858, The Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn is played at the marriage of Queen Victoria’s daughter, Victoria, and Friedrich of Prussia, and becomes a popular wedding recessional. This is the best known of all the of Mendelssohn’s pieces. Mendelssohn usually played for Queen Victoria and her family when he was visiting Britain.
The works of William Shakespeare was very popular. In 1826, Mendelssohn saw A Midsummer’s Night Dream and was so inspired he wrote an overture for his employer, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia. He was later commissioned to write accompanying music for a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that was to be staged in 1843 in Potsdam for Marius Petipa for a ballet. The earlier music he had written was incorporated into concert music. Petipa had worked with Tchaikovsky on Swan Lake. This was the period of musical Romanticism which was between 1815 and 1910 and this particular piece of music is a monument to the period as well as the genre.
The creation of the recessional that is used today was done by both Franz Liszt and Vladimir Horowitz who both at one time both transcribed the “Wedding March and Dance of the Elves” to be played for piano in to what it is today. Shakespeare’s creativity inspired other artists, and helped bring out their out creativity that changed the world.

Here is the Wedding March by Mendelssohn from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Midsummer_Night%27s_Dream
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedding_March_(Mendelssohn)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Mendelssohn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism_(music)

Cassandra

Related articles

• The Premier of Symphony No. 7 by Ludwig van Beethoven
• Alice Paul writer of the Equal Rights Amendment born January 11
• Albert Schweitzer was Born
• Hello Dolly! opened on Broadway on January 16, 1964
• December 5 is Saint Nicholas Eve
• December 13 is St. Lucy’s Day
• General Tom Thumb was Born
• Elvis Aaron Presley was Born
• The New York City Sullivan Ordinance was Passed on January 21
• The Nutcracker Premiered December 18, 1892 in St. Petersburg

 

Edith Wharton was Born

English: Photograph of writer Edith Wharton, taken by E. F. Cooper, at Newport, Rhode Island. Cabinet photograph. Courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Edith Wharton was born nee Edith Newbold Jones on January 24, 1862 in New York City to George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander. She was related to the Rensselaer family who were thought of to be of high class and prestige. Have you ever heard the saying “Keeping up with the Joneses“? That was based on her family. She met many public figures like Theodore Roosevelt.

She married Edward (Teddy) Robbins Wharton in 1885 and they lived in Philadelphia, at his estate, The Mount. She married into the same social class; Edith loved to be creative and designed the gardens around the estate and well as the interior design of the house. Teddy Wharton was twelve years older then she, and a regular sportsman. In 1897 she co-authored and wrote her first book with Ogden Codman called The Decoration of Houses. In 1905 she wrote The House of Mirth. She had been writing many short stories during this time including ghost stories. Unfortunately in 1908 her husband suffered from depression which was discovered to be incurable. She divorced him in 1913.

In her spare time when she wasn’t working on the house or gardens she was writing. Sometimes she would write short stories, other times, books on design. She wrote about the world and society she knew about. She moved to Paris, France after the divorce.

She assisted in the war effort with the relief effort. She was a supporter of French imperialism. In 1920 she wrote The Age of Innocence which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1921.

In 1923 she received an honorary doctorate degree from Yale University. That was the only time she returned to the states.She returned to France. In 1937 she died of a stroke. She died leaving over 85 stories and many books for us to read. She found the irony in life. 

References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Wharton

Cassandra

Related articles

• Elvis Aaron Presley was Born
• General Tom Thumb was Born
• Albert Schweitzer was Born
• Alice Paul writer of the Equal Rights Amendment born January 11
• The Creator of the Addams Family was Born
• The New York City Sullivan Ordinance was Passed on January 21
• It is Gypsy Rose Lee’s Birthday!
• The Birth of Joan of Arc
• Daniel S. DeCarlo’s Birthday!
• Paul Revere’s Birthday!

 

Elizabeth Blackwell becomes the First Female Doctor

English: portrait of Elizabeth Blackwell (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her M.D. by the Geneva Medical College of Geneva, New York, becoming the United States’ first female doctor on January 23, 1849.
She was born in Bristol, England; her family owned a sugar refinery. She was the youngest of three girls. Her father was a Congregationalist or separatist so they were considered later on to be Puritans. In 1828 they moved to America, and by 1836, they had established the sugar refinery in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her father did not survive the trip, and died three weeks later. The move put them into tremendous debt.
Blackwell and her sisters opened a school called The Cincinnati English and French Academy for Young Ladies. They provided room and board for the girls, and taught them the most important subjects for girls at that time. The tuition became their source of income for their family. The school didn’t last and she ended up private tutoring.
Blackwell became involved with St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in 1838 due to her sister’s influence. In 1839 she met William Henry Channing who was a Unitarian minister and she became interested in her education and other areas of reform. She studied art, wrote short stories, went to lectures, and other intellectual pursuits.
She didn’t decide to study medicine until one of her dear friends was in the hospital. Her friend was uncomfortable with her male doctors and their bedside manner. The disease was very painful and thought to be perhaps uterine cancer. Her friend liked when her friend was in attendance.
Although Blackwell’s interest in intellect and education were powerful, they didn’t help her feel teaching feel very rewarding. By October 1847 she was accepted to Geneva Medical College, now part of Upstate Medical University, in upstate New York, as a medical student. In order to be accepted they put it to a vote to 150 male students. Her education later took her to Europe.
After she graduated she set up practice in New York City. She did have some patients. She published a book called The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls in 1852, and gave lecturers. She set up a small dispensary near Tompkins Square in 1853. Her sister Emily also obtained a medical degree, and she assisted other women pursuing careers in the medical field including Marie Zakrzewska.
When Civil War broke out in the United States she assisted the North and the nurses, and worked alongside Dorothea Dix in training nurses. She was working for social reform. She was friends with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Florence Nightingale. Blackwell stuck to her beliefs, and when she reached out, she found others that would help her in her pursuit to help others.

References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Blackwell

Cassandra

Related articles

• Albert Schweitzer was Born
• Alice Paul writer of the Equal Rights Amendment born January 11
• General Tom Thumb was Born
• Daniel S. DeCarlo’s Birthday!
• Elvis Aaron Presley was Born
• Hello Dolly! opened on Broadway on January 16, 1964
• The Premier of Symphony No. 7 by Ludwig van Beethoven
• December 5 is Saint Nicholas Eve
• December 13 is St. Lucy’s Day

 

Rosa Ponselle was Born

Rosa Ponselle em foto de estúdio de 1918. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“The Queen of Queens in all of singing.”
– Luciano Pavarotti, tenor.

Rosa Ponselle was born on January 22, 1897, in Meriden, Connecticut, to Italian immigrants from Caiazzo, near Caserta. She was the youngest of three children. They lived at the corner of Lewis Avenue and Bartlett Street, then on Foster Street, and when she was three they moved to Springdale Avenue. She had a naturally gifted mature voice, and took piano lesion with the local music teacher, Anna Ryan, who was also the organist of a nearby Catholic church. She decided very soon on she wanted to become a cabaret singer. She billed herself well and was soon performing ballads all around the area and performing as a silent-movie accompanist.

In 1912 she did vaudeville, performing in The Girl from Brighton, a 1912 Broadway musical. She became so well known she was soon performing a long-term engagement at the San Carlino theater in New Haven near Yale University. She and her sister Carmela also performed on the vaudeville circuit as the Ponselle Sisters until 1918 when the split the act and the great tenor Enrico Caruso persuaded Rosa to audition for the Metropolitan Opera.

On November 15, 1918, Rosa Ponselle debuted at the Met as Leonora in Verdi’s La forza del destino, opposite Caruso. She received rave reviews from New York Times critic James Huneker. She went on to perform numerous operas.
This was the part she was born to play; the voice of an opera singer. All she knew was that she wanted to sing on stage. All she needed to do was to find where she fit.
Here is Rosa Ponselle performing “Suicidio!” which shows her range, timbre, pianissimo

References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Ponselle

Cassandra

Related articles

• The Creator of the Addams Family was Born
• It is Gypsy Rose Lee’s Birthday!
• Elvis Aaron Presley was Born
• General Tom Thumb was Born
• The Nutcracker Premiered December 18, 1892 in St. Petersburg
• The Premier of Symphony No. 7 by Ludwig van Beethoven
• Hello Dolly! opened on Broadway on January 16, 1964
• December 13 is St. Lucy’s Day
• December 5 is Saint Nicholas Eve
• The Tradition of the Annual Ball Drop in Times Square

 

The New York City Sullivan Ordinance was Passed on January 21

On January 21, 1908, the Sullivan Ordinance was passed in New York City by the board of aldermen making it ‘against the law for a hotel or restaurant proprietor, or anyone else managing or owning a “public place” to allow women to smoke in public’ as expressed in the title of a New York Times article from 1908.
Eleven women were present at this meeting, and fifteen men were present, including Katie Mulcahey.
A forward thinking Dr. Charles J. Pease wanted it to be a crime for “any person or persons” to smoke in a public place where women were present who could be forced to inhale the fumes.1 One Alderman opposed it claiming it wouldn’t be legal. They couldn’t prevent the men from smoking if that was what they choose to do. That was their right.
John Henry Smith, a member of the public said they should be paying more attention to the poor rather than wasting time discussing smoking. If they were to do anything why didn’t they stop boys smoking who were under the age of 21?
Alderman Doull claimed that was unconstitutional.
The ordinance passed.
The reporter spoke to the women who attended the meeting to see what they thought about the Ordinance, and they felt the board should not have been passing anti-smoke ordinances.
The board really didn’t think ahead as to whether or not women would break the law. The women were supposed to behave as they were told and that they wouldn’t argue about and they would just obey the law. The worst that would happen is that her husband or father would punish her.
Katie Mulcahey who attended the meeting was later cited for breaking the Ordinance and fined $5. She refused to pay and was arrested. The ordinance never mentioned any fines so she was released the next day. The ordinance also didn’t say anything about women not being able to smoke in public places.
This was definitely an Ordinance written with a play on the word ‘public’. Since anyone managing or owning a place is really privately owned, but opened to the public.
In this case language is everything.
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sullivan_Ordinance

1This is word for word from the New York Times article above published in 1908

Cassandra

Related articles

• Hello Dolly! opened on Broadway on January 16, 1964
• The Tradition of the Annual Ball Drop in Times Square
• Alice Paul writer of the Equal Rights Amendment born January 11
• General Tom Thumb was Born
• Hattie Caraway became the First Woman Senator on January 12, 1932
• It’s a Wonderful Life Premiered at the Globe Theater in New York
• The Creator of the Addams Family was Born
• Elvis Aaron Presley was Born

 

Hello Dolly! opened on Broadway on January 16, 1964

Hello, Dolly! (musical) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hello Dolly! Starring Carol Channing as Dolly Levi, opened on Broadway on January 16, 1964 at the St. James Theatre located at 246 W. 44th St. The Hello, Dolly! Musical, lyrics, and music are by Jerry Herman. The musical was based on book by Michael Stewart, which was based on Thornton Wilder‘s The Matchmaker in 1955. This show was produced by David Merrick. The show closed on December 27, 1970, after 2,844 performances.

The story is about a widow, Dolly Gallagher Levi who is looking to marry again. She sets her sights on Horace Vandergelder, a half-a-millionaire interested in making money and marrying an Irene Malloy. Dolly meddles in Horace’s daughter’s life, Ermengarde as well as his employees in order to help each of them get a little of what they want. They all have obstacles to overcome.

The original cast
Carol Channing -Mrs. Dolly Gallagher Levi
Eileen Brennan -Irene Molloy
David Burns- Horace Vandergelder
Jerry Dodge -Barnaby Tucker
Alice Playten -Ermengarde
Charles Nelson- Reilly Cornelius Hackl
Ken Ayers- Court Clerk

The show was Directed and Choreographed by Gower Champion

They received countless awards in 1964 the show including a Tony Award and a New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Show. Jerry Herman received a Tony Award for Best Original Score, and David Merrick received an award for Best Musical Direction.

References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._James_Theatre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello,_Dolly!_(musical)
http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=2810

Cassandra

Related articles

• December 5 is Saint Nicholas Eve
• The Premier of Symphony No. 7 by Ludwig van Beethoven
• The Tradition of the Annual Ball Drop in Times Square
• Paul Revere’s Birthday!
• December 13 is St. Lucy’s Day
• Silent Night was First Performed on Christmas Eve in 1818
• A Visit from Saint Nicholas was First Published on December 23
• Merry Christmas!
• A Streetcar Named Desire

Albert Schweitzer was Born

List of Nobel Peace Prize laureates (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Albert Schweitzer was born January 14, 1875, in the province of Alsace-Lorraine. In 1952, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his philosophy for his “Reverence for Life“. Growing up he had an interest in music and he became an acclaimed organist, then his interest grew to theology and he became a church pastor, and a university professor with a doctorate in philosophy. Albert Schweitzer once said, “Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.” Schweitzer believed that all life mattered, whether it was an animal or it was plant life, it had its place. He worked in hospitals in Africa and he saw how at times one person was scarified for another life. He was friends with Albert Einstein. When the Hydrogen bomb went off in Japan and there was H-bomb, testing Schweitzer didn’t like what was happening so he spoke up to the CIA. They were not happy at first with the alert and they tried to stop him. Schweitzer studied his information, President Eisenhower finally listened, and the testing was stopped. I think at times he saw an attitude that man had toward each other that was cold, that showed a lack of humanity. What was so sad was that we are all that we have on this earth besides the plant and animal life. Sometimes man is bent on destruction.When we set at work to destroy one person, we are often destroying ourselves.

Here is one of Schweitzer’s writings entitled Teaching Reverence for Life.

 

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Schweitzer http://www.albertschweitzer.info/ http://www.salsa.net/peace/conv/8weekconv1-6.html

Cassandra

 

Related articles

• The Creator of the Addams Family was Born
• The Birth of Joan of Arc
• General Tom Thumb was Born
• Paul Revere’s Birthday!
• It’s a Wonderful Life Premiered at the Globe Theater in New York
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was Published on December 10, 1884
• A Christmas Carol was First Published on December 17, 1843
• December 13 is St. Lucy’s Day
• The Premier of Symphony No. 7 by Ludwig van Beethoven

Alice Paul writer of the Equal Rights Amendment born January 11

English: Alice Paul, full-length portrait, standing, facing left, raising glass with right hand. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Alice Stokes Paul was born January 11, 1885 and she an American suffragist, women’s rights activist, and the original author of the equal rights (nineteenth) amendment that is part of the United States Constitution. She was very educated with an undergraduate from Swarthmore College, a M.A. and a P.H. d. from the University of Pennsylvania and a Law degree from the Washington College of Law at American University.

Paul became interested in the suffragists while in Britain after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania from Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU)..She was arrested several times. When she came back to the states she joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) in Washington DC. They were fighting for a woman’s right to vote! Paul had learned about all kinds of campaigns. She planned parades, and hunger strikes and everything that would make people aware of their cause. Flags were made and put up. This was what Paul had dedicated her life to.

In 1923 she penned what was to become the nineteenth amendment. It did not become a amendment until 1972. That is an awfully long time to wait for amendment to pass.

This video explains more

Everyone has rights, men and women, black or white, or Asian, or what ever race you are, fat or thin. Everyone has equal rights. Sometimes I think as a people we get confused as to what rights each one of us has. In some ways its just like all of us having an equal vote, which was what Alice Paul was fighting for. Her battle at the time may have been for women, really her voice was speaking louder, and bigger perhaps for something or why would the equal rights amendment have ended up in the Constitution.

References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Paul

Cassandra

 

Related articles

• Paul Revere’s Birthday!
• Merry Christmas!
• Daniel S. DeCarlo’s Birthday!
• December 5 is Saint Nicholas Eve
• Silent Night was First Performed on Christmas Eve in 1818
• The Tradition of the Annual Ball Drop in Times Square
• A Streetcar Named Desire
• The Premier of Symphony No. 7 by Ludwig van Beethoven
• Top 5 Videos of People Standing Up for Friends
• December 13 is St. Lucy’s Day